the moon in the stone

who, after all, is the artist? or has the concept of the individual artist always been a myth? even the most solitary of the arts, writing, is probably only solitary in a small percentage of the time; as an editor, i have seen unedited manuscripts. editors, like trans- lators, are the silent hand in the process of creating art in literature.

what about painting? there, i will admit, it's hard to imagine paintings to be group endeavors. but let's look at it from another perspective: beyond even the time when students collaborated on the master's pieces, the history of art is crammed with stories of agents and galleries telling the painters what the public wants, what they can sell.

who is the artist in these little birds, the carver of the form, or the maker of the color? for me, the color in the work of almeric walter is the revelation. turns out, though, that the two ele- ments were contributed by two different people. henri berge carved the creature, walter himself developed, or rather refined, a method of calling the most from his production of pate-de-verre.

which is just like what it sounds like, mashed then made malleable glass, poured into moulds (of the little statues) which have been painted on the inside, and then with various powders and chemicals to insist on the color to go where the artist wants. who is the artist?

pate-de-verre, marqueterie-de-verre, pate-de-cristal.... numerous glass artists were avid to employ these revived methods which had been originally popular in ancient greece and rome. to my mind, of the first, walter and berge were the undisputed mas- ters, but there were other artists who offered some wonderful pieces.

one of these was gabriel argy-rousseau, who, as far as i can determine, designed his own pieces (and is a very early user of a hyphenated last name, borrowing the 'argy' from his wife's name). i really like this piece, and some of his other work is mesmerizing, but in the end the limited pallet of both color and style, loses my interest.

francois-emile decorchment produced some spectacular pieces, his experimentation drew some fabulous results, but his output of this style was limited to far fewer than the 100 or so pieces walter and berge produced.

when i was in paris, the one item in the museum of decorative arts that most aston- ished me was a simple string of glass flowers, a necklace by lalique in which every little flower seemed to contain the light of the moon. i can't tell you how that moonlight is inserted into these pieces, nor why i am so profoundly touched by it, but it is, and i am, and for this i am grateful.

the maestro, without a doubt, despite the grand trickery of decorchement, the cool brilliant elegance of lalique, the constant charm of argy-rousseau, or the radiance of walter and berge, was, of course, emile galle.

there was no technique with which he did not experiment and excel. there was nothing in the range of art nouveau styles and techniques which he did not only make his own, but take the form to an incandescent new level.

the saddest case is that of daum, the entire clan, who were the ones to bring glassmaking to nancy. galle came to nancy a bit later, establishing his own firm, a companion and competitor to the daums. sad because while they were the first, while walter and berge started off working for him. though walter sold him the rights (non-exclusively) to his methods, to my eye, the daums were never able to quite pull it off.

daum was salieri to galle's mozart; while some of his (their) work is beautiful, as a whole it is just not a revelation of genius. but i can't presume sadness from this distance. nor envy. nor pride. what is important is that the daums created an atmosphere in which great miracles could happen, and they continue still.

i must add my gratitude for a wonderful blog
for seeing this amazing, mostly regional, work: HERE

boobs a lot

BOOBS A LOT

Do you like boobs a lot?
(Yes, I like boobs a lot.)
Boobs a lot, boobs a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)
Really like boobs a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)
Boobs a lot, boobs a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)

Down in the locker room,
Just three boys,
Beatin' down the locker room
With all that noise,

Singin' do you like boobs a lot?
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)
Boobs a lot, boobs a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)

Do you wear your jock a lot?
(Yes, I wear my jock a lot.)
Got to wear your jock a lot.
(Got to wear your jock a lot.)
Jock a lot, jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)
Got to wear your jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)

Well, down on the football,
Football field,
You never can tell
What a heel can wield,

So you gotta wear your jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)
Jock a lot, jock a lot.
(You gotta wear your jock a lot.)

If I had a flag-a-long,
(If I had a flag-a-long.)
If I had a long flag-a-long,
If I had a long flag-a-long,
If you like boobs a lot, tag along

Bee beep, bop, de boob a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)
Boobs a lot, boobs a lot.
(You gotta like boobs a lot.)

They're big and round,
They're all around.
They're big and round,
They're all around.

REPEAT

The Fugs

The Fugs First Album, ESP 1018, 1966

bright dust

POPPIES

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin

and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

Mary Oliver

we were a passionate couple

[This was Lawrence's first book, a first edition with 1910 date on the copyright page. It was quickly changed to 1911. Apparently only a handful of copies in the first issue state are known to exist.

The United States' first appearance was significant since it contained sexually explicit passages considered too suggestive for the time and were taken out and/or revised for the first British edition, which didn't appear until later.

The original had pages 227 and 230 revised for the British issue, including
p. 230 originally as: "God! – we were a passionate couple – and she would have me in her bedroom while she drew Greek statues of me…"; and was changed to: "Lord! – we were an infatuated couple – and she would choose to view me in an aesthetic light…."] 1

from
THE WHITE PEACOCK

We got married. She gave me a living she had in her parsonage, and we went to live at her Hall. She wouldn't let me out of her sight. God! -- we were a passionate couple -- and she would have me in her bedroom while she drew Greek statues of me -- her Croton, her Hercules! I never saw her drawings. She had her own way too much -- I let her do as she liked with me.

Then gradually she got tired -- it took her three years to have a real bellyful of me. I had a physique then -- for that matter I have now."

He held out his arm to me, and bade me try his muscle. I was startled. The hard flesh almost filled his sleeve.

"Ah," he continued, "You don't know what it is to have the pride of a body like mine. But she wouldn't have children -- no, she wouldn't -- said she daren't. That was the root of the difference at first But she cooled down, and if you don't know the pride of my body you'd never know my humiliation. I tried to remonstrate -- and she looked simply astounded at my cheek. I never got over that amazement.

She began to get souly. A poet got hold of her, and she began to affect Burne-Jones -- or Waterhouse -- it was Waterhouse -- she was a lot like one of his women -- Lady of Shalott, I believe. At any rate, she got souly, and I was her animal -- son animal-son boeuf. I put up with that for above a year. Then I got some servants' clothes and went.

I was seen in France -- then in Australia -- though I never left England. I was supposed to have died in the bush. She married a young fellow. Then I was proved to have died, and I read a little obituarynotice on myself in a woman's paper she subscribed to. She wrote it herself -- as a warning to other young ladies of position not to be seduced by plausible "Poor Young Men."

Now she's dead. They've got the paper -- her paper -- in the kitchen down there, and it's full of photographs, even an old photo of me --" an unfortunate misalliance." I feel, somehow, as if I were at an end too. I thought I'd grown a solid, middle-aged- man, and here I feel sore as I did at twenty-six, and I talk as I used to.

One thing -- I have got some children, and they're of a breed as you'd not meet anywhere. I was a good animal before everything, and I've got some children."

He sat looking up where the big moon swam through the black branches of the yew.

"So she's dead -- your poor peacock!" I murmured.

He got up, looking always at the sky, and stretched himself again. He was an impressive figure massed in blackness against the moonlight, with his arms outspread.

"I suppose," he said, "it wasn't all her fault."
"A white peacock, we will say," I suggested.

D. H. Lawrence

museum monday

This exhibition includes about 120 works by the leading designers and fabricators of late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Art Nouveau jewelry. Although many of these artists acquired their skills in traditional, high-style jewelry houses, they found inspiration in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, the philosophy of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the paintings and poetry of the symbolists, and the arts of Japan.

For motifs, they looked to the flora (orchids, lilies) and fauna (dragonflies, butterflies) of the natural world and the sensuality of the female form.

This new aes- the- tic was, in large measure, a reaction against nineteenth century historicism, industrialization, and the “tyranny of the diamond,” and these Art Nouveau artists chose to interpret nature rather than imitate it. 1

MFA Boston • Avenue of the Arts • 465 Huntington Avenue • Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5523 • 617-267-9300

a couple of exciting exhibitions at the MOMA almost worth flying to new york for (also remember):

Batiste Madalena: Hand-Painted Film Posters for the Eastman Theatre, 1924–1928 October 15, 2008–April 6, 2009
and

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
September 21, 2008–January 5, 2009

check out the wonderful site

MOMA • 11 West 53 Street • between Fifth and Sixth avenues • New York NY 10019-5497 • 212- 708-9400

a thesis of weaves and hallows

Beware of gnawing
the ideogram of nothingness:
Your teeth will crack. Swallow it whole, and you’ve a treasure
Beyond the hope of Buddha and the Mind. The east breeze
Fondles the horse’s ears:
how sweet the smell of plum.

Karasumaru-Mitsuhiro (1579-1638) 1

PINE

The first night at the monastery,
a moth lit on my sleeve by firelight,
long after the first frost.

A short stick of incense burns
thirty minutes, fresh thread of pine
rising through the old pine of the hours.

Summer is trapped under the thin
glass on the brook, making
the sound of an emptying bottle.

Before the long silence,
the monks make a long soft rustling,
adjusting their robes.

The deer are safe now. Their tracks
are made of snow. The wind has dragged
its branches over their history.

Chase Twichell

“Pine” by Chase Twichell from The Snow Watcher published by Ontario Review Press. © 1998 by Chase Twichell.

THIS LITTLE GLADE, REMEMBER

When lying beneath a ponderosa
pine, looking up through layers
of branches, mazes of leaf-spikes

and cones—contemplation grows
receptive to complexity,
the pleasant temptation of pine-
scented tangle. Sky as proposition
is willingly divided and spliced
into a thesis of weaves and hallows.

Name them something else
if you wish, but needled shadow
and substance are, in this hour,
an architecture of philosophy.

And a rising wind, called ”a rough
and bawdy wind“ by a rough and bawdy
voice, is that wind and that voice
transformed. The structure of words
sways and bends in the blow.

Looking away into the clear sky, expectation shifts. Vision becomes/ a welcome to guests
of crows in new/ dimensions who themselves become/ not only depth and horizon
in a circus/ of wings but old vision’s startling visitors.

Not soul alone, but soul consumed
by a single bee descending into the center
of a purple mountain lily is soul
to a soul suckled in sleep.

Earth and human together
form a unique being. A brief era
of immortality is lent to each
by the other. Move momentarily
now—with hovering granite cliff,
with sun-stripe flick of perhaps
vagrant shrew, with raised tack
of mightly larkspur—into this company.

Pattiann Rogers

“This Little Glade, Remember” from Generations.
Copyright © 2004 by Pattiann Rogers.