Good Chocolate, Bad Dog

"Money talks, chocolate sings."

This week I surprised Susie with a package of exceedingly yummy chocolates from Chocolate. com. Chocolate.com is an Internet site devoted to bringing fine chocolates to to both refined and unrefined chocolate lovers.

If you go to the website you will see on the top left a link to their Email Support Team. Evidently chocoholics must need support groups, too, like AA support groups, hence it is placed in an easy to see location on the page. If you are addicted to good chocolate, or even bad chocolate, contact Chocolate.com to help get you through.

In all seriousness, the package arrived with a very high quality insulated wrap like something you might find in a NASA space station to help keep the chocolates from melting in the summer sun during delivery. Ours arrived intact and not goopy or gooey. And what a nice array of specialty chocolates. The four from Jade had an Oriental feel. Susie, who favors dark chocolates, took the Dragon's Breath, Orient Espresso and the Mahai. I spirited away the Genmai and the Santander from Colombia.

Unfortunately, after taking but one bite from each of her chocolates, she left them on her desk for the morrow, but the morning delight never came as.... well you can see from the title that something bad was about to happen. Much as we love our Hobo, a blue healer mix, there have been times she has almost been found hanging from a tree. (Please, I overstate this aggression. Do not call Animal Allies.)

Dogs do have an excellent sense of smell, and the chocolate from Chocolate.com smelled especially good. I think there were neighbor dogs in the yard all night as well, pacing about the house with baseball caps slouched low, seeking an opportunity.

The Dragon's Breath was 65% cacao with roasted sesame seeds, lipsang souchang tea and chili pepper. I'll bet it was like nothing you ever tasted before. My Genmai was 35% cacao with roasted brown rice, green tea and jasmine tea. Mmmmm. The women at the office with whom I shared it all enjoyed it very much, as did I.

The more I ramble here the less space I will get to segway into my art show invitation. The pictures are on the wall, and like these chocolates there is a wide variety. People have asked what kind of art it is. I hardly know what to say. "In the modernist style" does not quite capture it. The Open House will be on Tuesday July 21 from 6 - 9 p.m. and you are invited.

Disclaimer: The writer of this blog entry received the chocolate in exchange for a review about his experience. The chocolates were wonderful. Especially the truffles. Oooh. Ahhhh. Can we say fireworks?

Symbolism

In art history Symbolism was an actual movement in which pictorial means were used to convey allegorical meanings. Throughout art history symbolism has been used, however, especially in religious iconography.

To illustrate the difference between symbolism and representational art, picture a cave drawing with several buffalo images with a dotted line crossing a bunch of wavy lines. This representational piece is telling people where the buffalo are and how to get there. (They are across the river.) If one of the buffalo has wings and is flying above the herd, it might be some kind of early symbolic expression. ("The gods granted me an opportunity to take one.") If there is a large tripod-like creature lifting one of the buffalo and a screeching noise being emitted with a beam of light coming out disintegrating the other buffaloes, then you are looking at an early telling of War of the Worlds. Later historians would then endlessly debate whether this was Realism or Fantasy.

All this to say that symbolism is as much a part of art as metaphors are to poetry. For example, in David Bowie's Is There Life On Mars? the line, "look at those cave men go" is not referring to cave men but to lowbrow brutes having it out in a bar fight, or possibly the alienated teenager is watching a movie of such. But the words are not literal but rather metaphorical, as is Em Dickinson's line, "Hope is the thing with feathers" which Woody Allen turns around to indicate his own -- and modern man's -- existential alienation and despair with the title of his volume Without Feathers. Or he may mean he is exposing himself.

O.K., so this was a long intro to make a small point about my Lincoln paintings. The first painting, Blue Lincoln, was not really about Lincoln at all. I had read a quote somewhere that "you can't fight an international war and a civil war at the same time" and it resonated with me. I believe it was from the book Maximilian and Carlotta in which the U.S. could not defend Mexico against European incursion (a violation of the Monroe Doctrine) because it was in the throes of its own Civil War. For me this was a perfect symbol of many lives today who are battling their own inner conflicts and have unresolved issues in their hearts while also trying to carry on with their life purpose of service to the community or the world-at-large. Many people have been sidelined by internal conflicts who could be leaders of organizations in need of leadership.

The Lincoln image thus became such a symbol for me. The overarching internal conflict between good and evil, righteousness and temptation, left the president blue.

The painting Lincoln II has a brighter background, but his features are ashen. The subtitle, Portrait with One Dying Eye, is a reference to the line from Dylan's Hurricane. "The wounded guy looks up through his one dyin' eye, Says 'What'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy.'" The song is ultimately about injustice, as noted in the second to last verse. "To see him obviously framed couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game."

And so it is that presidents themselves become symbols. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was not delivered in Arlington Cemetery, land that formerly belonged to Robert E. Lee, but rather at the Lincoln Memorial. Symbols have power. Symbols resonate.

Blue Lincoln, Lincoln III (right) and Lincoln II (Portrait with One Dying Eye) will be on display this month at The Venue, 2024 West Superior Street, Duluth. Hope you get a chance to see what's happening there.

Hanging Out at the Venue

“The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed. Pictures must be miraculous.” ~ Mark Rothko

It’s official. My work is now hanging on the walls and in the halls of The Venue @ Mohaupt, in Duluth’s West End. The show is titled First Hand Experiences and for the next couple weeks, till the opening July 21, I will attempt to explain (from time to time here on my blog) some of the sources, stories and meanings behind a few of these paintings and drawings. First off, I will comment on the naming of the show.

Naming can be one of the most enjoyable or challenging parts of any creative endeavor. Several discarded names for the show preceded this one, but when it hit there was a sticktuitive quality which inspired me.

First Hand Experiences not only speaks of the process of creation in which every work is a first hand experience of the artist… but it also points to the interactive first hand experience of the viewer who participates in the piece as he engages its features and forms.

My artistic influences include Dali, Matisse, Duchamp, Picasso, Magritte, Rivers and Rauschenburg among others. The other day I mentioned several personal influences and would like to add to that list Mr. Sebes, my high school art teacher at Bridgewater-Raritan West in New Jersey. During two years of art tutelage I gained exposure to a wide range of creative expression. I also learned a few techniques with regard to my painting. As for my drawing, it developed on its own up in my room after my homework was done.

Possibly my strongest influence at that time was a painting by medieval Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, a peer of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Bosch’s tryptich The Garden of Earthly Delights had a profound impact on me with its depictions of the Garden of Eden, the earthly delights and of the darkness of Hell. The latter appeared on an early Deep Purple album called Tetragrammaton, a reference to the unpronounceable name of God.

As my imagination entered into the Bosch depictions on this album, they were translated into my own striking pen and ink drawings. What I lacked in skill was made up for in imagination at this time.

There is possibly no greater joy than the act of creation.

As for the show, consider yourself invited!

For One Night Of Love (Part 2)

SHORT STORY MONDAY

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: `It might have been!`" ~Whittier

For One Night Of Love

(Part 2)

His co-workers at the country club used to tease him about a nine year old daughter of the florist who often played in the kitchen while her parents set up displays for parties. The little girl genuinely liked him because he'd shown an interest in her, and sometimes sought him out to show him some new necklace or bracelet. Jeremy, being sensitive to the others' jests, always regretted it afterwards. Some of the waitresses teased him, too, though on one occasion Hellen, one of the older waitresses, publically reproached Kathy, the worst of the offenders, for her heartlessness. While Jeremy appreciated Hellen's thoughtfulness, it also embarrassed him. He was ashamed that he could not speak up in his own defense.

In a certain sense, none of these tribulations really affected him deeply, for Jeremy knew that at the end of each day he had a refuge -- he could go home. There, alone with himself, he breathed freely, could be himself. And in his very heart of hearts, he was happy.

Jeremy's interest in drawing began from earliest childhood when he would sit on his grandfather's lap and watch him draw pictures of farm animals. There seemed no end to the variety of funny pictures grandpa could make -- talking pigs, talking cows, dancing horses, two-headed dogs, snakes with legs. Jeremy, too, took pencil in hand and began making pictures, crude, but recognizable as chickens, ducks and the like. Then one day Jeremy learned how to create the illusion of depth and perspective by drawing an infinity point and having things diminish in size in relation to the foreground. He always considered this discovery to be the real beginning of his serious attraction to making pictures.

Jeremy's skill with a pen was basically self-taught. He once heard someone say that it takes a thousand bad drawings to make a good one, and he set out to do just that. After his thousand drawings, he recognized a fluidity in his pencil strokes that made his lines unusually expressive. He learned a dozen ways to create shading, and learned to appreciate the nuances that could be created through sharper and softer edges on objects. He was aware of his limitations and through constant practice set about to conquer them. He also learned that there was an elusiveness about certain kinds of beauty that made it difficult to capture on paper.

At one time the Tanner farm was the only plot of land with a house on it in that stretch of Helmsboro Road, the nearest neighbor being the Gundersons nearly a quarter mile away. In the early eighties, the heavily wooded tract of land across the way was put up for sale. A developer came in, struck a road through it and built a dozen $200,000 homes out of sight from the main thoroughfare. The homes were sold to younger families who mostly kept to themselves. There were some joggers, kids on bicycles, school buses, and a little ore traffic, but nothing to alter Jereemy's routines. He was not offended by their proximity.

Then one day, the narrow tract of land that lay wedged between his own property and the main road was put up for sale. The strip had once been farmed by his dad; his father leased the land from the county. Allison Creek, which formed the easternmost border of his property, tickled the four acre piece of property the full length of its backside. The Helmsboro Road bounded the property on the other side. It was disturbing enough that the property bordering his favorite walking place should now be occupied. When he saw where they determined to locate the house, on the end nearest his own, it alarmed him immensely.

During one of his morning walks, Jeremy plucked up the courage to discuss the matter with one of the carpenters who was framing what would soon be a very large home. The carpenter said the man was a former prosecuting attorney in the from the Chicago area by the name of Frank Martin. "He's a real bastard," the carpenter said and Jeremy was disheartened.

Over the summer, the house took form, shape, substance and color. Although it proved not to be as enormous as he originally feared, its gables and terraces, cornices and a half dozen columns gave the house a feeling of grandeur. Occasionally, an important looking man would arrive in a large expensive car to inspect the progress. Jeremy surmised this to be Mr. Martin. From his bearing, while Mr. Martin did not appear to be a large man he seemed excessively stern. Jeremy decided he had no inclination to meet him.

One morning, Mrs. Martin arrived with him. They stayed for a long time in the house. When they came back outside, Mrs. Martin walked lethargically to the back of the house, her head tottering idly from side to side as she walked. Her hands were balled fists. She faced away from the house and walked aimlessly across the newly seeded yard until she reached the half-stagnant little creek, not more than a hundred feet from the door. She seemed surprised by the boundary and stood looking past it as if perplexed, scanning the overgrown fields, farmhouse, dilapidated barn and outbuildings that belonged to the man next door who's property curled about theirs. The blare of a car horn beckoned her and she returned to Mr. Martin with hurried gait. By the following month the Martins had taken up residence in their new home.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin took no interest in meeting their neighbor and Jeremy likewise felt no compulsion to welcome them. If called upon to say hello, he would do the right thing, but in nearly two years he was never in a situation that required it, which suited him fine.

Frequently, during his morning walks, Jeremy studied the house. There was a bleakness about the place. Mr. Martin would leave quite early in the day, often before dawn. He left alone. The middle door of their three-car garage would open and his midnight blue Lincoln Continental would slide out to be coerced into heading out toward the road. During the day the drapes remained perpetually drawn. Jeremy thought it strange the way Mrs. Martin kept herself shut in all the time. At night as well, whatever light there was in the house was kept tightly shut in. Though the grass was occasionally tended by a boy who came from somewhere to use Mr. Martin's ride-around mower, there were no other efforts on the part of the Martin's in this regard. There were no flowers; there was no garden. He began to surmise that there was illness about the place.

Then one afternoon everything changed. It was a Thursday -- Jeremy worked six days a week with Tuesdays or Thursdays being his day off -- and a hot one at that, hot for early May. Jeremy decided to walk the full length of Allison's Creek to Hunter's Pond, which was down on the other side of the Pendleton Road. He was carrying a sketchbook, as he often did, leaving the house in a rather absent minded way, caught up more or less in his own thoughts when the unusual sight of a young woman sunbathing in the Martin's back yard caused him to hesitate for a moment. She was lying face down on a large white beach towel, her legs extended, her arms up so that her elbows pointed out away from her, her honey colored hair cascading over her forearms. Though she had on a pair of blue denim cut-offs, her back was bared, her green cotton halter having been unclasped. Jeremy, temporarily immobile, studied her uncertainly until he decided to proceed with his walk and pretend he didn't notice her. As he was passing where she lay Jeremy took a sideways glance hoping to find she had not observed him. To his dismay she had turned her head around, facing him, so that it was apparent she was following him with her eye, half-concealed by tresses and shadows. She was less than forty feet away from him and by her slenderness and the tautness of her skin it seemed the woman was but a youth, perhaps no more than eighteen or twenty. It so surprised him that he could think of nothing else for the rest of his walk, regretting only that he had not clearly seen her face.

CONTINUED

Trillion Dollar Meltdown

Yesterday I finished listening to the audio verson of a powerful book by Charles R. Morris explaining the recent collapse of the financial markets called Trillion Dollar Meltdown. Published in late 2007, the book predicted all of the disastrous events of the past eighteen months and how they came to be. The scope and clarity of its many insights and anecdotes are worth pondering more deeply. I will get to those shortly.

Morris begins by giving an overview of the past six decades from the perspective of wealth creation, business expanse and retraction, the market drivers during this period and the political context of it all. You really cannot understand particulars without an overall context and often Americans forget this simple fact. What is happening today is an outcome of decisions made over a period of decades, not days, weeks or months.

According to one review on Amazon the book is written toward university level students, and it may be heady for some but even if you have a marginal understanding of economics and markets, you will glean plenty in my opinion.

I remember in high school my father invited a representative from the Dreyfus Fund come to our Bridgewater home to help teach me how to invest my savings. The fellow had stock market charts with all kinds of data, along with prospectuses and documents designed to show me the power of investing my money in the market. Well, I took $500 out of the bank and opened an account. I never saw that money again.

This is not an argument against investing. It is simply a statement that there's no such thing as a sure thing. This period in which I salted a few hundred dollars away was, according to Morris, the tail end of the Liberal/Keynsian era in economics. The resulting collapse of the markets in the 70's, with a simultaneous inflation so that your real holdings in dollars was about 75% less than they had previously been worth, culminated in Carter's disastrous presidency. (This is not to say Carter was not or is not a good man.)

It could be argued that half the debacle of the Carter era (double digit inflation, double digit interest) was due to the circumstances he inherited. In the end, it is during desperate times that a sea change can be set in motion. Thus was Reaganomics born, a new period of deregulation as Chicago-school economics gave the boot to Keynes.

Milton Friedman's ideas carried the day and the market climbed higher (with a few hiccups along the way) than anyone could have even dreamed. But, and it is an important part of the equation, part of the reason markets climbed so far is that the enormous size of the Baby Boom generation was becoming older now and, staring at retirement with a little more earnestness, they began to save more. This resulted in increased stock valuations. It also gave unscrupulous money managers increasing quantities of cash to play with, which was leveraged in extremis.

Morris shared how computers helped companies create financial instruments (bonds, etc.) that were so complicated even the people who sold them did not understand them. It was an amazing run. And when variables shifted, some companies had no idea how to determine their own true valuations. Some of these disappeared completely.

Add to this the increased debt loads and the absurdly high real estate valuations and you have a witch's brew of disaster in the making.

Though Morris published the book before Obama was elected, he accurately predicted that the pendulum is about the swing the other way. It certainly wasn't good to see 401K retirement plans shrink in value by 40% while the men who managed them made quarter million dollar a year salaries on average.

There are ideologies at war in the economic realm of which the average person usually has the most simplistic understanding. And this particular author lays some heavy blame on the Alan Greenspan camp. Morris gives the impression that he is in love with Paul Volcker.

Funny thing how every time things are good, the reigning president takes credit, and when things are bad the reigning president says he inherited it. And how politicians are ever trying to re-assure us that things are not as bad as they seem.

Not everyone who reviewed this book on Amazon liked it. Some found it biased against free market economics. One called it "A Coherent Rant." But I still found it raising good questions. He compared the complexity of the markets to Yertle the Turtle, in which everything is so interdependent that when you modify one variable it can have a serious impact on the stability of the whole.

My great-grandfather was scammed late in life by a fellow who was going to invest great-grandpa's life savings. The man lost everything and had his heart torn out. It's a scary thing to work hard and save and do all the right things only to have it plucked away with no legal recourse. This tragic family event led to my mother being more careful with her retirement assets. I myself took a measure of comfort in knowing (or believing) that the U.S. investment markets were the most regulated and reliable in the world, unlike many nations where there are no disclosure requirements or where banks can close and without warning take all your money saved (Russia) or where the government can devalue their currency by 50% overnight (Mexico 1981).

So how is it that a man like Bernie Madoff, former head of the NASDAQ stock exchange can make off with 50 billion dollars of other peoples' money right there under the big spotlights of our regulators? How about all the funds that invested in Enron because of the high returns and the approving nods of auditor Arthur Anderson?

Morris predicted a financial mess and he predicted right. What many of us wish to know is what happens next? Yesterday's paper carries a feature story with newly elected Senator Al Franken claiming the economy will "come back strong." I want to know how that will happen and why? Unemployment keeps rising. Our investment in bailouts and overseas military enterprises continues unabated.

I am especially curious what book being published today will be the one that most accurately portrayed the next two years? Maybe we'll find out in five. If sooner, you can be sure I'll write about it here.

Veteran Recalls Death “By Friendly Fire”

On one level Pat Tillman was just another soldier. To quote my father-in-law who served in World War II, “The short lives of those killed were hardly a flicker here on earth. Though most of their names will never appear in history books, they were all heroes. Every battle left heroes, the survivors and the dead. I can only have nothing but sad respect for the men who had so few joys and so many miseries, and who gave their lives so others could go on living.”

For me, Tillman was more than just another soldier because he was more than just another person even before he entered the war. What I mean is that Tillman demonstrated his values by his choices. During his football career he turned down a 9 million dollar contract with the St. Louis Rams to play at one-third this price for the Arizona Cardinals. Later, Tillman gave up the money altogether to enlist in the armed forces to participate in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was later sent to Afghanistan.

I remember in April 2004 when the news carried the story of his untimely death while in the service of his country. Tragically, two months later, another Pat Tillman story crossed the newswire. “FormerNFL player¹s death caused by ‘friendly fire'.” Friendly fire is a euphemism for “Oh no, we shot our own man.”

Mistakes happen in life, but when I overtighten a lug nut and it breaks, it is only a hassle. No one has been killed by this foolishness. Mistakes like the death of Pat Tillman are on another scale. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to process the confusion and grief. I know this because my father-in-law Bud Wagner has recently been telling a few stories that did not make the pages of his published war memoir, And There Shall Be Wars.

Today as we celebrate our own Independence as a nation, I wanted to share one of these untold stories which reveal the true costs of our freedom.

There are many, many things not written down in the book as they actually happened. One that comes to mind right away is on page 359 when four American bombers came over a bunch of us. I was out of range but some of the 125 F.A. weren't, and four were killed. Ken Kramer was one of those killed. Read it again. American bombers dropped four 500 lb. bombs to lose weight and get back to England. The Second Corps came out with the report that unidentified bombers dropped bombs.

Kramer was a friend of mine starting in Ireland. Truth is truth, as well as error is error, war or not. Articles like this one were ones that would grip me and others. You could compare it with a person not familiar with the Bible. After he read it you could say, "Well, what did it say?" He would probably say some little thing about it and would have to say, "Well read it again." Probably omitting the statement that those bombers were unidentified. We knew which were enemies and which were friendly bombers. Well, so did the corps.

Many accidents occur because of carelessness. When they permanently take away something that might have been, how does one process this?

While talking with Bud the incident came up yet again. It is also powerfully revealing of why returning soldiers are often so mute about their experiences. Heart breaking. They want to share, but others who were not there can be brutally insensitive or dismissive, or worse.

Once more let’s turn to page 359. Read it again and then try to imagine just what happened. I can't recall much of the details anymore but have to pounce on the fake statements that those bombers were unidentified. First of all by the time they dropped the bombs many on the ground, including myself, knew they were American. Then when they got back to their base they would have known about where they were dropped. This of course was far from the Air Force policy and what about Ken, my old friend who was on radio duty who had to be the one who was killed. The confusion is unbelievable in a situation like this. Medics were close by and all help was used.

The other statement that came to me years later and long after my diary was written was from the original 2nd Corps account of Feb. 7, 1944. I quote, “unidentified aircraft dropped three bombs in the division sector, one of which destroyed the radio relay station slightly infuriating Sgt. Paul Staken, Pvt. Robert Staples and Corporal Bernard Reno. Sgt Kenneth Kramer who was operating the radio received more serious (wounds) and died the next day.” The rest of us knew better. It was a cause of one of the bombers crews missing the target and wanted to get back faster, probably to England or south Italy, and get rid of the bombs. What a morale builder. Try telling this to some civilians fifty or sixty years later and the response is sickening.

I can't go on without telling of the night I came home after four and a half years. Remember I had just got home that day...all my uncles and some others were there to welcome (me) and of course wanted to know all about the war. The youngest uncle asked me afterwards about the Germans killing unnecessarily and I told him a little and his response was "they all do that in war." I kept my mouth shut but much later was able to tell him to try and prove to me where any American soldiers lined Italians up alongside a building and shot them down... men, women and children. Then they covered them up with hay; others weren't always (covered). He would just shrug his shoulders and we soon found out when someone wanted to talk about the war you would get further to just keep your mouth shut. They would mostly think that it was probably true for some but not you as you came back and saw a lot of the country.

And so there was nothing more about the unidentified bomber except what we already knew and my old friend Ken had to do without the years that most of us survived.

As we remember the Fourth, let's make a special spot in our hearts for our veterans.

First Hand Experiences

"The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths." ~ Bruce Nauman

It's official. Last night after work and much of today I have been hanging my paintings at drawings at a place in the West End called The Venue @ Mohaupt. The title of the show is First Hand Experiences: A Retrospective with Glimpses of Things to Come.

A couple weeks ago, when I was first asked to consider it, I felt a little overwhelmed at how much work there would be to get things ready. Then, I did an inventory of what I have already framed, and learned a technique for displaying my painted masonite panels. In short, things came together quickly and we're underway.

First Hand Experiences is primarily a presentation of my recent works, but I have also assembled representative pieces from my earlier days including a pen and ink illustration that won a contest and was published as cover art. The $25 was nice, too.

Preparing the show has brought back a few other memories. The first is how my grandmother used to say I never scribbled when I was little, that from my earliest I used to draw. I can't say whether this is fact or fiction (that I never scribbled) but I do remember at a very early age that I loved to trace things. I remember getting fascinated by drawing faces, then cutting out the eyes and putting different backgrounds behind the face to see how the various colors and patterns would change the expression. I must have been about five years old at that time.

At some point when I was five or six my parents enrolled me in some classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I still remember a couple of those lessons. In one instance we were shown a room with images from the medieval era and we were shown lettering that was all embellished with leafy vines and swirly curlicues. Each of us was instructed to draw our own initial in this same embellished fashion. I, of course, did the letter "E".

A couple years later I used to watch this artist on television who showed you how to draw perspective and create three dimensional depth on a two dimensional surface. This kind of thing was utterly fascinating for me and still fascinates.

The open house, to which the public is invited, will be on July 21 from 6 - 9 p.m. The Venue is located at 2024 West Superior Street in Duluth's West End.