The Hollow Men

:::this is the way the world ends:::

Category: Art (Page 4 of 7)

Frightening Project

October 31, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Ned, thanks for the quick examples of your take on the frightening theme.  About two weeks ago I started digging through my art from college because I had a hankering to start in on my work again.  I hadn’t looked at my work since college in many cases, and was surprised by what I thought was crap then didn’t seem so crappy.  I worked on "restoring" a couple of drawings that had gotten smeared from my few moves since an undergrad and fixing some parts that I wanted to alter.  A couple of drawings I thought would be fine contributions to Project Frightening.

I am hopefully going to post a couple of creepy things that aren’t mine and one that is mine in the comments later today.  Click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged view.

Frightening-Art-Death

Study of Bernini’s Death on the Tomb of Pope Urban VIII

Frightening-Art-Box-Elder

Box Elder, Part of the "My Icons" Series

I had to take photos of these both and adjust them in Photoshop, so they look much different in real life.  The Box Elder piece is at least five feet in height, so I had to take two shots and seam them together.  The Death study is on white paper, but I created the effect you see in Photoshop and thought it created a nice mood for this project.  Hope you like my additions!

Frightening II: The Bear (Tentatively Titled)

October 7, 2008 / / 3 Comments

Here’s my newest painting. You can also see it and a close-up on my website. The Bear refers to the market and who actually pays for our financial miscalculations – a weight no one can really carry. The text is Wordsworth’s "Lines in Early Spring." If you want to know how Toby influenced this painting, I can tell you.

 The Bear 001

Frightening Entry: I

October 3, 2008 / / 1 Comment

So I was flipping through some files on my computer at work before I take off for MI, and I passed this sketch from an old sketchbook that I scanned into Photoshop. I have a bunch of these that I intended as chapter headings for a story I wrote. Here’s the first one done in pencil w/ Photoshop duotone. I think it is in the spirit of Tob’s pumpkin.

Duotone Face 02

Frightening

October 2, 2008 / / 4 Comments

All-Hallows It’s October.  A few thoughts have seized my mind about posting some sort of collaborative challenge for the group.  I don’t mean to add to anyone’s burden but I thought it might be fun to participate in a sort of group exercise.  The poetry writing turned out really well during Beckett’s Baby Shower, and while I don’t imagine it taking the same shape as it did this summer, I thought it would be fun to engage the creativity of the group. 

My challenge: create something scary or frightening.

The events that precipitated this were:

1) One of my favorite novels had it’s genesis in the "ghost story" challenge (Frankenstein).

2) I read "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it frightened me more effectively in short story than many things I see or read today.  It’s amazing to me the atmosphere Hawthorne (and Washington Irving) both were able to create in the span of their short stories.

3) I had a very vivid dream last night that Steph woke me up in the middle of.  Curiously, after being awake about fifteen minutes, I resolved the dream by coming up with an ending.  It was really hard to shake it before that.

Now, this only has to be as complicated as anyone wants it to be.  And each person can create as much as we’d like.  For instance, I could (and plan on) describing this dream I had last night.  I also had a story idea that I could flesh out for everyone, or just give plot points to.  I could haiku, write about the scariest moment in my life, take a photo, draw something, link to something scary.  It can be supernatural (ghost, demons, etc.), unnatural (politics, the economy 🙂 ), or even natural.

What say you all?  Is this a good idea or bad one?

Le Scaphandre et le papillon

September 16, 2008 / / 5 Comments

diving-bell-and-the-butterfly-le-scaphandre-et-le-papillon-1[1] 

Ned, thanks for telling me about your thoughts on Persepolis and Sweetland.  I had heard about Persepolis (and have been meaning to check out the graphic novel it’s based on), but hadn’t heard anything about Sweetland.  It’s amazing to me the sheer amount of great movies that fly under the radar nowadays.  Quantity of Hollywood drowns the quality?

Speaking of quality, Steph and I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly a week ago.  In Steph’s words, we “couldn’t look away” from Julian Schnabel’s direction, along with Janusz Kaminski’s gorgeous cinematography.  A gorgeous movie that is wonderfully sad, effecting, and surprisingly human…surprising in the fact that I’ve gotten used to the lack of human-“ness” in FX-laden movies. It takes the all of the glory and the shame in human existence and creates a portrait that lacks the usual Hollywood gloss, but has more character packed into it than all the summer blockbuster movies combined.

Maybe my surprise has to do with my tendency towards escapism in my movie choice.   It’s a little embarrassing to admit … but I feel as if I’ve gone soft and taken an easy route post-college.  I’ve only recently started to feel as if I need some more meat in my diet of cultural intake.  I just don’t find myself thinking critically as much anymore.  I think once I finished college, I was weary of the over-analytical stance I took towards most art and literature and abandoned it for the most part.  I think I’m ready for a homecoming.

One of the most amazing components about this film, (Steph and I spoke about this afterwards, in length) it allows the viewer to assume Jean-Dominique Bauby’s persepctive in the first third of the movie.  It’s almost as if we were sharing the same Diving Bell with Bauby, and later too, the Butterfly.  I think we’re still carrying a bit of the butterfly with us. 

Has anyone else seen the film?  I’d be curious as to thoughts and reactions from the rest of our group….

A Few Good Hours

August 26, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Over the last few weeks, I viewed the films Persepolis and Sweetland. I would highly recommend them both. They are very different films but both excellently conceived and executed lower budget projects. Both films are also slightly and refreshingly understated by today’s standards. I also just finished Rebecca Solnit’s “River of Shadows: Eadward Mubridge and the Technological Wild West” which is a tremendous whirlwind of a cultural/political/art history narrative. I’m also still hoping that J.E. will post some of those sketches he was doing.

Jim Janknegt

June 5, 2008 / / 2 Comments

I thought you artist types might enjoy this.

Here is a video of my friend Jim Janknegt that documents his progress while painting “The Rich Fool.” I have admired his work for a long time and I’m glad to see him get this kind of attention. Ned: perhaps Rejesus would be interested in your work?
You can see all the videos and photos of the finished painting at www.rejesus.uk.com.

A Book Not from 2007

January 12, 2008 / / 2 Comments

I just finished the book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. I know, Shotts, you had recommended it to me a while ago, and my mother had suggested it before that even. It seems you both know what I will appreciate, certainly in this case.

It really is difficult for me to describe how much reading that book meant to me. It kind of seared me. It succeeds on so many levels that at times it was difficult for me to think of it as fiction, and yet that sounds as if the fact that it is fiction is somehow a detraction. What a miracle that something imagined can emanate into the minds of others so entirely.

Of course, I’m sure that all of this sounds like blathering, and perhaps others would not have the same experience I had with the novel as they have not had the same experience with life, but I am deeply grateful for having had the opportunity to experience it.

A Book from 2007

January 9, 2008 / / 7 Comments

Dream Life of Sukhanov I’m wondering why I am posting this, but for some reason feel compelled. Since I have been on the couch or in bed lately, I managed to read a bit.

I just finished The Dream Life of Shukhanov by Olga Grushin. It was a terribly engaging book that takes place in real time over three or four days, but covers in flashbacks much of the life of a Soviet artist/critic. There are several narrative techniques that are interesting, such as the way the book flows from third person narration to first. But I guess the most valuable part of the book to me was what it said about living with the choices we make, the life we live, and the art we do and don’t make. It reminded me a bit of Ishiguro’s novels in that it begins to blur the main character Sukhanov’s past with his present in an effort to reconcile the two lives he has led in a manner that is almost surreal.

Music of 2007

January 2, 2008 / / 4 Comments

Since I live the self proclaimed “Live Music Capital of the World” it is only right that my musical tastes have been largely influenced by what I’ve seen in concert. I’ve included YouTube links if you want to see concert footage of what I saw. It’s not my video but there’s always some fan with a video phone these days.

One of the best albums and concerts of the year was Explosions in the Sky, “All of the Sudden I Miss Everyone.” This was the first rock concert (or post rock) that I’ve been to where I actually wanted it to be louder – just to see what would happen. Would my brain explode? Would me liver liquefy? Perhaps I wanted it louder because there are no distracting lyrics just music. Explosions in the Sky is music that builds you up – like getting a hug from the Iron Giant.

Seeing Bjork was amazing of course and she had a great new album this year too. As always, thrilling to the core.

M. I. A. was the discovery of the year for me. She is the complete artist: music, set design and costume design. I’ve always been a sucker for artists who do everything themselves. Somehow she is able to take on the hip hop megalomaniac persona but also make you feel like stands for something besides herself if not through her lyrics then through the whole of her artistry.

My guilty pleasure of the year is Interpol. There new album “Our Love to Admire” doesn’t really cover any new ground but I’ve enjoyed nonetheless. They clearly stand for nothing but they’re just so damn cool. Impossibly cool. You really have to see it to believe it.

Another great find was LCD Soundsystem and their album “Sound of Silver.” From the bravado of “North American Scum” to the more introspective “All My Friends” they are the sort of band you get stuck in you head for days and you don’t mind a bit.

That’s all for now. I’ll get to the rest of my year of media after I get the rest of this crown molding up….

Holidays and End of Year 2007

December 21, 2007 / / 7 Comments

Happy holidays to all! Be safe, merry, and joyous, and accept good intentions for the New Year and for seeing you all in 2008. 

Jen and I will be at her parents’ home for a couple of days over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then will be enjoying some restful days here in Minneapolis. We have a good few inches of snow on the ground, and it’s expected to snow tomorrow an inch or two. So no need for dreaming of a white Christmas in these parts. 

OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson is #33 on this week’s New York Times Bestsellers list. Amazing for such an introspective, literary work of translation. Funnily enough the book is just ahead of WAR AND PEACE. So take that, Tolstoy!

Any thoughts on the past year? Predictions for the new one? Anyone care to share some of their favorite books, albums, gallery exhibits, songs, movies, etc. of 2007? 

Here’s to what’s ahead… 

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