Almost Wordless Wednesday: Win a Prize Worth More than $10 if You Can Answer "Where Am I?"

Clue #1: Deja Vu  

CORRECTLY IDENTIFY WHERE THESE PHOTOS WERE TAKEN

AND YOU WILL WIN SOMETHING WORTH MORE THAN $10

ALONG WITH A FEW ORIGINAL ED NEW DOODLES.

LEAVE YOUR GUESS IN THE COMMENTS.

EdNote: Family members ineligible

as well as artists born in Detroit.

CLUE #2: Read my Blog Posts from the Past 3 Years

Innovation Institute, Autumn Update

"It is above all by imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope."
~ Ursula Le Guinn

The name of the school is Innovation Institute, a state-of-the-art vocational school for the wheelchair bound. The mission is to get products into the hands of the physically challenged that they couldn’t get anywhere else or they couldn’t afford. And, to give them new skills so they can earn some extra money for the first time in their lives… to achieve a greater measure of freedom and dignity.

It is not arts and crafts for the sake of filling time, but a serious industrial arts school designed to provide hands on training in everything from from locksmithing and auto mechanics to welding and metalwork.

The school is an enormously ambitious project, the result of Harrold Andresen’s inner passion to do something significant for a neglected portion of our community: the wheelchair bound. Most of us are too busy to give much thought to the complicated challenges people in wheelchairs wrestle with on a daily basis. Andresen, who converted two thirds of his 20-stall Duncanville auto repair business (Mechanical Excellence) into a space for the school, is remarkably attuned to the needs of his students. According to Andresen, “You can buy a grabber that has two claws, but you can’t buy a grabber that has two cups that you could fill with bird seed so you could fill your bird feeder. That’s what they want to do.” In other words, they want to overcome conventional limitations.

Andresen’s insights have been culled from years of interaction, research and serious reflection. He lives at their level. In conjunction with his wheelchair bound friends and students, they creatively engineered handicapped restrooms that do more than meet the letter of the law. They are actually useful and workable. But it took innovation.

It boils down to the practical chores of daily living that most of us take for granted. “The biggest interest of the 30 or so people that have been involved so far in the last four years here is with those kinds of products, not just to make new ones that don’t exist but to fix the old ones that don’t work quite right for them. Like the guy with the squeezer, we made a longer handle because his hands are too weak, so he doesn’t have to use two hands to run his squeezer. And it’s perfect now, at very little cost. And then the offshoot of that is, okay we served this guy and it was very simple and didn’t cost very much… we just modified a nine dollar Wal-Mart grabber. But to take that idea and say there are probably other people out there who want a cheap grabber that had longer handles and was much easier to operate. Take this concept and say, ‘Okay, how can we get that to those people and can we make it ourselves? Who do we want to make it?’ We want to employ people in wheelchairs. So we talked to five people and said, ‘Well, can you guys fix rivets and shrink wrap?’

“So we get the logistics down, and then we say we gotta market this and build this. Do we need a million dollars in capital to start this business, the cost of a typical business start up? What’s so totally unique about this is that the answer is no. These people are saying two hundred dollars a month would change their lives. ‘If I had four hundred dollars a month I’d lose my social security benefits! I can’t make more than so much’… and they have a pretty small window.”

“Then there’s this disconnect where they say, ‘Well, I’ll go to Jr. college and I’ll study word processing and go try and find a job.’ And if they could, which is unlikely, but let’s say they can (find a position), the employer says, ‘Well can you work 40, 30, 20 hours?’ and they say no. ‘Well, what can you work?’

“The average person in a wheel chair, actually 90 percent on disability could work that job on the days they felt good enough to work that job. What about ten hours a week? So here I am with my diploma, will you hire me for ten hours a week? And the employer says there’s no positions open for 10 hours a week. Who do you think you are, everyone here would like to work ten hours a week and have random schedule, maybe Tuesday and maybe Thursday. So this guy can’t get a job; the system won’t accommodate him.”

Andresen, a graduate of Minnesota’s Dunwiddy Institute, is one of the most creative people I know when it comes to mechanical engineering and re-engineering. His inventions to solve problems under the hood or around the home are too numerous to enumerate here. Despite the obstacles in getting ideas to market, he is sustained by an irrepressible optimism that makes one believe all things are still possible.

Apart from his family this is no doubt Harrold’s biggest life project to date. He has five years invested in laying the groundwork. Funding for the school is dependent on the generosity of others. Harrold’s done the heavy lifting, championing the vision and bring it to a place where others can now see and understand that which was at one time only a wispy germ of a seed.

This brief introduction is inadequate for capturing the scope of the project. If interested in learning more, or in making a contribution to this important work, visit their website, which like the school is a work in progress.

Born Standing Up

Why do stand up clubs have a bright light facing the stage with the rest of the room dark? Why do people laugh? Why did the eggplant cross the road?

Answers to the first two questions will be found in Steve Martin's seriously interesting autobiography Born Standing Up. I first read this book when it came out two Christmases ago (yes, it was a Christmas gift) and just finished listening to the audio version this week. Martin reads it with a suitable mix of charm and gravity.

When I read the book two winters ago I was making my own fledgling first steps in stand up comedy. Before I even started down that path I knew I was not going far. Though I was born feet first, I was not born standing up. But I enjoyed the experience (comedy, not birth) and learned a few things about myself, and comedy, as well.

Martin's book shows how very difficult the climb will be if you are seriously seeking fame in the entertainment field. It is much more than being at the right place at the right time, as some suppose. One must be prepared and that preparation takes years. Martin learned the rudimentaries of entertainment as a teen selling magic tricks at Disneyland. He worked in one of those little slots where the guy does tricks to attract an audience, then sells the secret along with the trick. The patter, the timing, the confidence... it doesn't all come together in six hours in front of a mirror. Entertainment of all kinds involves audience response, and usually a venue.

Stand up comics seldom have a perfect venue. There is always background noise, other activity going on and sometimes even hecklers. Learning how to deal with these distractions is all part of the prep.

The book, however, is also about a guy from a family with a sister, a mom and a dad. Without dwelling on it, early in the book he shares the degree of abuse he endured from his father. In summing up this chapter he writes, "I have heard it said that a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts. I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am well qualified to be a comedian."

The many anecdotes about other comedians, television personalities and musicians whose lives criss-crossed his own all help to place Martin's story into a context. But the family stories are important because in the book's summing up, there is closure with both his mom and dad. And he uses this experience, and the wise words of another friend, to remind readers that life is short and the opportunity for closure will not always be there.

For people who find this wild and crazy guy to be funny, the book spells out the philosophy behind what he was trying to achieve with his humor. If you did not always get it, it might be because sometimes there was nothing to "get".

I think that I shall never see...

Most of us are probably familiar with Joyce Kilmer's famous ode to trees that begins thus:

I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree.

One of the few poems of greater fame in this century might be Robert Frost's Two Roads, or the schoolyard ditty, "I'm a poet, and I know it." Though I am not precisely sure where the rest of that one goes.

What got me thinking about Kilmer's poem was an article I saw titled 10 Reasons Why Social Is Your Future SEO Strategy.

You're probably wondering what the link is between SEO marketing and poems about trees, but it's not much of a stretch from where I sit. Let's step back and look at the Southwest. Ansel Adams comes along and is utterly fascinated by the play of light on the western hills. Another family comes along with four teenage boys who see it as a recreational playground for their off-road vehicles. Another artist paints, and yet another writes inspired poetry. Then the entrepreneur comes along with a team of geologists. "This looks like the kind of rock that houses copper," or whatever. He raises a team of investors and they do exploratory drilling.

In other words, different people bring different perspectives to nearly everything. Artists and entrepreneurs are often at opposite ends of the spectrum here, but the most famous artists were usually pretty good business people, or got in league with them.

So it is with the Internet. In the 90's (the Middle Ages of Internet) the lay of the land was being transformed rapidly as countless settlers entered cyberspace and built web pages. These explorers were soon followed by eCommerce entrepreneurs who indeed saw dollar signs and reaped a harvest of them.

In what is called Web 2.0, the social networking spheres have ascended to prominence. In 2004 these were spurned by many entrepreneurs as time wasting distractions... like doing business in a bar. (I suppose it would depend on what kind of business you were doing.) MySpace and FaceBook grew into giants and other social networking siblings like Plaxo, LinkedIn and Twitter followed. Most of the people on Facebook and MySpace were initially simply fulfilling a natural human need: to socialize. Many were looking for like minded friends and others serious relationships. Ultimately, entrepreneurs recognize a market when they see one and now we have a horde of them scratching their heads trying to figure out how to crack this new nut.

10 Reasons is a pretty good article for eCommerce professionals. It all starts with one critical component: Content.

Did I forget to mention the link between the article and trees? It was this. One man looks at a tree and sees a poem. Another gets inspired to paint a picture. A third wishes to climb it and hang a rope on it for a tire swing. The fourth chops it down to make rocking chairs. (Hopefully he is growing more in its place.)

In the meantime, don't lose touch with your aesthetic self. After all, we're human, with hearts and souls.... not machines.

TREES
by Joyce Kilmer

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day, 5
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain. 10

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Delta Sky

Well, it’s official. Northwest Airlines has been swallowed by Delta. I know this because today’s in-flight mag offering is no longer the Northwest version. Today I am being introduced to Delta Sky.

Frankly, I've always thought in-flight magazines to be a pretty lame form of distraction. But maybe that’s because I've never flown Delta. I’ve done Eastern and Allegheny, but my primary transportation vehicle has been NWA, simply because no other airline wanted to have anything to do with these tiny airports ringing the outskirts of civilization known as "Up North."

So there it was, in the sleeve behind the seat in front of me, waiting for my curiosity to be aroused.

When I was a young wanna be freelance writer, I remember interviewing at a publishing house in St. Paul that produced some of these magazines. While sitting with my modest portfolio in a waiting room I talked with a woman who was on retainer to write for the company. She was paid six hundred dollars a piece, she said, which I thought was pretty good money considering my best paying gig had been about fifty bucks. (Do the math and you quickly see why I wasn’t quitting my day job painting apartments.)

The thing is, I wanted to write for these in-flight mags because they paid real bucks, but honestly found them so dry you could dip them into the Mississippi and they would still come out dry. Why is this? I’m sure the writers are trying to be interesting. I mean, some of those pieces I'd written for peanuts had lingo that really sang.

So I was on the plane this morning sliding my August Wired magazine into the pocket and there it was, Delta Sky. A smiling Serena Williams, tennis superchamp, graced the cover next to a large headline, “Got Game?” The subhead explains, “The Extra Mental Edge It Takes To Win.” OK, an article with celebrity sports stars telling their secrets.

After the plane is filled and we’re doing the runway thing I reach for my reading material, but instead choose SKY. First impressions can say a lot sometimes. I well remember my first impressions of the very first Wired magazine I purchased back in 1994. I’d attended a class at UMD on The Internet, and the instructor recommended it. So, like a dutiful student who was in awe of that first introduction to all things wired, I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble…. And… whoa, wow, way cool. I mean, the ads were just so strikingly original. This was an incredible magazine. I hadn’t even reached the content yet, but had reached a conclusion. I was determined to linger on every page.

It think it was the sense of style that hooked me. To this day Wired strives for that occasionally elusive but hip stance. Elusive because styles have cycles and can you really hit the bulls-eye with every burst?

And as the first pages glide past, I immediately sense that Sky is not Wired. The ads have no continuity and are uneven in quality. Feeling a little ho hum already I stumble past pages of print ads that must be either selling the wrong products or just have become too cliche to bother stopping at. I realize it takes a little work to come up with a compelling concept and a little more to bring eyeballs to a standstill. My goal is usually to attempt cardiac arrest. At least I'm aiming high.

OK, we're reaching the real magazine now, and the first section, after the clutter of introductions, is called Wheels Up. It is a section with articles related to travel, business and lifestyles. At least the title has a little panache. The section has that USA Today feel of little entertaining snippets and infobriefs. Sports stars and their paychecks. A Guide to the new "Freeconomics". Getting your point across in a foreign country. Five minutes with..

Here's a page about Brussels for Road Warriors. And something about Bernadette Peters speaking out for the animals. (Not the rock band. Sorry.) Followed by a half page on how to craft the perfect cocktail.

On and on. Too cluttered for my taste. And it still feels so much like an in-flight magazine. I dunno how they do that.

OK, here's an interesting page. It's called August Citylicious. It's actually attractive enough that one could theoretically enlarge it, and frame it as art. Or make it into a poster. It lists cities all over the world and cool things that are happening there, like the Guy Expo in St. Paul this weekend, or the World Water Week symposium in Stockholm. I wonder if Woodstock would have made this list forty years ago. Alas...

The rest of the mag has features and ads, most of them so cliche I am zoning out and paging through to the end of the book. As is the custom, the very last section is airport terminal maps to help you get oriented when you finally get your feet on the ground again.

As for this month's Wired, I will have to savor it on my return flight this weekend. That cover shot of Brad Pitt alone is worth the price of my subscription. Cover stories include Unintelligent Design and Is Google A Monopoly? Is Google a monopoly? I'll find out Saturday.

Let's Dance

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music." ~Angela Monet

It began with my mother. I was in junior high school and was about to go to my first dance. My mom thus took it upon herself to teach me how to dance. By this, I mean slow dance.

She'd bought a Tom Jones 45 rpm single and planned to have me learn the steps thereby. We were in the family room downstairs in our New Jersey home. Naturally I was self-conscious, but simultaneously interested in learning a few things about this all-important life skill. The very first thing is knowing where the hands go. For the guy, the left hand takes the girl's right hand, and the other goes to the side of the waist, or if a bit more friendly, wraps around the lower back.

The next part is the stepping about, which I really never mastered. I just move my weight from side to side a little, taking little steps forward and back. There are some guys who really know how to move them feet. But I never quite got that far in my lesson, because as I was shuffling back and forth next to my mom, my brother Ron and friend Tom walked into the room. I already mentioned being self-conscious and sure enough this was too much. I leaped back away from her in embarrassment (I was but a thirteen year old kid) and rammed the black and white television set so as to knock it off the TV stand to the floor, thus cracking the monitor. Can you believe it? That TV still worked, even with the crack, which became a perpetual reminder of my first dance lesson.

The dance itself consisted of the playing of 45s in the auditorium, which was also used for basketball and gym class activities. The area outlined by the basketball court is where the dancing took place, the entire perimeter lined with little boys in suits and girls in their finest, as well as a number of teachers holding rulers. The rulers were present as a measuring instrument because one of the rules was that we had to maintain a distance of six or twelve inches. (My recollection here lacks exactitude, though the rulers were very definitely present.)

That night, the first girl I asked to dance with me was Nancy Black. She said yes, and was nice about it. So I probably asked her a bunch of times to dance whenever the slow songs played. I still hadn't learned how to move on the fast stuff. That probably began in high school.

I don't recall who taught me the basic steps for dancing to rock 'n roll, but I never missed a dance. If you're guy the odds are in your favor because most of the other guys are too cool to dance, for fear of making a fool of themselves. The girls, on the other hands, though often found dancing with one another would prefer to have a guy step up and share the moment. In most settings where there's music, and people dancing, you will see someone tapping their feet and longing to be out there, but not really wanting to dance with themselves.

The key thing in dance is not being a great dancer, but simply enjoying yourself as you lose yourself in the music, the rhythms, and the social interactions with the one you are dancing with.
My dancing days are pretty limited now, but weddings provide occasions for getting up on one's feet. And for many years I have enjoyed dancing with my daughter at the father-daughter ball each year here in Duluth.

Dancing, of course, isn't limited to this modern era free form style, which some people associate solely with mating and lasciviousness. All kinds of ethnic cultures have their folk dances. In fact, the genres of dance are legion, from tangos, waltzes and salsa to jigs, ballet and disco. Tap dancers and groups like River Dance perform to entertain. Native Americans danced for special occasions with a wide variety of ceremonial dances, and during the special period of the persecution of Native Americans the Ghost Dance was even outlawed.

One of the best parts of dancing for me is losing myself in the music. And using one's whole body as a form of expression. Maybe that's what I enjoy about painting, too. The movement, the music, stepping back, forward, side-to-side. And not really knowing what's going to happen next.

EDNOTE: Most of the paintings and illustrations on my blog are available for sale. If you see something here that makes you say, "I gotta have it," be sure to let me know and we can negotiate a price. Feel free to click on images to enlarge.

Let’s Live For Today

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. ~Abraham Lincoln

Yesterday I started listening to Dale Carnegie's How To Stop Worrying & Start Living. Carnegie, if you recall, was the author of that phenomenal bestseller How To Win Friends & Influence People. If you have not read this latter, which was actually former to How To Stop Worrying, then you owe it to yourself to get a copy and make it a long term course for meditation. It is rich with anecdotes and literally life-changing advice.

Carnegie himself was born in poverty but went to college to become a teacher. After this, that and a handful of other misdirections, he found a measure of footing as a lecturer, and wrote a few unsuccessful books before churning out How To Win Friends, which proved a bestseller right out of the gate. By the time he died, the book had sold millions of copies and had been translated into 31 languages.

The funny part of How To Stop Worrying for me is that I can't help but associate the title with Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, a film that carries the comically menacing subtitle How to Stop Worrying & Love the Bomb. Nevertheless, Carnegie's book is no sideshow.

Carnegie’s book is similar in style to How to Win Friends in the sense that it is a compilation of anecdotal stories, quotes from famous people and insights from research. An early chapter addresses the importance of living one day at a time, not allowing the past to wreck the present or anxieties about the the future to ruin today. He writes, “One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.”

I’m sure that most of us have at one time or another allowed worries about the future to stain our enjoyment of the present. And who has not wrestled with regrets about the past at one time or another. Regret was what trapped the father in the hall of mirrors in Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Whether it’s the past or future that sideswipes your enjoyment of the present, let it go. Here are some good quotes to mull over.

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don't let the past steal your present.” ~Cherralea Morgen

“There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday.” ~Robert Nathan

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.” ~Oscar Wilde

“The past is a good place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.” ~Author Unknown

“Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.” ~Euripides

"Make it happen. Let's live for today." ~ennyman

Themes

"A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing." ~William Dobell

A lot of people have asked me if my show has a theme, or what kind of art I do. It was always hard to answer that since my work goes in a lot of directions. Eventually, I came to answer that my paintings and drawings were "in the modernist style." It is not classical, baroque or art nouveau, nor is it realism, landscape or still life. I can't call it abstract because much of it is representational to some extent. Certainly the portraits of Lincoln and Sitting Bull are straight up portraits.

As for themes, we have a friend who does gnomes. And some people do flowers. In American art, the major themes might include scenes from everyday life, historical subjects, abstract art, landscapes. Jackson Pollock did the large splatter paintings which brought him fame and fortune in the modern art world. Warhol did the screen printing work with its focus on pop culture, creating iconic images of Marilyn Monroe and soup cans.

Although there is a variety of styles in this show, one can't help but notice upon deeper reflection that certain themes emerge. One of these is the theme of suffering. We live in a broken world. Pieces like Scars Remain and Chase Ends In Suicide show the chaos of our culture, and a paintings like Grief and Sad Clown likewise show the personal impact this brokenness has.

Another theme, which may or may not be immediately recognized, is the underlying sense of the comic. I like making funny pictures, and also enjoy toying with people a little. My found art piece Tribute to DuChamp was intended to bring a wry smile to art connoisseurs, though I have now learned that most people do not know who DuChamp was any more. Nearly everyone gets a kick out of The Great Escape, a small brush and ink drawing of a man crawling on his knees with a guilty expression.

The most important thing to me is that people who walk the show take time to engage each piece, which might be an impossibility in light of the quantity. Someone once said that "the holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it." I can relate to that. I'm honored when people get drawn in, engage, interact. Too much of life is lived on the surface, and so it is that once in a while we need to get jarred, to be made to pause, to reflect... not only on the piece, but on that which is occurring within themselves as they engage the piece.

Or maybe I'm just trying to share a little about what I like to do when I get away from it all while others go fishing. Some people might just call it glorified doodling. It satisfies a need. Sharing my work, and seeing people enjoy it, satisfies a second.

Have a great day! Hopefully the rain will have stopped when you walk from your cars to the show tonight.

"Creativity takes courage." ~Matisse

One of the hardest things in writing is a blank piece of paper. Much has been written about it, as the mind races around trying to decide what to put down as the all important first sentence.

In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh wrote that he dislikes seeing a blank canvas, and when he sees one he feels obligated to smear paint on it. And I know exactly what he means.

In painting, before you can really do the work you have to do the prep. Once you get the surface ready (if canvas, with gesso) you still want to paint a neutral undercoat of some kind. At least, this is one approach that is common. It certainly doesn't apply if you are pouring stain onto a canvas like Louis Morris, but in traditional painting, that background undercoat helps set the tone.

So, I am staring at a box here where I am to write today's blog entry and I don't know where to go with it. Should I jump outside the box and write a string of absurd sentences about colons and dashboards or steering columns and carcinoma? Or do we follow this train we're on to some kind of logical conclusions?

I just deleted one direction this could have gone. Let's head southeast for a moment. No, wait, maybe west. Oh, never mind.

So, I am having an art opening this week on Tuesday evening. One of the pieces is a Tribute to Duchamp who said, "I am interested in ideas, not merely visual products." Thus was born the concept of conceptual art. The Tribute piece is an item I found at a garage sale for a buck, which if I were famous might garner ten thousand. The current price is, "To Highest Bidder."

The irony is that young people, and maybe even older ones, have never heard of Duchamp, or the urinal on display in a Philadelphia gallery (found art). They do not know Magritte, Matisse or any of the most prominent artists who initially steered the direction of 20th century art away from representationalism.

Another irony: I began my college studies moving in the direction of philosophy (ideas) but found art more appealing because you ended up with a visual product. So Duchamp pushed art in a direction, but pure idea as an end has to return to earth in some form... whether it be paintings or perhaps in acts of service to one's neighbors, community, etc.

Think about it. Then express yourself.

Tools of the Trade

Every trade has its tools, and visual arts is no exception. For drawing I have used a variety of pens, though for more than a decade I favored the Rapid-o-graph with its even lines and uninterrupted ink flow. If I had more time I would do more with pencils, but they are currently not my strongest suit. Instead, I favor brushes. I simply love the process of applying paint, ink or pigment by means of brushes.

Some of my brushes have been with me since my Ohio University days in the early 7o's. A few have been used so passionately for so long that they are practically nubs.

To the uninitiated a brush is a brush is a brush. But the reality is that brushes vary in type and style because they have different functions. Each applies color or pigment in a different manner, and the brush makes a difference in the outcome. Not only are the styles, sizes and shapes different, but the bristles themselves are made of different materials, from synthetic to camel's hair.

Many brushes are designed for special effects, such as the fan brush or the liner brush. Certain brushes are useful for scrubbing the paint into the canvas and some for laying it on thick, such as the mop brush. (I suppose if you had a really large canvas you might enjoy trying to use a mop itself.)

Some artists are adept at painting with a palette knife, which lays down paints in a thick coat or scrapes off areas for alternative effects.

And occasionally, the fingertips make a good tool for applying color. I have used my fingertips in many paintings, sometimes to apply the pigment as a woman would apply mascara. And sometimes to spray the paint across the surface for special effects.

Speaking of spraying, I have even used a toothbrush for a few pieces. The stiff bristles make an excellent mechanism for spattering, and even for rubbing it in. I am referring to discarded toothbrushes, not the one I am about to brush my teeth with.

You probably didn't know, though you might have guessed, that the various parts of a brush each have names, from toe, bristles and belly to heel, ferrule (the metal part that holds everything together) and handle. The heel, the portion of the fibers underneath the ferrule) is not visible. Many of my brushes have had their toes worn off. And a couple have no belly left either. I still love what they can do.

For the record, I love my large paint brushes, too, from my days painting houses and apartments. Maybe some other time I can talk about those dear old friends as well. For the record there is one rule especially important whether working with art brushes or large paint brushes: clean them. You can't ignore this important need. Take the time it takes, don't shortcut this basic maintenance reality. It's like friendship. You just have to give it the time it needs or you will ruin a good thing. Then you'll have to start all over...

The two images here are ink on paper. I have fallen in love with the way ink works, whether for wet applications or dry brush techniques. And both of these are on the wall at my show this month at The Venue @ Mohaupt, at 2024 West Superior Street here in Duluth. Hope you can make it.

Returning to Earth

"It's the stupid hope of getting something for nothing that corrupts people." ~ Donald Burkett, in Jim Harrison's Returning to Earth, commenting on gambling.

This weekend I started reading Jim Harrison's compelling sequel to True North called Returning to Earth. It's the story of a half breed Chippewa-Finnish man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, told in first person by both himself and his wife.

All the great novelists aspire to writing something with a timeless significance that expresses something more than the pedantic day-to-day. You can tell from the start that Harrison has succeeded in creating a story that will compel us to face the big picture questions that torment the private spaces of human hearts. That's the real achievement of the great books, to create a context for exploration of these deeper life issues.

Harrison's earlier novellas include the silver screen achievement Legends of the Fall, starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt, a story bigger than life and revealing of both its expanse and depth.

While listening to the unabridged audio version of the book this quote about gambling jumped out at me. I would say it "jumped from the page" if I were reading a regular book, and upon hearing it I pulled over to write it on a scrap of paper as a start point to this sequence of thoughts.

Gambling is a great deception. Donald Burkett learned this early in life, after a significant losing hand. It is not a central theme in the book, mentioned only in passing, but it is a sharp insight. How is it that our tax dollars, then, are being used to promote this deceptive tactic by advertising lotto, Powerball games, state lotteries and the like? Should not the government be on the side of truth and virtue? It's shameful and sad that our own tax dollars are being devoted to studying human behavior to determine which games of chance will most successfully pull greenbacks out of poor peoples' wallets, for it is the poor and ignorant who are most vulnerable to these enticements.

Where is the outrage? Why do our leaders claim to be on the side of the poor while simultaneously supporting an activity that preys on their false hopes and is mathematically arranged to insure that they lose?

Have you ever met anyone who bought a house with winnings from gambling? I have known two who lost their homes from gambling losses. One was through a Saturday night bingo habit which led to bankruptcy.

I have a friend who says the purpose of Powerball is to make poor people less hateful of the rich, because if they win the Powerball they will be rich at some point. The notion strikes me a bizarre, but maybe there’s something to it. No one likes being hated, and that probably applies to the rich and powerful as much as anyone. Giving a poor man the hope that he might be a peer someday, even if it’s a false hope, just might be the ticket.

As for Jim Harrison, the setup is good and I look forward to finishing my read.

East and West

Somewhat busy today. We finally have a hot one. Summertime's here and it does create a pair of feelings. First, the desire to get things done outside because it's a weekend, and the weather is nice rather than crappy. Simultaneously, it makes one wish to just kick back and take it easy. So, what's a fella to do?

This month's Wired magazine has an extensive article about Facebook's battle to dominate Google. Personally, I'm tired of Facebook. It's interesting, however, that no company can rest on its laurels, and Google is no exception. The same can be said for countries, I suppose. All the great empires have come and gone and we're kidding ourselves if we think our nation is going to be the exception.

But I'm talking Facebook and Google here, so I'll try to stay on task. In 1996 I wrote an article about search engines in my Screen Net column for Screen Graphics magazine. I listed 25 search engines and described how they were different. Google did not even exist yet, its birth date arriving in 1998.

According to Wired, Facebook has a four step plan for online domination.

1) Build critical mass by creating a cybernation within cyberspace. (In the past eight months their membership has grown from 100 million to 200 million.)

2) Redefine search. In the Facebook worldview, people will look to their friends for information rather than Google's algorithms.

3) Colonize the Web... utilizing thousands of partner sites or apps which somehow become part of the Facebook realm.

4) Sell ads everywhere, utilizing everyone's personal data so that advertising can be targeted with pinpoint relevancy.

The rest of the story is how a new Berlin Wall will be built to keep Google out. My personal opinion? Why can't we all just get along?

A Few Things You Might Not Have Known About The Flag

Today is Flag Day, June 14, commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States in 1777. Evidently you can't be a country without a flag, because every nation seems to have one.

The official proclamation that this would be called Flag Day was made by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Our doughboys were heading off to war on foreign soil and our flag would fly with them. It wasn't until after WWII that the U.S. Congress voted to establish it as a National Flag Day. Ironically, Pennsylvania is the only state to officially celebrate it as a holiday. Perhaps because that Second Continental Congress in 1777 met in Philadelphia?

Here are a few details about our U.S. flag that some might not know.

~ The first time our flag flew over foreign soil was in what country? Libya, over Fort Deme on the shores of Tripoli. (And now you know where that line from the U.S. Marines hymn came from.) But when was this and why? It was 1803. The Barbary Coast pirates had been perpetually interfering with shipping routes and the U.S. decided to do something about it. In fact, it was because of these pirates that George Washington created the U.S. Navy in 1794. North Africa was under the control of Ottoman Turks, but with the aid of Croatian fighters (probably from Venice), 8 U.S. marines took the fort and flew the flag to ensure afe commerce on the high seas.

~ Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner on the back of an envelope. Where did the tune come from? Actually, the music came from an English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven."

~A vexillologist is an expert in the history of flags. Something I am not, though with the help of Google you can probably become an expert in anything.

~ The first 50-star American flag was raised over Fort McHenry near Baltimore in 1960, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner.

~ The reason the first flag had all the stars in a circle was so that no one "state" would be above another.

~ In 2004 Cornell University researchers etched the world's smallest full color American flag onto a silicon chip. The Bush administration was seeking to implant these chips into all natural born U.S. citizens. (That last sentence was a joke to see if you're still reading. ;-)

Today is my father-in-law's 90th birthday, a somewhat momentous milestone. It's true that many people are living longer these days, but I know few at his age who are still so active. As a veteran soldier from what many are calling "The Greatest Generation" he saw many of his friends killed during the war. He still mows our lawn, keeps a large garden, digs ditches, and loves to drive, a habit which he picked up during the war as a company agent, carrying messages to and from the front, and site seeing in that beautiful Italian countryside.

The images on the page today are from the National World War Two Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is a very special memorial, a good place to reflect on the price of freedom. The soldiers from each state our acknowledged here as well as the theaters in which they served. Be sure to click on each image to enlarge. Thank you, Bud, and to all who sacrificed so much.

This bottom photo depicts the major campaigns which were fought in Southern Europe, all of which are depicted in day-to-day first hand detail in Bud Wagner's diaries and memoir And There Shall Be Wars.  

The Future of Art

On Sunday, I wrote some harsh things about the direction the modern art scene had gone in my article The Painted Absurd, in which I pointed readers to Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word. Wolfe's real adversary is not the artists, however. He was attacking the art critics who decided for others which works should have value and which were tripe for garage sales.

In truth, I still like to frequent the galleries, and I certainly understand where some of the modern movements came from. I like to see what is going on in the art scene as well as its manifold expressions along the periphery. It's a great source for ideas if you make art yourself. And if you imagine yourself making enough money to be a patron of the arts, it is a good way to see what's out there.

For the same reasons I peruse the art mags.

The March 2009 edition of ARTnews caught my attention because it had a cover story titled, "Where Is Art Going?" The feature collected an range of perspectives from museum curators and the like, thus it deals more with high art than just art in general. "A New Creativity" by Ann Landi postulates that because the economy has been trashed, the art market has been altered as well.

“Difficult times bring out the best in the best artists,” says David Ross, who was director of the Whitney Museum during that biennial and is now director of Albion New York, a SoHo affiliate of the London gallery. “When the economy falters, there can be a remarkable growth of seriousness in art.” But others see the notion of an art-market meltdown leading to new forms of creativity as specious hogwash. “I’d say the bohemian fantasy is sweet and sentimental, but rather insulting to artists,” says Christopher Knight, art critic for the Los Angeles Times. “In my experience, artists do what they do, market or no market. During the ‘80s boom, terrific work was being made by artists who barely got the time of day, and some of them were artists we simply started to look at in the ‘90s as the dust settled from the crash. That will happen again.”

Further along Landi writes:

The very nature of the way artists are perceived changes when the price tags cease to be that important. “In a downturn, artists are no longer validated according to their market value,” says Mary Sabbatino, vice president of Galerie Lelong in New York. “You’ll have an end to the quote-unquote critical description of Marlene Dumas, for example, as the most expensive living female artist.”

The one statement I liked in the article was that artists are going to make art no matter what the economy is doing. And it doesn't need to be validated by being in a gallery. Yes, even Dr. Seuss's drawing are now gallery pieces, but he began by making children's books. Much of what I'm doing right now, for example, is for illustrative purposes. Occasionally I like framing my work and plan on some larger, more serious endeavors again this summer now that my garage is converted into the three season studio. I don't need Federal funding to paint, draw, make music.

The thing is, when some people talk about art, they're talking about the art industry. The art industry may be hurting, but from where I sit the creative urge is alive and well in this country. It may be hard for poets to get published because no one reads poetry magazines much, but this does not stop poetry or music or other forms of creation from happening.

My time is up for now, so this is a theme I will have to return to yet another day. What's your take?

NOTE: The picture of a bear that you see here is a painting that we saw at a gallery in Sedona. The seated boy was produced this past week here.

Six Hats

At some point in the nineties I was introduced to the ideas of Edward de Bono whose work focuses on the important skill of learning how to think. To this day I've frequently shared his PIN method with people, which is a thinking tool to keep us from automatically getting knee-jerk reactions to everything. Essentially, he states that everything has a Positive, Interesting and Negative aspect. It’s a tool that helps short circuit automatic fight or flight responses, among other things.

Here’s an example of how I used the PIN method to assess the Dylan film He’s Not There.

De Bono’s methods aren’t just the stuff of ivory tower academics. They have garnered real world attention by getting results when put into practice. Here’s an example.

The De Beers diamond mines had a serious problem. There were a lot of fights down in the mines. As you know, when there is a fight, there’s a work stoppage. It can be very disruptive for everyone. They had about 200 fights a month, which means 200 work stoppages.

De Bono was hired to deal with this situation, and he did it by teaching the men algebra. (Just kidding.) He did it by teaching the PIN method or some other technique to break the cycle of automatic responses which were normally occurring. Think first, don’t react. The result? Work stoppages due to fighting were reduced to six a month.

To my way of thinking that’s impressive. And I've not punched anyone in the face since.

Dr. De Bono’s claim to fame is creative thinking, or thinking in alternate ways, getting outside and around the box and sometimes even above it or below it. One of the tools he has written about and shared extensively is his concept of the Six Thinking Hats.

Essentially it is a tool for group decision making. De Bono claims it reduces decision making time in meetings by 20 to 90 percent. I would guess it depends on how complicated the decision is, but for sure I can see how it would have been useful in a few situations I have experienced over the past two decades.

The key concept is learning how to examine a situation or decision from multiple viewpoints. Often we miss key information because we have locked on to one perspective and failed to take time to shift. Or, because of the personalities involved in the process, or politics, important information is ignored or neglected. As the name suggests, each hat represents a different point of view and the tool is designed to get us past these obstacles to good decision making.

The Blue Hat is the process coordinator who is operating from the bird’s eye view. Like the conductor of an orchestra, his job is to get the team on task, to lead the meeting, and to bring closure at the end. From this blue (think sky) perspective, he or she should be aware of the dynamics of the meeting in addition to its content and objectives.

The White Hat is neutral. Wearing the white hat means pointing out the facts that are known, eliminating emotional baggage, just seeing what is there, or what is lacking. Analysis of trends, historical data, etc. would fall into this category.

The Red Hat is intuition, gut reaction, emotion. Some people think this hat should not be worn till the end. The challenge of this hat is that the emotions and gut reactions may be very strong, and the subtle intuitive feelings may get run over and not heard. The intuition is often our most important ally and it takes special blue hat leadership to insure this voice is not drowned out.

The Black Hat is what it sounds like, a downer, the pessimistic perspective. Yet this is an extremely important hat because if your ideas or decisions do not stand up to scrutiny now, they will certainly be scrutinized later if things don’t pan out. This hat makes us more resilient, and actually helps increase our confidence when we can see and deal with the problems in advance. Confidence creates its own momentum.

The Yellow Hat is the optimist. The yellow hat view is upbeat. Wearing this hat gets us on track for all the benefits, the payoffs, the value of our decisions, commitments, etc. Keep your eyes on the prize!

The Green Hat represents creativity. This is where a little freewheeling and open-ended thinking, discussion takes place. No black hats should be allowed in the room till the green hat voices have all been heard. Being too quick to criticize the nub of an idea is a sure way till kill the inventive solutions that might have emerged otherwise. The excitement that one gets as an idea is shared, modified, modified again can be a truly invigorating experience. Often a relatively weak idea seed can go through multiple permutations to become a very cool, fruit-bearing idea which bears no resemblance to the original seed.

Well so much for all that. I just wanted to draw hats yesterday and had to make up something to go with it.

And Happy Mother's Day to all you mums. You deserve more than just one day's recognition for all that you have done and do. Pick out a hat and run with it.

Last Night At Icehouse Studios

"Without music life would be a mistake." ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Last night after work I went to Icehouse Studios to make a little music with Elliot Silberman, a kindred spirit who is likewise an artist, musician and lifelong fan of Mr. Bob Dylan. Maybe one difference between us is that Elliot's made a living doing these things (kudos!), and this is what I do just because I can't help myself. Music really is best appreciated when you can be part of it. If I may quote Carlyle here, "All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!"

For part of the session last night we played a few Dylan tunes including Pressing On, The Man In Me and Three Angels, plus fragments from Boots of Spanish Leather, Went To See The Gypsy and Day of the Locusts, and chord progressions and the opening verse from Ballad of a Thin Man. The trigger event was the release of Bob Dylan's latest album, Together Through Life, and yet another Dylan photo on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

At one point Elliot tried to give me a little lesson on how to play a Hohner button-box accordion. From what I've read, there's some button-box accordion on Dylan's new CD, giving some of the songs a Tex-Mex flavor. But most of the time, it was Elliot on guitar, myself on piano, a lot of crooning and some good vibes in the air.

Just so you know, we have a few gigs approaching now. You might say I'm getting to be a pawn in his game, having had the privilege of performing with the band a few times. I sing harmonies, play blues harp, rattle some bones and shuffle a bit on the washboard.

The big gig coming up fast is the annual Battle of the Jug Bands at Amazing Grace, downstairs in the DeWitt Seitz Building, Memorial Day Weekend. Put it on your calendars. You owe it to yourself to be there. If you like down home music, it's an event you won't want to miss.

In the meantime, here are a few more quotes to about music to ponder and enjoy. And if you ever want to join us some evening, be sure to let us know. I think you'll be more than welcome.

"A painter paints pictures on canvas. Musicians paint their pictures on silence." ~Leopold Stokowski

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach

"If the King loves music, it is well with the land." ~Mencius

AS ALWAYS, IMAGES LOOK BEST WHEN YOU CLICK TO ENLARGE

The Breaking Point (Part 3)

SHORT STORY MONDAY

The Breaking Point
(Part Three)

Monday. Cassie's birthday. Carl was gone with the dawn, like those vampires of old who disappear with the break of day. It was impossible, of course, for Cassie to sleep in, and she immediately went down to make coffee after hearing his pickup pull out the drive.

"What are you doing up, Mom?"

After exploring for a minute -- in the living room, then the kitchen and all the closets, yawning and bleary-eyed, pushing back the curtain of sleep -- she began wondering the same thing. How could she explain that she was looking for, expecting, something special; like maybe a banner? a card? a signal of remembrance? ...that it was her birthday.

Hasn't your dad told you it's my birthday? Are you playing a game with me? Is this charade going to last all day? She was quickly in a frump.

"Mom, can Rick come over today?"

"Why don't you go to Rick's house?"

"Rick's mother is kind of mean sometimes."

"That's not very nice," she said carefully. She was glad her kids' friends didn't feel that way about her. "Your friends can come over, but only if you play out in the yard today"

"Thanks, mom"

Noon. No special calls. No flowers. No mention of anything from anyone.

Two o'clock. Call from sister Val. "Did you see As the World Turns?"

"This old TV set is practically --"

"Oh, Happy Birthday!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Hey, what's up?" Val had already expected the worst; never did trust Carl; called him Carl the Cad when Cassie first met him years earlier.

Cassie was confused. "I don't know." She wanted to tell Val she'd been crying. "I feel like such a heel. Here it's my birthday, and Carl's probably surprising me with this nice present and I'm all peeved because I think he's forgotten. It's like I have this dread he's forgotten my birthday and I can't explain this damned receipt from Montgomery Wards."

"Give it time, sweets. He's probably trying to build some excitement for you." Val's attempt to sound sincere was taken at face value. Cassie was looking for even the least shred of comfort and Val was not about to dish out her own unpalatable interpretation of Carl's actions.

"Thanks, sis." Cassie said, and then, "Thad's outside crying about something. Gotta run."

~~~

Five o'clock, Carl walks into the kitchen, sees Cassie leaning on the counter, staring out the window; she hesitates, then turns and studies him. Come over here you big sweet lovable jerk, she wants to say, but the words don't come; she's holding out limp hands, but it's only a half-hearted gesture of invitation, and he fails to notice its significance, peeling off his shoes and kicking them into a corner.

"What's up, hon? No dinner tonight?"

You're just putting me on, right, big guy? "You don't have to play with me, Carl. I already know. I just can't stand having to wait any longer and--"

"Know about what?" Carl pulled back his head a notch as if peering through the lower lenses of a pair of bifocals, his chin jutting out, lips parted slightly.

"You know," she said hopefully.

"Hey, really, I'm lost. I mean I am toe-tally in the dark. So where's the eats? You gonna starve the kids, too, or what?"

"I'll pick something up at MacDonald's while you take a shower."

"Like what's the occasion?" Then he covered his face with his hand and mumbled, "Oh shit."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry. Today's your birthday! Where do you want to go? God, I don't know where my head is at sometimes." It was a tradition of theirs to take each other out to eat on their birthdays.

Cassie turned away and looked out the window again. For what seemed like a very long time she watched her son romping in the back yard with a soccer ball. Carl stood motionless in the middle of the kitchen. He knew Cassie well enough to know this wasn't a time to leave. She's unpredictable, that's certain. He was stupid to be so forgetful; that was certain, too.

Without speaking, Cassie grabs her purse and shoves her hand into the middle of it, feeling around for a thin piece of paper which she has kept folded in her checkbook. She pivots to face her husband and holds out the bill. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Hey, cool your jets," Carl says, stepping forward to examine the paper she’s holding out to him. He sees the Montgomery Wards logo on the bottom and says, "It looks like a bill."

"Know what it's for?"

Carl scrunches up his face to read it, shrugs. "How should I know?"

"It's on our account. I didn't buy it." She makes the I emphatic.

"Why would I go out and buy a color TV? We've already got one."

"I just thought--"

"Honest, Cassie, I really don't know what this is about. I'll call the store tomorrow. I'm sure it's some kind of mistake." Trying to smooth things over he says, "Let's try that new place, what's it called? Finnegan's?"

Cassie mutters "Sure, Finnegan's" through clenched teeth and they both go through the motions of letting the mix-up be nothing more than that.

STAY TUNED FOR NEXT WEEK'S FINALE

Today's Top Stories

"I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one." ~ Mark Twain

It is one of my rituals to walk out to the road and bring in the morning paper at the start of each day. I like the walk, about three hundred feet, to our rural mailbox. I also enjoy reading the headlines on the way back toward the house.

It has to be tough being a newspaper editor. With so much happening in the world, how does one decide what will be the big stories of the day, and especially the big story that blares out above the fold. Here's what you see above the fold in today's Duluth News Tribune. And as a profession, newspaperfolk sure have to put up with a lot of guff.

Top banner above the masthead: Northland Golf Guide in fairly large letters with a close up photo of a golf ball on a tee and the head of a driver. More than 70 area courses and a look at how the economy is affecting the game is the subhead. For a lot of folks that might be enough to get a person to fork over a buck and a half.

The major feature has its headline split in two with a photo of grave markers filling a good section of the page in letterbox style aspect ratio. Above the photo: As bones of loved ones erode into the Nemadji River, the Fond du Lac tribe wonders... And below the photo, in largest font on the page: What will be done to respect their dead?

The right hand column has a box with a dotted line that contains two marketing messages. $88 IN COUPONS INSIDE and then "Where to find your TV today" with a blurb pointing out that the TV grid was inadvertently printed in the wrong place. Ooops.

The last news item above the fold is also in the right hand column. Sent in '67, letter finally gets an answer. LBJ was president, Penny Lane was at the top of the charts and Dragnet had just premiered. A form letter was sent from the Duluth city attorney's office to comparably sized cities seeking salary information for legal stenographers. Utica, New York answered this week.

The last front page story in today's paper declares, 100 days, trillions spent, Obama's success unclear. A closeup photo of President Obama has this caption: Has signed executive orders in 100 days than any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

The article, which came in through a syndicated feed from the McClatchy Newspapers, is essentially about how the economic crisis has given the president the opportunity to strengthen executive power. The headline, though, is curious to me. Obama's success unclear? Some of the laws being written into the books won't take effect for years, and the impact of all this legislation being rolled out at a dizzying pace may not be fully recognized for decades. In short, the phrase "Obama's success unclear" is a tautology.

One thing I do like about the Sunday paper, besides the comics, is the Opinion section. I especially like when they take an issue and present pro and con perspectives on an issue. Today's debate deals with the Aad Shrine Circus which is coming to town next weekend. Just plain fun or Just plain cruel is the headline.

A picture of smiling kids mounted atop a brightly decorated elephant fills much of the page. The kids sure are cute. It might be interesting to explore the ethics of circuses some time. Right now, I think I'll finish getting dressed so I can start my day.

What are today's headlines on your local paper? If you don't want to post just send an email. I'd be interested in hearing what's hot in your neck of the woods.