the abstract

i sat on the swing out back this afternoon, trying to cajole ruby into sitting with me. yellow leaves were falling from the chinese evergreen elm.

i found myself wondering whether a leaf is considered an animate object. and if so, when is it animate no longer. when is it dead? what if it falls when it's crimson, then turns brown and dries out on the ground.

a few days back i drove by a chain-link fence with a vine crawling along it, or rather hanging from it, now. i suddenly realized how often the dead leaf is part of japanese art and how rarely in the west.

can you tell which of these images are by eastern or western artists? ironically, much was written in the west about the incredible influence of japanese design on design in the west. the western images here illustrate that.

but the japanese images here were seen as strongly western in style! "Seiho Takeuchi was trained in traditional Japanese Shijo painting. Soon he developed his own style. And after he had been in Europe for two years, his style had become even more messy seen from the eyes of a strict Shijo painter. Takeuchi became famous as a distinctively Western style painter. " 1

the artists of the 20th century often developed styles that were so closely linked that easterners saw their own artists, now, as western, and vise versa. seitei watanabe also studied in paris, and was considered a western painter. to us they look asian. they do to me.

methods of teaching, though, were very different. seiho could be a rigid disciplinarian, in a way filled with heart. "[An artist] was appren- ticed to the late great Seiho Takeuchi who made him study the lives and habits of wild fowl for 16 years before he might set brush to silk panel.

For several hours a day he was made to squat in the marshes, by the duck ponds, silently meditating. When Seiho Takeuchi decided that [the artist] knew enough of the plumage, the habits, the anatomy, the temperament of ducks he was allowed to begin painting on silk panels with a camel's hair brush, not with oil paints, but with Chinese ink or Sumi." 2

CONTRARY THESES (II)

One chemical afternoon
in mid-autumn,
When the grand mechanics of earth and sky were near;
Even the leaves of the locust were yellow then,

He walked with his year-old boy
on his shoulder.
The sun shone and the dog barked
and the baby slept.
The leaves, even of the locust,
the green locust.

He wanted and looked for
a final refuge,
From the bombastic intimations
of winter
And the martyrs a la mode. He walked toward

An abstract, of which the sun,
the dog, the boy
Were contours. Cold was chilling the wide-moving swans.
The leaves were falling
like notes from a piano.

The abstract was suddenly there and gone again.
The negroes
were playing football in the park.
The abstract that he saw, like the locust-leaves, plainly:

The premise from which
all things were conclusions,
The noble, Alexandrine verve. The flies
And the bees still sought
the chrysanthemums’ odor.

Wallace Stevens


“Contrary Theses (II)” from Collected Poems. Copyright 1923, 1951, 1954 by Wallace Stevens.

naked

AUGUST METEOR SHOWER

While they're here I hold them
like my breath.
They deepen the sky
like blood in my body,
I'm glad to offer







my body like this -- a small craft
over fields of water, where light can fall, be lost, be caught,
be held.
I'm naked in my chair,
facing the window.





If I were outside I'd want to look up
and see someone naked in every window.

I think we need
the difficult river, we need the absence of tenderness
so love can come like shooting stars
if it comes.

Ruth L. Schwartz







from Dear Good Naked Morning C 2005 Ruth L. Schwartz

estampes japonaises

online here


i made a comment in the comments about the color in the bnf online gallery of this, so i'm posting these to compare. the one on the right is the bnf and the one below is the best of the mfa's three.

on the first day

first, yes. i know this is the same song as yesterday. but it's the version i wanted off this very wonderful tribute to joseph spence cd that i have called "out on the rolling sea." since it's all music from the bahamas, i thought the singers were from there too. uh, nope. blue murder.

second-- i and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of folks here in berkeley followed our annual new year's day ritual: we went shopping for calendars at the pegasus bookstore annual calendar sale: 3 for $10! what a great lot of calendars i found there yesterday. now this one from the carl larsson calendar -- what is that pink thing??! in front of the lamp.

i also found one of 'impressionist photographers'! this gertrude kasebier is hanging on my wall at this moment, and if i lean my head just a little to the left i see her there.

while i was poking around in the piles and piles of calendars, i started talking with a woman about design. turns out her father did this, among numerous other WPA posters! one of my favorites! wouldn't it be cool if our obama puts artists to work as part of new deal redux?

now, a couple of days ago, you know, the one with the crescent moons, i had an image i was going to use till i suddenly remembered it was new, as opposed to the 100 years old that it looks.

his name is john martinez.

these are both images from a long series he did about operas.

look how amazingly he manages to meld jugendstil, art nouveau and other japonisme styles.

snuggle up tonight: tomorrow: LIGHT!!!

Aaron Neville

earth water fire & air

the natural cards revolve ever changing
seeded elsewhere planted in the garden fair grow trees, grow trees

tongues of the sheer wind
setting you foot where the sand is untrodden,
the ocean that only begins







listen a woman with a bulldozer built this house now
carving away the mountain whose name is your childhood home
we were trying to buy it buy it buy it
someone was found killed there all bones bones dry bones





earth water fire and air
met together in a garden fair
put in a basket bound with skin
if you answer this riddle
you'll never begin

born in a house where
the doors shut tight
shadowy fingers on the
curtains at night
cherry tree blossom head high snow
a busy main road
where I wasn't to go





I used to sit on the garden wall
say hello to people going by so tall
hallo to the postman's stubbly skin
hallo to the baker's stubbly grin
mrs thompson gave me a bear
brigitte and some people lived upstairs



skating on
happy valley pond
various ministers and guards stood around
the ice was nice hallo the invisible brethren
and there was a tent you played cards with the
soldiers in, don't worry we won't send anyone
after you they screamed
but me and licorice saw the last of them one
misty twisty day
across the mournful morning moor motoring away
singing ladybird, ladybird what is your wish
your wish is not granted unless it's a fish
your wish is not granted unless it's a dish
a fish on a dish is that what you wish

earth water fire and air
met together in a garden fair
put in a basket bound with skin
if you answer this riddle
you'll never begin

true beauty

when chester a arthur moved into the white house, he called in some of the most important designers of the moment to decorate. it was 1882; he called tiffany.

louis comfort tiffany and artist associates of his, including candace wheeler, designed windows, screens, fabrics and more, none of which lasted long enough for a color photo (teddy roosevelt wanted something more colonial revival).

fortunately (for several reasons), some of his interior design collaborations have lasted, and in fact some are now finally being restored.

when new york city's 7th armory was constructed on park between 66th and 67th. "It was constructed from 1877 to 1881 for the prestigious Seventh Regiment. The Seventh Regiment had a glorious history. It was the first militia to respond to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers in 1861, and the name National Guard originated with this regiment.

"After completing the Drill Hall and the three-floor Administration Building along Park Avenue, the Regiment hired the most prominent design firms in New York to create the luxurious interiors. One of the most well-known firms, Associated Artists, included Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White and Candace Wheeler.

"The Aesthetic Movement, popularized in the US by the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, emphasized the ‘aesthetic” or artistic in the applied arts and reached its culmination in the design of interior decoration. The design is characterized by visual complexity and profusion of surface ornament, embracing many different historical styles, including Japanese, Moorish and other exotic motifs. The regimental rooms, most notably the Veterans Room and the Library, are among the most stunning spaces anywhere in New York City." 1

and it was fortunate for us, in a manner no one could have predicted:

"Ten years ago I stumbled on my first reference to the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. I was studying American architecture at Yale University and preparing a paper on armory buildings in New York City. Tiffany, I found, had decorated the Veterans' Room and Library for one of these.

"The following semester, I presented a seminar report on Tiffany as the leading American exponent of Art Nouveau and, just for fun, I purchased a Favrile glass bowl make by Tiffany as a demon- stration of his work. It cost four dollars and I thought it was expensive. Today it is worth a great deal more. [1,000 times more] When I brought it home my wife asked, 'How long do we have to keep it?'"

Robert Koch, 1964 •
Louis C. Tiffany: Rebel in Glass.

in 1957, mr koch went on to complete his dissertation on tiffany, and then in 1958, to curate, with thomas s tibbs, the tiffany exhibition at the museum of contemporary crafts.

tiffany said, “Styles are merely the copying of what others have done, perhaps done better than we. God has given us our talents, not to copy the talents of others, but rather to use our brains and our imaginations in order to obtain the revelation of True Beauty.”

t's true: his work was stylistic enough that we can easily see when he left his "aesthetic phase" and entered his "art nouveau phase." but every artist believes this of their work, and must. it's how our collective unconscious moves through time.