every day i will give you a color

COLORS PASSING THROUGH US

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed
and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise
and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions
by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus
stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons.
Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow,
as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle
on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like
strings of fire.

Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy, “Colors passing through us” from Colors Passing Through Us (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). First appeared in The Southern California Anthology 16 (Fall 1999). Copyright © 1999, 2003 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.

seeing softly

john henry twachtman and peter henry emerson both worked in the same time period, the 1880s and 90s. twachtman was an american, and emerson, though born in cuba, spent his life in england.

emerson is said to have been the first photographer to insist that film, beyond its documentary potential,
was an appropriate tool for making art as well.

in these positions, he became well-known, and stieglitz credited him as being his first important influence.

twachtman was a painter, often of the landscapes near his home in connecticut, though he travelled in europe and lived for a bit in paris.

so how does one discuss the wonderful similarities in their work, and, not to put to sharp a point on it, that too of hiroshige? quite simply: both were tremendously influenced by whistler, and, obviously, by whistler's own inspiration -- the japanese prints.

both were known to appreciate the tonal subtlety and asymmetry of the prints; additionally, stark composition, flattened spaces, and japanese-like embellishments were employed by both.

both felt that by fashioning familiar places with unfamiliar elements increased one's consciousness of the place, and perhaps revealed elements inside what meets the eye.

see twactman's work in context until october 19 at the clark (and read more here and here), and see emerson's work in context until september 8 at the mia (and online here).

and then while you're at it, go to the met to see the turner show and wonder how the man could have been so prescient having died several years before any black ships appeared in the edo harbor.

... and where it stops, nobody knows....

some really interesting strategies were used to popularize this new artform: posters. first, of course, there were the japanese. in what westerners were the first to accept as fine art, we received "adver- tisements" for kabuki stars and courtesans, and learned from them.

we learned not only simplification and effectiveness, and all of the other things we've discussed here, but also we learned new things about color.

what was the first "poster scheme"? marketing? promotion? art? jules cheret, an artist and the owner of a printing company, corralled the artists of this new medium from around the world to create masters of the poster. "They were published in book form by Librarie Chaix in Paris, the printing firm owned by Cheret, and subscriptions were taken. Four posters were sent every month." 1 you may notice that most of the posters you've ever had on your walls were originally part of this project. by unifying, the many became one, became memorable.

two other successful poster campaigns remind me of each other -- not in strategy but in style. the uses of the 'new colors,' the brightness, the flattened plains; both caught the eye, held it, and pleased it. the first was the series of posters for the london underground.

"London Transport Museum cares for one of the finest poster archives in the world. For 100 years, since Frank Pick commissioned the first graphic poster for London Underground, the company and its successors have kept copies of everything they produced. In the early 20th century, under Pick's guidance, London Transport commissioned work from the best artists and designers in the world." 2 in the end, more than 5000 posters had been created.

like the 'masters' series, the other poster campaign was also run as a subscription service. "In 1923, marketer Charles Rosenfeld and Chicago printer Charles Mather teamed up to begin selling subscriptions to an annual poster series for motivating and inspiring workers. What began as a novel concept to use up excess capacity turned into a very popular series seen in hundreds of factories across the U.S. during the Roaring Twenties.

"Every week, companies changed posters based on their sequence number, worker's 'needs' or current events. Mather conveniently categorized each poster thematically, from laziness, responsibility, mistakes, and 'unprogressiveness' to fire prevention and even practical joking." 3

japanese style, colors, and forms of emphasis were continued, then expanded upon. as japonisme branched off into modernism, outlines were often dropped, but the new ways of seeing that had been brought about by the import of the japanese prints remained important influences.

"The Mather posters were tightly integrated advertising messages – a bold headline, a catchy image to match, and beautiful lithography and design that made the next week’s poster something to look forward to seeing. Executed by a first class team of prominent graphic artists from the Chicago area the posters were innovative and graphically sophisticated. As the years progressed, colors became brighter, designs more eye-catching and succinct, and the text reduced to shorter, simple phrases. The 1927 series is particularly striking with its tapestry-like backgrounds and bold color combinations.

"Mather created about 350 different images before the series came to an abrupt end with the stock market crash in 1929. Jobs were hard to come by, and employers didn’t have the cash or the need to motivate workers as they had in the salad days of the Twenties. Today, the posters represent a snapshot of their time – cars, fashions and values portrayed in a homespun way that at times seems foreign, and at others a lot like today." 3

back in england, "Publicity soon extended to subsidiary bus and tram companies, for which posters subscribed to the same 'soft sell' approach. This time however, the subjects were idyllic rural scenes to tempt the city dwellers out of London. Pick believed that posters fulfilled a loftier purpose than simply encouraging greater use of transport services. He had a passionate commitment to good design and an enlightened approach to the commercial application of art. Pick saw the potential of posters to enrich the quality of urban life in London.

"Unsatisfied with the quality of design offered by commercial artists employed by printing firms, Pick organised commissions directly with artists and illustrators. He approached skilled and respected practitioners of their day, but also younger, lesser- known artists. In 1915, Pick spotted the talent of Edward McKnight Kauffer, who went on to dominate the British poster art field." 2

soon, of course similar stylistic devices were displayed widely, from film posters, to children's books, to the actual united states government. (remember the posters from WWI?) the colors and the style spread throughout the west, and then the world, opening up, folded in upon itself and goodness knows what just might happen next.

a poem as long as California

PSYCHOANALYSIS: AN ELEGY

What are you thinking about?

I am thinking of an early summer.
I am thinking of wet hills in the rain
Pouring water. Shedding it
Down empty acres of oak and manzanita
Down to the old green brush tangled
in the sun,
Greasewood, sage, and spring mustard.
Or the hot wind coming down
from Santa Ana
Driving the hills crazy,
A fast wind with a bit of dust in it
Bruising everything and making the seed sweet.
Or down in the city where the peach trees
Are awkward as young horses,
And there are kites caught on the wires
Up above the street lamps,
And the storm drains are all choked with dead branches.

What are you thinking?










I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.

What are you thinking now?








I’m thinking that she is very much like California.
When she is still her dress is like a roadmap. Highways
Traveling up and down her skin
Long empty highways
With the moon chasing jackrabbits across them
On hot summer nights.
I am thinking that her body could be California
And I a rich Eastern tourist
Lost somewhere between Hell and Texas
Looking at a map of a long, wet, dancing California
That I have never seen.
Send me some penny picture-postcards, lady,
Send them.
One of each breast photographed looking
Like curious national monuments,
One of your body sweeping like a three-lane highway
Twenty-seven miles from a night’s lodging
In the world’s oldest hotel.

What are you thinking?










I am thinking of how many times this poem
Will be repeated.
How many summers
Will torture California
Until the damned maps burn
Until the mad cartographer
Falls to the ground and possesses
The sweet thick earth from which he has been hiding.

What are you thinking now?

I am thinking that a poem could go on forever.

Jack Spicer



Forthcoming from The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
from Wesleyan University Press.

rain for roxy, whenever she wants it

I'M ONLY HAPPY WHEN IT RAINS

Im only happy when it rains
Im only happy when its complicated
And though I know you cant appreciate it
Im only happy when it rains





You know I love it
when the news is bad
And why it feels so good
to feel so sad
Im only happy when it rains


Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
I feel good when things are going wrong
I only listen to the sad, sad songs
Im only happy when it rains

I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didnt accidentally tell you that
Im only happy when it rains

Youll get the message
by the time Im through
When I complain about me and you
Im only happy when it rains

Pour your misery down, pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down

You can keep me company
As long as you dont care

Im only happy when it rains
You wanna hear about my new obsession?
Im riding high upon a deep depression
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me ...

Garbage

(don't miss tom hanks' version of 'singing in the rain'
in the movie punchline.)

the birth of clouds

THE SENSE OF THE SLEIGHT-OF-HAND MAN

One’s grand flights,
one’s Sunday baths,
One’s tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur.
So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons
rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there.
Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are comets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.

Wallace Stevens

“The Sense of the Sleight-of-hand Man” from Collected Poems.
Copyright 1923, 1951, 1954 by Wallace Stevens.
Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc. Source: Poetry (July 1939).

what a strange day.

at long last i noticed that japanese prints, in addition to only very rarely featuring shadows or reflections, as we've discussed before here and here and here, only rarely have clouds!, certainly never, until the shin hanga artists gave them birth, as sunset, billowing, nor multi-colored.

when clouds did appear, they were almost exclusively used to augment a painting of a mountain, an evidence of heights. the mountain were subject, and the clouds servants. certainly no images of clouds for the sake of the clouds, as one might often see waves for the sake of water.

so i found myself wondering: if shadows and reflections were not included because of their ephemeral nature, as we've read in several places now, then is perhaps the same true of clouds?

i could find nothing online nor in my books (what ever happened to indexing???!), so i decided to call "the experts." i tried tracing down curators of japanese prints at various museums, but when i found only dead ends, i started phoning dealers, some of whom are listed in the sidebar here, and essayists i know from online. and to a man (yes, deliberate usage) they said the same thing:

"its not true that there are few shadows or reflections in japanese prints!" "but but," i say, "what about the idea about excluding them because they're too ephemeral?" "where do you get these ideas?" (annoyed? angry?) "and then when shin hanga came along....," i struggled, clinging to straws. the final guy had the nerve to tell me i really needed to look at more than a basic ukiyo-e collection. had no idea whatsoever of what's online now,
not to mention on my bookshelves.

my index-less books, though, again were no help. which is why the gods invented the internet:

"Internal Light

"While van Gogh never specifically referred to optics, his remark that the Japanese "take reflections for granted" illustrates he was aware of the issue. The Sunflowers, Bridge at Arles, and the Harvest at La Crau, and the other images that painted that year all have something in common with each other and with the Japanese print. They convey a visual rather than an optical effect.

"What is the difference between them? As we saw, Van Gogh eliminated clair-obscure from his painting. Clair-obscure, of course, is the result of light, or, more specifically, light external to the picture. When he banned shadows from his paintings, and used flat, "artificial" colors, he also eliminated external light from the picture. The Sunflowers, just like the shadowless Japanese print, has neither a light source nor shadows. The light in the painting is "internal." By using color as an independent reality -- independent of optical perception -- it followed that the painting assumed an independent reality. The painting is no longer an optical facsimili of the visual world, it was a reality in its own right.

"The idea to treat a painting as a reality in its own right, of course, became the hallmark of the Modernist Revolution. The realization that a picture, before it is anything else, is an independent reality – a two-dimensional artifact – is still topical. Not only painting but contemporary electronic media are first and foremost two-dimensional, artificial media that are visually more expressive when treated as such. If contemporary Japanese imagery seems to have an unusually clarity, the reason is no doubt that the eye of the Japanese artists was never blurred, as it were, by the filter op naturalism. Esthetically speaking, Japan's traditional culture already possessed some eminently modern characteristics." 1

"Monet's early paintings show the influence of the flat planes of bold colour, asymmetric compositions, and telescoping of foreground and distant views with no middle distance – features characteristic of 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints.... Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-58) is characterised by its unusual viewpoints. Evening View of Saruwaka Street (1856) in the Kabuki theatre district of the city, with its European linear perspective and single vanishing point, is the most overtly realist view in the series. Its most unusual feature is Hiroshige's use of shadows, rarely seen in Japanese art, that produce an eerie quality." -- Colin Martin

"artists who worked the aforementioned style circa 1860, shows the integration of western stylistic elements, such as shadows and perspective, juxtaposed to the typical elements of the ukiyo-e." 2

so you tell me. what are these guys talking about?
like i said, the weirdest day!