The Way Forward

Ok well it’s been a while. So much is happening all the time and sometimes it’s hard to pick out the ‘blog-worthy’ stuff to write about. But I have to remember that what feels normal and routine to me might not seem normal and routine to everyone. 

I’ll get the bad news out of the way first, and that is that Burning Man decided to reject my application for funding a new sculpture… AGAIN! 

Burning Man places sculptures in specific locations around the ‘city,’ and the most prestigious placement, arguably, is a location called ‘The Keyhole.’ It’s very central, very high visibility. Christina was awarded the Keyhole placement in 2009 for her sculpture “The Heron Project.” The reason I bring this up is that, pretty much every year that I apply for funding, I gradually convince myself - while waiting for their response - that my proposal is so good that not only are they going to fund it, but they’re going to honor me with the Keyhole! And then… they reject it. 

The upshots of this brief discussion are A) that I apparently always like my own proposals so much that I think they merit fantastic placement (and I suppose this sort of self-confidence is probably a good thing) and B) my own assessment of my own ideas must be really out of step with the assessment of the Burning Man granting committee. (In fact when I look at some of what they fund instead of my proposals, I am often baffled.)

Oh well, fuck it. I have other shit going on. 

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I would have been able to accept the grant - and build the sculpture - even if I had gotten the 'thumbs-up' from them. The next few months look like they're going to be very busy for me and Christina, with both paying work and non-paying work. In this context, it was probably even a blessing that I did not get funded by them, as building something for Burning Man is always a huge time commitment coupled with a loss of money. Still, it would have been nice to know that they liked my proposal in the same way that I do. Whatevs.

(For the record, my proposal was a sculpture of a woman on a shark. It was kind of the inverse of my proposal in 2019, in the sense that it was another interaction between man and nature (another sea creature, in fact), but this time it was positive and forward-looking. In fact it was called "The Way Forward." A text description and pictures will follow at the end of this post.)

Moving on.

In my last post, way back in December, I stated that I was about to start building a new sculpture as a private commission. My creative energies have been pretty focussed for these last few months on building that piece, and it's been a lot of fun. I have certain reasons for not wanting to 'unveil' this new sculpture, even here on the blog, until it is really done, so that means that the best you're going to get for now is this teaser picture...

I must say that I've really enjoyed building this piece, not least because I decided at the beginning to fabricate it entirely out of stainless steel. I love working with stainless steel! (Whenever one works with regular steel, a decision has to be made about how to 'finish' the surface to keep it from rusting to bits. In other words, one must ask oneself... should I paint this sculpture, or oil it every 6 months, or seal it in some other way, or let it rust? Stainless presents no such conundrum. Weld it up and call it done.)

Anyway, the official install date for this sculpture is May 5th, so I should be posting some pictures of the whole thing around that time.

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Christina and Kodiak and I just returned from a 2-week trip to England and Sweden. (It was my first time on a plane since October 2019!) We travelled to England in order to install Christina's sculpture The Flybrary on the grounds of the Chatsworth House.  The Chatsworth House is a stately mansion built in the 1600's which has been home to the long succession of Dukes of Devonshire. In fact, the current Duke of Devonshire lives there now! Burning Man arranged with the Chatsworth House to bring over about 10 large sculptures, and Christina's beautiful piece was one of the ones chosen. In fact, her piece is basically the star of the show; it has the very best placement (right in front of the house!) and is getting tons of great press. In fact, if you click the link above you will see a great picture on the Chatsworth House's homepage... which I will also immortalize here:

We were treated really well while in England; they put us up in a cute little stone cottage and fed us way too much food. We also got the chance to tour the home and see it's truly spectacular art collection. It's like a museum (and I love museums.)

I will now take you on a little photographic tour of our European adventure!

A view of the house, with the partially completed Flybrary in the foreground, as well as the river Derwent.

Another view of the house, with a very handsome young gentleman in the foreground. Kodiak did so well, and had such a good time on this trip. All the grownups fell in love with him!

This is the first room you see in the house. The room is colossal, all the walls and ceiling are covered in Renaissance-style paintings, and every nook has a sculpture.

This is an approximately life-sized sculpture of Saint Bartholomew, who was skinned alive, by my old favorite Damien Hirst. He is shown holding his skin on one arm, and the scissors used to remove his skin in the other hand. It is cast in silver, then gold-plated!

These are paintings of the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the occupants of the house, by Stephen Conroy. They might seem unremarkable, at first glance, but they were actually my favorite paintings in the house, on purely stylistic grounds. They feature just the right amount of stylizing / idealization. I would like to paint like that.

Some contemporary sculpture by... I don't know who. The swirly, curvy things are made from bent wood, and I thought they were quite beautiful.

 

A wooden bench, which I also found gorgeous.

One of two original Rembrandt paintings in the house. This just gives you an idea of the quality of this collection. (We were told a funny story... Apparently many years ago there were three Rembrandts in the house. At some point one of the dukes died, and some pretty hefty 'death taxes' were due. The government came in and took one of the Rembrandt paintings as payment - they chose the one which was assessed to be the most valuable. Then, some years later, the painting was proved to be by one of Rembrandt's disciples, not him!)

There was an entire long room full of Lucien Freud paintings - probably 20 or 25 of them. Wow. This one, featuring his nude girlfriend and his mother, was perhaps the most intriguing!

And a HUGE John Singer Sergeant. This painting is about 9 feet tall... or 3 meters. Again, wow.

The last room on the tour was a large hall full of marble sculpture. This one was perhaps my favorite.

Also not bad.

Marble bust of... who knows! But wow, she is gorgeous. I took a lot of pictures of this one.

I had to squeeze behind this sculpture, close to the wall, to get a good shot of this lady's marble butt. Butt it was worth it.

After touring the house, we toured the gardens, which were vast. This guy cracked me up.

I dragged our group into a far corner of the grounds to see this sculpture, behind me, by my old friend Rachel Feinstein.

I guess that when you are a duke, and you have a 200 acre garden, you can have some pretty weird trees. 

Here's our crew! From left to right... Me, Christina, Brian Malley from Canada, good old friend Cedar, Cedar's girlfriend Heather, Kodiak, and Terril Scott from Berlin.

After leaving the Chatsworth House, Christina and Kodiak and I went down to London for a day and connected with my cousin Eduardo. He is originally from Brazil, as is my dad, but has lived in London for 8 or 9 years.

Upon arriving in Sweden we went straight to the house where we were staying, which was on the island of Rindö. The house is owned by some friends of ours who have deep roots both in Taos and Sweden. You have to take a ferry to get there.

The landscape in Sweden is quite beautiful, and the water is never far away.

Here is another photo from the ferry, taken from within the electric car we rented. It was our first real experience with an electric car; the car was cool, but recharging it was a pain because the car did not come with a charger. Instead we were forced to use the charging stations scattered around the city, which was quite difficult.

Sweden features large selections of both delicious pastries and power tools!

I tend to judge cities, or European ones at least, in part based on the quality and volume of their public sculpture. And extra points are awarded for female nudes. Barcelona leads the pack in this regard, at least as far as I have seen. Stockholm doesn't measure up quite as well, but there are a few gems, including this one near the old town center.

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I know that I usually round out my blog posts with some philosophical ponderings (and once in a while the ponderings wholly comprise the post). I have to say that with everything going on these days, I haven't been pondering all that much... other than to say that I sometimes find myself thinking about compassion. The ability to really identify with someone else, and feel what they are feeling, seems to me to be such a critical and important factor in the world, and sort of a differentiating factor between people. For instance, would Putin really have invaded Ukraine if he was a truly compassionate person? Would his soldiers be killing innocent women and children if they were truly compassionate people? I guess most soldiers aren't particularly compassionate. But I think the world would be a better place if more people conducted themselves with more awareness of how things are for other people.

And also, being in England (and close to Manchester at that) got me enthusiastic... again... for like the 100th time... about my old favorite band Joy Division. What a great band they were, and what a tragic story. I find that I am always interested in people who do really extreme things in life... people like Ian Curtis and Ted Bundy. I will never be one of those people... but I find them fascinating. 

While at the Chatsworth House we were really close to Macclesfield, and I really tried to get over there to see the last house that Ian Curtis lived in, but I had no car and so it wasn't possible. Oh well, another time.

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OK, as promised, I will now show some images and text from my most recent proposal for Burning Man.

Proposal text:

The Way Forward is a mid-action snapshot of an impossible scene. An ocean wave bursts from the ground, and at the cresting top of this wave is a shark, on the verge of breaking free from the water. Just forward of the shark's dorsal fin sits a woman. She is leaning forward, looking intently ahead, right arm outstretched in front of her, finger pointed decisively forward. The wave and the shark are crafted from steel; the woman from aluminum. The scale is such that the woman is about 1.25 times larger than a real human. This piece is a synthesis of several threads - aesthetic, personal, and philosophical - that came together for me in an unconscious process. The male and female, or Apollonian and Dionysian, as presented originally by Nietzsche and elaborated by Paglia, achieve a dynamic fusion in this piece. Also, a tremendously productive year of therapy brought me finally in touch with my wounded and suppressed female side, hidden since childhood. The woman on the shark IS my female side, showing the strength and focus needed to manifest, to demand to be seen. But I believe the most important, universal, and accessible meaning of the piece can be found in its depiction of the female principle uniting with the power of the natural world to show a path forward through dark times. The male principle can be rapacious and has done much damage. It will be the female principle in all of us that gets us back on track. Power and longevity of the shark, vision of the female, direction, focus, The Way Forward.

OK, thanks for reading.

Bye!

How Many Topics Can I Reasonably Cram Into One Blog Post?

After publishing my last post, I realized there was one more thing I wanted to write on the topic of politics. A while ago I read a book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. It's a good book, primarily about the struggle to be artistically productive. But of all the points made in the book, the one that stuck with me the most was about politics, not art. In a very short chapter called "Resistance and Fundamentalism," Pressfield draws a distinction between the Artist and the Fundamentalist. The essence of it (or at least what I have taken away from it) is that the Artist (the Progressive) believes that a better world is always yet to come, and this it is the responsibility of humans to work towards that world, while the Fundamentalist (the Conservative) believes that the best version of the world has already passed, and we have now fallen, and the way forward is really to go back... to that lost world of the past when things were better. It's such a simple, yet powerful, way to see this divide between types of Humans. I think about it all the time. The short chapter I'm referring to has a lot more to say... in only 3.5 pages. You can read it for free HERE... you'll find the chapter starting on page 45.

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I have lost a few friends over the years, not to death, but to something a little harder to figure out. These (former) friends I'm referring to have been primarily male. For the most part, these people have just stopped talking to me... dropped me, so to speak... and in the absence of any explanation, that has been confusing. But one or two people over the years have taken the time to "break up with me," or to explain the problem. Although the explanations were muddled, they expressed in one way or another the sentiment that I am not a "good friend." Which is to say, I don't know how to 'do' friendship correctly. I’m going out on a little bit of a limb here, but I speculate that the ones who just went quiet may have had similar complaints to the few who actually explained themselves to me. I’ve also gotten in trouble with my family from time to time for similar reasons; for not being attentive or not communicating as much as I should.

The thing is, I just don’t really need very much in the way of the normal aspects of friendship, like seeing people regularly, keeping up with friendly emails and stuff like that… the kinds of things that I think are called “friendship maintenance.“ In my mind, I'm still on the same good terms with friends, even if I don't talk to them for a year. And so because I don’t really need those things so much, I get a little confused by people who do. And more specifically, I get confused by people who need those things from me. I’m old enough now, and smart enough, to realize that many people do need these things… so sometimes I try to play along and be 'normal'. But I’m not very good at it. 

I guess another thing that stuck in my head, and which pertains to this topic, is something I read a long time ago which made the following simplified argument: People can put their energy towards their work, their family, or their friends. Generally speaking, or so the argument goes, people can only really put energy towards two out of those three. The third invariably suffers. For me, the passage of years has shown clearly that work and family are where I put my attention. And that feels normal to me. 

I am not autistic, but there are times when I hear or read descriptions of the social impairment that most autistics experience, and it feels very familiar. From what I have read, the language of emotion and interpersonal connection feels like a foreign one to them… one that they simply cannot understand. And there are times, admittedly in a very superficial kind of way, that I experience the same thing. 

In closing, to those of you for whom I could not provide the kind of friendship that you needed, sorry. And good for you for realizing it, and moving on. And to those of you who stick with me, thanks! It's nice to know you!

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I have a personal theory about the metric system versus the imperial (inch) system. I cannot help but see in these two systems the vestiges of what I believe were the disparate political cultures under which these two systems of measurement arose. The imperial system, originated in Britain, is arcane, difficult to memorize, and… when you get into some of the deeper and more esoteric corners of it… bordering on the nonsensical. The divisions of the inch, into 16ths, 32nds, and 64ths, are fundamentally ridiculous. The imperial system for measuring thicknesses of metal sheets is particularly stupid. My theory is that these systems were originally devised, perhaps in an unconscious way, with the intention (or at least the corollary benefit) of stratifying society into those who could understand the system, and those who could not. The metric system, on the other hand, could not be more straightforward. Because it is a base-10 system, it is extremely easy to understand. Not only does pretty much everybody in the world except the United States use the metric system… but so do the American military and NASA and a variety of US-based manufacturing concerns. My theory goes on, then, to postulate that this system arose partly out of a desire to have a common approach that everybody could understand… across all levels of society. I primarily use the Imperial system, because I live here in the US and all my tools are calibrated in inches, but after having lived in Europe for a bit, I can say that I prefer using the metric system.

(I find it funny that, when you get into the precision measurements required for machining, the inch is divided into 1000ths... or a base-10 system, a practical nod to the inherent sensibility of that approach. AND... the inch is internationally DEFINED as 2.54 centimeters!)

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I am excited to report that I recently got a private commission to build a sculpture for a gentleman that I know here in Taos. For the last year or so, as the pandemic ate away at the core of Christina‘s and my business model, I have been nursing along two cherished sculpture ideas. As I mentioned in my last post, I proposed one of those ideas for Burning Man this year... and I’m not prepared to talk about that one just yet… because I’m superstitious that way! But the other one that I’ve wanted to build, which is a standing female robot character which pays homage in some ways to the big red robot which now stands at Meow Wolf, and also to the sitting Buddha figure of With Open Arms, but which is an evolution from both of those, it’s something that I will now get to build. I have to say, I’m very excited! 

One really fun result of this commission is that I have finally been able to purchase a tool that I’ve wanted for a long time… well, at least since I used one back at BBK in Berlin. The tool is called a plate bending roll. I built basically the entire body of With Open Arms with a really incredible plate bending roll in Berlin, and I’ve just purchased a similar one, although much smaller, to build this new figure. I’m really excited about it! 

Here I am standing next to the roller I used in Berlin. It really was my favorite tool at BBK.

And here's a low-res photo of the one that I just bought. I have just noticed that the cabinetry at the left end of each machine is almost identical, and I'm wondering if there is some crossover between the European company (Metallkraft) and the American one (Americor). A google search showed nothing conclusive.

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It occurred to me the other day that if I were to pick out the most memorable of my machines and sculptures, and arrange them chronologically, it would be a linear progression not only in time but also along the axis which starts at machine and ends at human, and also along the access which begins at male and ends at female. 

The private commission I'm about to start building will sit very nicely at the right end of this continuum. Being able to see this progression in my head, and chart it, has actually already given me a general idea for yet another sculpture which could come after these that I am building now. Again… Exciting!

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I have been re-visiting my love for the late fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. One aspect I'm looking at with fresh eyes right now is: why do I like him so much?

Way back in my blog post of November 11, 2020, I stated that I had arrived at a theory which explained and tied together various elements of my psychological landscape. Amusingly, even though I'd written about the discovery as kind of a "teaser," no one asked for elaboration. This just goes to show that either A) no one reads my blog, B) people do read it but don't care about the theory, or C) people were desperately curious for elaboration but somehow knew that, had they asked, I would have politely declined to answer... about which they would have been correct! 

Anyway, the theory - which was new at the time - is now a firm part of my self-concept. And, it does shed light on my appreciation for McQueen. 

But perhaps this blog post is now sufficiently long, and has bounced randomly between topics enough, that I don't now need to go into McQueen. Let it suffice to say that I consider him an artist of the first magnitude, the highest level, and that, although I would never presume to put myself on the same level as a genius like mcQueen, I see a lot of commonalities between McQueen and myself - psychologically and artistically. 

Maybe I'll write about him again soon.

If you made it this far, well... thanks for reading.

Love to all of you,

Christian

Value Systems

Quasi stream-of-consciousness philosophical / social / political musings and a brief update on art output. 

Quasi stream-of-consciousness philosophical / social / political musings

Christina and I had an interesting conversation the other day which centered on the idea of different value systems. The kind of behavior that Person 1 thinks should, and would naturally cause Person 2 to shrink in guilt and shame, might in fact make Person 2 glow with pride because these two people subscribe to totally different value systems. The behavior of, for instance, a CEO of a pharmaceutical company implicated in the opioid epidemic makes for an extreme but therefore highly illustrative example. (Person 1 thinks "how can that CEO even sleep at night!?" while the CEO (Person 2) thinks "Fuck yeah, I made it to the top! The good life!") I guess this gets to the core of different political systems as well. A person who leans towards Democratic Socialism… or the idea that everyone should have a reasonably equal quality of life and that those who can't manage that quality of life on their own should have ample access to a robust social safety net… has a very different value system than a person who believes that all of life is one big competition, and the point of it is to win… or to have a better life than everyone else around you. So, I’m not really saying anything new here, but Free Market Capitalism and Democratic Socialism arise out of very different value systems… And I’m speaking about value systems in the human sense, or the moral sense. (I think it's worth noting that people living under Scandinavian-style Democratic Socialism are MUCH happier than those living under Free Market Capitalism). And going back to an old theme of mine, I just can’t help but wonder how much of this is rooted in psychology. It just wouldn’t surprise me if most of it arises out of formative life experience. For instance… and this is obviously a simplification… a person who grows up in poverty or in other kinds of challenging circumstances might gravitate towards a "Winner Take All" worldview, becoming a venture capitalist or something of the sort, and never sparing a second thought for those less fortunate than him. "Social Justice" might be a fundamentally meaningless term to a person like that. On the other hand a person raised to believe that everyone is equal and has a fair right to the good life… (and it might even be necessary for the functionality of my example that this theoretical person might himself or herself have been raised in comparative comfort)… such a person would understand the term and concept of "social justice" as an integral part of the way the world should be, and would fight to make that world real. It's fascinating to think of all these adult actors on the world stage (by which I mean pretty much every grownup) just directly acting out the unexamined consequences of their childhoods, and unconsciously shaping the world.

This might feel like a jump… the thematic link might seem tenuous… but I can’t help thinking about the comparative prevalence of religion between a place such as Scandinavia and another place such as the United States, or for that matter some parts of South America or Africa. In Scandinavia, religion is a mere formality. Almost no one actually believes in it… it’s just a ritualized vestige of the way that culture has evolved over the last thousand years. Whereas in the United States or South America or Africa, religion is quite prevalent.… and not just as a formality. People really believe. Now what is the difference between these two places? In Scandinavia, the government and the concomitant social safety net is highly developed. Peoples' basic needs are met by the society in which they live. So therefore, they do not need the supportive myth of a God who will make this life bearable, and then give them an even better life after they die. But in places like the US, South America, Africa, and others, there is no social safety net. People must struggle and fight just to have a decent life, and the government, gutted as it is by years of unchecked capitalism and/or mismanagement, is almost wholly incapable of taking care of its people. So religion plays an incredibly important role in the lives of these people… steeping them in the message that someone does actually give a shit about them (even if that caring someone is an imaginary bearded patriarch up in the sky), and that their lives will finally be better after death. 

Nietzsche would be appalled. Or maybe I’m wrong about that…maybe he would just have a good laugh. 

(I believe that there is an incredible hubris underpinning the idea that our human consciousnesses must persist after death. Consciousness seems to me to clearly be a product of biology (after all, my consciousness apparently did not exist before my biology grew up to support it [reincarnation enthusiasts might disagree!]), so why would we believe that consciousness would persist after the supporting biology fails? It's as if we humans are so impressed with ourselves that the idea of our consciousness dying when we do is just offensive! Again, hubris. Do animals go to heaven? The same heaven? Or a separate one?)

If you think about it, the progress towards Democratic Socialism and the progress towards a post-racist society have a lot in common. Both Democratic Socialism and race-blindness are obviously the more morally defensible positions, and progress towards these goals is obviously something worth fighting for. And yet the fights for these worthwhile goals both proceed haltingly at best because of the powerful vested interests which stand to lose their time-honored positions of advantage. After hundreds of years on top, there are signs that Whitey might be starting to lose it, and He doesn’t like it so he’s fighting back. In my opinion this is the core appeal of Trump and other fascists and aspiring fascists like him: “Make America (or Italy or Germany or Spain or Hungary) Great Again!” (for those of us who have traditionally been the privileged class).

I think the race situation in this country is poisoned by the legacy of slavery… poisoned in a 1000 year kind of way. Black people are forever angry about that inexcusable and horrendous history; white people are terrified of that righteous anger and the result of that fear is institutionalized and structural racism designed to keep Black people from getting a foot up; and this just adds more fuel to the fire of black anger. It’s hard to see how that situation can resolve itself. On the other hand it's really not too hard to see these forces ripping the country apart.

A brief update on art output

I came across an interesting bit of research last week. It's easy to find online summaries of the research article - one is here - but the basic idea is this: A researcher wanted to understand if there was any discernible or predictable pattern underlying the idea of a "hot streak," or a period of prolific and/or successful professional / artistic output. An example of a hot streak would be the four years that Jackson Pollock spent making his "drip paintings." Pollock's hot streak was so hot, in fact, that most people don't know he did anything else, but he only produced that type of work for four years. 

So the researcher (Dashun Yang) used artificial intelligence to comb through the careers of more than 26,000 artists, film directors, and scientists (it's already interesting, right?) to look for hot streak patterns. The resulting discovery was that hot streaks are almost invariably preceded by periods of meandering experimentation with diverse ideas or styles. This preceding period is referred to in the study as "exploration." The study continues by noting that the periods of exploration naturally give way to periods of "exploitation" in which the artist, film director, or scientist in question narrows in on one element that has emerged from the exploration as the one idea that he or she feels strongly enough about to pursue. This one idea is then exploited through deep focus and dedication, and the result is... a hot streak. Again, think back to Jackson Pollock whose four years of drip paintings were preceded by many years of meandering through a variety of more traditional approaches.

I can only surmise that I am in a period of exploration. I have historically, in my life, been the type of person to always finish what I start. But lately I have been more likely to begin a project, only to lose interest or focus before finishing. I'm not too proud of this; it's not a pattern I admire in others. None of these projects are officially abandoned, they are just "on hold" until I get back to them. And I usually do get back to them. But perhaps, as I mentioned, this is what exploration looks like. (Of course, I could just be "losing it," and finding comfort in the results of this fancy study I've stumbled upon!) However I do have a sense that something new might be around the corner. I've proven (to myself) that I can oil paint and draw the human figure; I've proven that I can sculpt in clay, that I can make and modify clothing, that I can metal fabricate and design mechanisms and work in hydraulics and other forms of power transmission. I've shown that I can dream up big projects, manage them to completion, and then move them around the world to where they are wanted. I can do all these things, and yet... I don't know which of them I actually care about enough to pursue deeply. I keep thinking there might be a synthesis of these disparate threads... a project or direction that could tie all these things together into something new and interesting, something I'd feel really invested in. But I'm not sure what it is yet and I guess I need to keep exploring.

(The elephant in the room might be tying the first half of this blog post together with the second half. Maybe it's time to envision some socially relevant art. I find that I am more interested in introspective, self-analytical art, and I often experience socially relevant art as preachy and self-righteous. But who knows. Maybe... just maybe...)

Meanwhile, there are two large sculptural projects that I've been nursing along for quite some time... projects I actually DO care about, even though they are pretty much straightforward metal work... about which I am cautiously hopeful. If the cards line up, it seems I might be able to build them between now and Fall 2022. So that is good news! One is a large female robot figure, and the other is... I can't talk about it because I've submitted it as a proposal for funding by Burning Man and I don't want to jinx it! Suffice to say that it is, in some sense, the "optimistic" obverse of ENDGAME. In any case, it would be cool if I got to build them both. What a turnaround from the last few years that would be!

Oh, and I submitted, for the first time, one of my paintings for consideration in a gallery show. Unfortunately it's sort of a COVID era show - online only. But the theme of the show is Emotions and I submitted a painting that fits pretty well...

...so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I mentioned earlier that I count clay sculpture among my skills... and I feel I should post at least one picture of something I haven't posted before, so here is an (unfinished) sculpture I have been working on intermittently:

It's fun. I enjoy it. 

Some positive feedback, with regard to not only the sculpture but the paintings and other stuff as well, would be probably be nice. But for that, I would have to A) finish the damn work, and B) get out from under my rock and show some people. There is no real community here in Taos, in the sense of artists gathering together to work, help each other, and create opportunities. We found that kind of community in Berlin, and it was great. Maybe it's just a feature of cities. Maybe just European cities?

Living in Taos is like non-stop pioneering. 

(I could go on and on... once I start writing I just think of more and more things to write. But this might be enough for now.)

Cheers

He Who Does More, Fails More

In the last post, I said I'd hoped I would be able to feature some beach photos...

So here they are!

Except, these aren't my pictures... they're just downloaded from the GoogleNet!

At the time of my last post, I had just returned from Denver with a new (used) engine. I was able to install that successfully, and... after a few more mechanical hiccups, we were finally ready to go! (For any mechanical geeks reading this, you might be interested in a forum thread I started called "A Few Neat Things I Did on My Vanagon Build")

As if getting the Van ready to leave wasn't hard enough, choosing a destination felt like an exercise in navigating the beginning of the apocalypse. Originally we thought we'd go to mainland Mexico... the Oaxaca area, but then that seemed too far and one has to drive through some somewhat dangerous areas to get there. Then we decided on Baja California, which is closer and safer... but they "closed" Baja a few days before our departure due to a COVID flare-up. Then we set our sights on Idaho / Montana / Wyoming... but it turned out that whole area was on fire and choking with unbreathable air.  Finally we decided to go north through Colorado and then make our way west towards the Oregon coast. Although much of Oregon was also on fire, the coast looked pretty clear (!).

We finally set off on a Wednesday morning. The van was humming along and we had a real feeling of freedom to finally be going somewhere!

We stopped at a preserved 1800's town museum in Fairplay, Colorado...

(hearse)

... had dinner in Breckenridge, Colorado (van in background)...

... and then settled in...

... for our first night of camping.

I realized later that something strange happened on that first night...

At dinner, Christina said "The van is running great, you must be proud!" 

To which I replied "Yes, it's pretty cool. I feel confident about pretty much every part of the van... except maybe for the transmission."

Christina: "Why?"

Me: "Well, the transmission is really the only part I didn't look into thoroughly. As an automatic transmission, it's just sort of a mystery box. You just sort of hope everything is OK in there."

(When I got the van I was told "The engine is toast. Everything else was working fine." AND... most Vanagon people... and the internet... will tell you that the original VW automatic transmission is very robust and dependable. For these reasons, as well as a lack of time, I assumed the transmission would be OK.)

Well... as soon as we got into the van after dinner on that first night, the transmission acted weird. It did not misbehave for long, and I assumed it was a one-time glitch. I shouldn't have said anything about it at dinner!

The next morning it was fine again, but by mid-morning it was slipping again, and by early afternoon it was dead. DEAD. No Reverse, no top gear, and the low gears were fading fast. We limped the van along the side of the road for about 10 miles at 15mph to a campground. 

There was a beautiful river just past those trees, and it wasn't a bad place to be stuck for a day and a half. 

Christina and Kodiak really wanted to see the coast, so my first plan was to locate another transmission locally and install it there in the campground... to keep the adventure going. But I couldn't find one, and the more I thought about it the crazier it seemed. We were only about 260 miles from home and so we called in some favors from my mom and my friend-with-a-truck, and two long days later we were home.

What an ordeal.

When I was living in Germany a friend told me a German saying... a German proverb perhaps... which says "Wer macht mehr, scheitert mehr." This means "He who does more, fails more." This saying really stuck with me, even after these several years, in part because I feel that it really applies to me and my life, and in part because I'm never really sure if I understand it completely. 

Statistically speaking, of course it's true. If you never try anything, you will never fail; and conversely, if you do things and try things all the time, you will fail at some percentage of them. Failure is part of the game, and just as it cannot be avoided completely, nor should it be feared or viewed as defeat. One way in which I've sometimes thought about this proverb is that a frequent incidence of failure is proof that one is doing things, trying things, and should be viewed in a positive light. The wording of the proverb is ambiguous enough that I think you could construe an opposing interpretation - something along the lines of "you will fail less if you rein in the breadth of your endeavor and focus on your specialty" - but I don't think that is the true meaning of it. Or at least that is not the meaning I choose to focus on. I failed in my efforts to take my family on a vacation to the coast, but we had a hell of an experience along the way. And I know a hell of a lot more about Vanagon mechanics than I used to.

Luck. I don't really believe in it. I think you make your own luck by being diligent, thorough, prepared, and ambitious. And beyond that, things just happen. The world is meaningless and random, and fundamentally beyond our control. People like to put stories on things, to find meaning, because I think it creates the illusion of control. If the world makes sense, and things happen for a reason, and Karma is real, then we can see patterns and predict occurrences, and this gives the feeling of being in control. But I believe that's all bullshit. It's the same with religion. Giving people the illusion of meaning is one of the main purposes of religion, because to live with a real awareness of the meaninglessness of existence is scary. It offends our deep human need for meaning and control and predictability... which we grasp for, I believe, because deep down we know the dark truth that we can never have those things.

You know how when you are doing something cool - something like skipping stones on a still pond - and you're getting good at it - you want someone else to see it? Having someone else see it validates it, gives it meaning, makes it real. I think this is another one of the impulses behind religion. There's a very basic human desire to be seen, to be validated, and if you believe in God then there is always someone to see you and validate you, even when no other human is around. The alternative is that no one saw the cool thing, or the good deed, that you just did... and that it's only for you, for you to know... and maybe it doesn't actually mean anything, and I think that's scary for some people. No one wants to be alone. 

But enough with God, let's get back to luck. Even though I don't believe in luck, even though I believe that the best you can do to fight off the chaos and the entropy which is constantly trying to engulf you is to be prepared and rigorous, I sometimes imagine that the Buddha hand which I affixed to the front of my big crane truck helps ward off bad luck. It's ridiculous, and I know it... and I sometimes think it anyway. 

And so when we were getting ready to set off on our big adventure in the Vanagon - you remember the Vanagon with the secretly flawed transmission - I decided that I should probably bring some good luck with me. I had a rabbit's foot that I'd saved from an actual rabbit that our dog killed a few years ago, and rabbit's feet are supposed to be good luck, so I made it into a key chain and attached it to the VW key. And I also grabbed a small carved wooden hand called a Figa, a good luck charm in Brazil, and hung it from the mirror. Well of course these primitive talismans did not bring me any luck with the Van! They did not prevent the transmission from failing. Of course I know better. The world is random, the transmission broke because of physics (and probably because it was old), and the rabbit foot and the Figa had nothing to do with it. Or wait... maybe they did ward off the bad luck! After all, no one got injured, the van didn't get wrecked or stolen! Yes, of course, the good luck amulets worked! Wait, no... the universe is governed by chance and by physics! Well, one thing is for sure... I'm removing that rabbit foot and Figa from the van! Now I just need to find some better good luck charms!

I disassembled the transmission and found several failed components. I'm working on finding replacements. Wish me good luck!

Vanagons (and drawings of Naked Ladies!)

My birthday was about a week ago, and Christina threw me a surprise party. (A very effective surprise party, I might add. I had no idea what was going on until she removed my blindfold, after having driven me to our favorite local restaurant, and I found myself at a table with about 12 of my best friends here in Taos. I was slightly flustered for the first 20 minutes or so… because if anything Covid has only intensified my hermit-like tendencies and it was a bit intense to suddenly be in the presence of so many people, gathered for me, but I eased into it and ended up having a great time.) 

Anyway, my point is that several people gave me a good-natured hard time that evening for not having blogged lately. 

Now I think it would not make for a tremendously interesting blog post to write about why I haven’t been writing blog posts lately, but it’s a point of entry… And so I'll ponder it briefly. 

For one thing, I’m just so damn busy. More on that in a moment. But the other noteworthy aspect of it, I suppose, is that I have not really been doing much art lately, and I think I’ve inadvertently fallen into a trap that I did not even know I had laid for myself, which is that I think I’ve begun to feel like my art practice is the only thing worth blogging about. If I look back at my blog from 10 years ago, making art was only a small part of the content. But I guess recently I’ve begun to act like it’s the only valid topic. And I think that's wrong. 

The truth is that I still make art every Thursday night, when I go to my live model drawing group. Thank Jeez for that group. Since we started up the group again, post Covid, I have been the assistant to the woman who runs the group. But in reality, as far as keeping things going during the actual class, I am running the group. And I find that very enjoyable. The other thing I really enjoy about the group is that I have seen myself get better at drawing, even to the point of perhaps developing something like a personal style. To see oneself get better at something over time is really gratifying, especially something you enjoy and want to get better at. Here are a few of my recent drawings… 

The other thing that’s been going on, and chewing up all my time, is something that really needs to be told like a story. So here’s the story: 

As far back as the 1950s, Volkswagen manufactured the iconic VW bus (technically known as the Type 2). They sent a certain proportion of these buses directly from the manufacturing facility to another German company called Westfalia. Westfalia outfitted these buses with a camping package, which consisted of a fold down bed, a tiny little kitchen, a bunch of cabinets, and a roof which popped up revealing a second bed. In 1980 they modernized the design of the vehicle, and for the American market they called it the Vanagon (technically know as the Type 3). Again, a certain number of these were sent directly to Westfalia and outfitted with an even more modern camping package. In 1992 they revamped the vehicle again, this time dubbing it the Eurovan, and again… some number of them were turned into campers by Westfalia. 

In my opinion, the Westfalia Vanagon, produced from 1980 to 1991, is by far the coolest version. I’ve always loved them. 

(Not my van, photo courtesy of the GoogleWeb)

Back in 2012 or 2013 I fulfilled a dream and got one. I had a friend do some work on that van prior to taking it to a festival at which I was showing a sculpture, and just before departing on that trip, the engine (that he had worked on) started making some truly horrible noises. I called a second mechanic for his opinion, and after listening to it, that guy said “I don’t know what that is, but it’s bad.“ I did not have time to figure it out before going to this festival, so I had to rent an RV at great expense, at the last minute. Upon returning, I was financially forced to sell that Vanagon. Over the years I often regretted it, saying to myself… and sometimes to Christina, "we never should’ve sold that Vanagon." (It turned out that my friend, the mechanic... who was the same fellow who carelessly caused my Ant sculpture to fall down at Maker Faire in 2015, had carelessly forgotten to tighten some important bolts in the engine-to-transmission interface. These bolts came loose and made a huge racket, although no real damage was done. But I didn't learn any of that until it was too late... until I'd sold the van.) 

Fast forward to earlier this summer, sometime in late May. We were trying to figure out what kind of fun thing we could do over the summer as a family, and after ruling out international travel, we hit up on the idea of taking some kind of road trip. Again, I said “we never should’ve sold that Vanagon.“ “Well, hell… Let’s see if we can find another one,“ Christina said. 

Now one of the things that you have to understand about these vehicles is that they have become cult vehicles… very collectible. My theory about the reasoning behind this development is that they fill a niche in the market that no other vehicle really fills. They are small, economical to operate, have their own little kitchen, and can sleep four people. Plus, they’re great looking! What all of this means is that they have become absurdly expensive. So when Christina and I went online to see about finding another one we were rudely surprised. Even crappy Vanagons start at about $15,000.… and that’s just a bit out of our price range. But then I remembered... a friend of ours who used to live just a few miles away had a Vanagon before he died. So that night I texted his widow, who is still a good friend of ours, and asked about the van. A few days later, it was mine... and for a fraction of the cost of all those other ones we had seen online. 

The catch is that it was in pretty rough shape. 

The engine was dead, and the interior needed a hell of a lot of work. So thus commenced about a month of work… (well I hoped it would be about a month) in which we revived this old van. Another thing to understand about these vans is that, although the vehicle itself is unique and much loved, the original VW engine was not a particularly good one. One very common solution is to swap a modern Subaru engine in there, in place of the original VW. So instead of replacing the blown VW engine with another crappy VW engine, I decided to go the Subaru route. 

I am friendly with the best mechanic in this town, and I had a hunch that he probably had a Subaru engine sitting around. So I asked him, and sure enough he said “Yep, got one sitting on the shelf.“ 

I bought that from him, and over the course of this last month I installed it, building my own engine mounts, exhaust system, accelerator linkages, transmission oil cooler, roof rack, etc. About a week ago, I turned the key for the first time and… The engine started! Success! Except… about a minute later the engine started making a pretty bad ticking noise. The noise got worse, and three days later I definitively established that the engine was fatally flawed. 

In this photo we see: In the upper left - the dead engine, stripped of its peripherals. In the upper middle, hanging from the red strap - the transmission. In the foreground - all the peripherals which have been stripped off the engine, waiting to be transplanted to the replacement.

Our original plan was to set off on our road trip down to Baja California sometime in the middle of this week… or in other words… right about now. But as it stands, the van does not even have an engine in it, and there’s still quite a lot of other things that need doing. So it is safe to say that we are delayed from our original schedule. 

As I write this now, I have just returned from a 13 hour driving adventure, going up to Denver to get a new (used) engine (and some new (used) wheels) and returning… All in one day. 

So, with that, I will wrap this up and go get my hands dirty. We are hoping to leave on this trip in under a week, so I have a hell of a lot of work to do! I mentioned in the beginning of this post that I was really busy these days… almost too busy to blog... and this van is the reason why. In fact, the first pass of this post was dictated into my phone using voice-to-text as a time saving measure. If you noticed any subtle changes in my writing style, that's probably the reason why. 

So, like I said… off to work. 

Hopefully the next post will have beach pictures. 

(OK, one last thing I want to throw in here. Rammstein are just phenomenal. My favorite band over the last 6 or 7 years. Some of their very best songs pull off this trick of combining heavy metal guitar and drums with truly beautiful melodies with fucked up, disturbing lyrics. The melodies keep you humming the songs to yourself, but the lyrics are what keep you thinking about them, over and over... sometimes wondering "Why would they write something like that?" The songs "Spring" and "Dalai Lama" are the ones I'm talking about. Do not seek out these songs (or at least don't read the English lyric translations) if you are easily unbalanced. I can't get enough.) 

OK, bye now

Painting, Prada, and Flowers

 Wow, it's been 9 weeks or so since I posted.

That's a long time for me and this blog.

Let me start by saying that I was recently interviewed for a podcast called 'Art Robot Death.' I believe it is actually a pretty good interview. You can find it HERE. 

I finally finished the interpretation of Ingres' Jupiter and Thetis, the painting I call 'Juniper and Cletus.' (Or should it be 'Juniper and Themis'? 'Themis' is closer to 'Thetis,' but Themis is a sort of arcane name here in the US, plus it's my brother's name and I'm definitely not trying to implicate him in this painting. 'Cletus,' on the other hand, is an almost comically redneck name and very American. I can't decide which is better.)

Here's the painting: 

I'm pleased with it. Her face could've turned out better, but after coming and going from this painting for over a year, boy-oh-boy was I done. So I called it done.

I've started another painting, which is sort of an important one in the extremely short 'history' of my painting career. The reason I say this is that this painting, the one I've just begun, is the image which appeared to me - as if in a vision - back in Berlin and it's the image that caused me to consider beginning to paint in the first place. I've been working on the image in photoshop, off and on, for a few years now. I finally got the image to a point that I liked, AND my skills are now barely sufficient to pull it off, so I decided to go for it. I will update the blog some time soon with some images.

I am personally having a hard time with a certain aspect of the gradual end of the COVID era, and that is the prospect of being social again. During COVID it has been perfectly acceptable to be a hermit, and I have frankly enjoyed that. I'm probably not alone in these sentiments. Avoiding social gatherings is not the answer either, though; introverts like me need to push through the discomfort. So please keep inviting Christina and me to stuff, you few who do. (That's pretty good.... "you few who do")

I find that I am having an increased interest in the psychology of clothing. Way back in May, 2018, I wrote a blog post that touched on this; I wrote that clothing was a filter which acted to sift through the people we encounter and only let through those who could understand, or were not intimidated by the fashion filter. I believe that my current interest has been spurred by the fact that I am currently strongly drawn to a certain type of outerwear, which has a certain quality to it; namely that it is constructed of fabric which maintains a certain rigidity and does not wrinkle easily. Here are three examples:

I don't know much about the first two examples other than to say they are images from a book called 'The Sartorialist - Closer' by Scott Schuman. The third example is an image of Amanda Gorman at Biden's inauguration, wearing a Prada coat. I have come to the belief that Prada has a sensitivity for fabrics which act this way. (I'm currently coveting a particular Prada coat which I can't really afford, but I'm selling shit on eBay). 

This may all seem trivial to you, my reader, and it probably is. But I bring it up because I am curious about what it says about me and my psychology. I think the simplicity and rigidity of this type of clothing feels like a sort of 'armor' for me. (A few years ago, for a time, I was seriously considering building myself a suit of armor.) But rarely does something mean only one thing; I believe there are also other ways in which this type of garment reflects something I see in myself, or want to see in myself. 

I believe this is a rich and fascinating field of inquiry. Stop to think, just for a minute, about what your clothing says to the world about you. How does your clothing change from day to day, and over longer periods of time? What are the different social messages being sent by the guy in shorts, flip flops, and a Hawaiian shirt; or the guy in the business suit; or the guy in the ripped black jeans, the leather jacket and boots, and the nose ring? In any case, I've recently purchased a college textbook called "The Social Psychology of Dress" (with chapters such as 'The Origins and Functions of Dress," "Dress and Impression Formation," and "Dress and Social Groups") which promises to dive deeply into these questions of fashion and psychology. I'm very interested to read it.

I was recently commissioned to build a shade structure for Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. The request stipulated that the shade structure would be situated just next to Becoming Human, and would tie together with the sculpture somehow. I came up with an idea, but Christina had a much better idea, so I'm building that. It will be the flower patch from which the big guy picked his flower. So... I've been back in the shop doing metal fabrication for the last few weeks. Pictures to come.

That's it for now.

Keep being creative, everybody.