More Joy

I had to post this picture:

(via What Possessed Me and The Bean and the Bear)

Also, my daughter is teaching me how to juggle.

EARLIEST DEPICTION OF JUGGLING known shows skillful Egyptian women on the 15th Beni Hassan tomb of an unknown prince from the Middle Kingdom period of about 1994 to 1781 B.C.

A few things that make me happy even when I'm sad

Tequila scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure




Sister Rosetta Tharpe's guitar playing

This house in Iceland (via cup of jo)

 
This photo (via ffffound)

Dedicated to my brother.

Cool Things

A few cool things to look at:



Look at this beautiful boat sculpture called "The Weaver Girl" by Ann Wood. You can view more of her work here.

Then there is this awesome tower of books, part of an installation by sculptor Matej Kren called "Idiom".
(Photo via Booklust)

Hilarious "Mean Cards". Get 'em here.



And, just for the hell of it, Bugs Bunny makes a fruit salad on Elmer Fudd's head (from the classic "The Rabbit of Seville").

Blue-Sky Art

I read this short essay this morning at one of my favorite blogs, The School of Life:

Sue Hubbard on Creativity

Blue-sky thinking, finding the inner you; if you look up ‘creativity’ on the internet you’ll be bombarded with sites to help you get in contact with your creative potential. I blame Joseph Beuys, that modern art guru of fat and felt, who claimed “everyone is an artist”.  Now we all feel we have something to say. But do we? Of course Beuys didn’t mean everyone has the potential to be a Picasso.  Motivated by utopian beliefs, culled from Romantic writers such as Novalis and the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, he believed in the power of universal human creativity to bring about revolutionary change.  The psychoanalysts had a slightly different take. Hanna Segal saw art as an expression of the depressive position and the task of the artist as the creation of the world. Great art could be defined by how well it created another reality. In this world the artist mourns for lost relationships and experiences that have given meaning to life. Segal cites Proust who, on meeting some long lost friends, saw how frivolous they’d become. Realizing that his former world no longer existed he set about re-creating that of the dying and the dead. Art, therefore, becomes a form of mourning, where loved ones are given up in the actual world and re-created in an inner one.

Melanie Klein took these ideas further. For her art was a form of reparation for destructive infantile rage against the abandoning mother. While for the psychiatrist Anthony Storr reflective solitude was an essential component.  The cliché that genius is akin to madness is not so far off the mark. Artists, particularly poets, are known to suffer from a high rate of depressive illness. So no, creativity is not about ‘blue-sky thinking’ but about destruction and loss, transformed into art through the arduous creative process.

I have to say I profoundly disagree with her. Art can and often is about destruction and loss, but that's not the only thing it's about. Keep in mind that the psychoanalysts studied and worked in a pretty restricted milieu. There's a whole world out there and cultures that have never heard of and could care less about "destructive infantile rage". I think Josef Beuys was more on the mark than Hubbard gives him credit for. Art can be about loss, but it is also frequently about joy and every single thought and emotion in between. Why can't it emerge from a continuum of the human experience? Additionally, creativity and art does not have to equal "great art"-- how lofty!, and how boring.

The idea that artists are "mad" seems more like old-fashioned romanticism than the "blue-sky" view which Hubbard dismisses (which, ok, can be extremely annoying at times). Are artists considered "mad" in all cultures, or just ours? Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg situation. Maybe some artists are driven mad (or at least get horribly depressed) at the lack of understanding, not to mention cash.

Anyway, I think of the artists I know, the things I read and look at, the music I listen to. The "everyday" art that is a beautifully made piece of furniture or clothing. It is all worthy of our profound respect. I'll go so far as to say that even "bad" art (could we ever possibly even agree on what that is? I'd love to ask John Waters) deserves some respect. Clumsily made, poorly expressed, cynical, sentimental, whatever. We don't have to like it, or admire it, but it should be acknowledged as human expression of creativity. (Skill is not irrelevant here, but Hubbard seems to be talking more about motivation and world-view rather than mastery.)

The more everyone has the opportunity to engage in art-making, the more skills we teach, the more art gets made, the less elevated and mysterious and out-of-reach it is. It's essential for a decent life, and not "blue-sky thinking" at all.

Pretty things

I have been drawn lately to pure extravagance (for my budget, anyway), so I've refrained from posting pretty things to avoid enticement.

But as Oscar Wilde famously said, "I can resist everything except temptation", so-- bring it on.

French wooden keepsake box from littlebyrdvintage at etsy.

Pinstriped linen skirt from le vestiaire de cle.

O, Humidity! "The Hudson" steel cuff, from Hayden Harnett

(thanks to the lovely Andrea for this temptation!)

Tote bag from BillyKirk

Heron pendant from etsy artist cello123

Fiestaware teapot from Homer Laughlin

 

 

 

 

Domremy earrings by emmabond at etsy

 

 

Matt Bernson waverly soft ballet flats

Vintage Toy Robots

I just have a soft spot in my heart for these guys.

via BoingBoing

via Dark Roasted Blend

Math Anxiety

My son has a calculus final today, so here's a wonderfully surreal old math-related picture for your amusement. The Boy likes math, but for me, this kind of sums up all my incoherent fears on the subject:

via Angeliska.com


And just for the heck of it, here's a lovely Andrew Bird song, called "Take Courage" (good words to hear at any time, in my opinion).

One Thing Leads to Another

It was the second anniversary of my husband's passing a few days ago. I bought flowers, we lit candles, and honored his memory. Since he loved and wrote poetry,  here's a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver:

Mozart, for Example

All the quick notes
Mozart didn't have time to use
before he entered the cloud-boat

are falling now from the beaks
of the finches
that have gathered from the joyous summer

into the hard winter
and, like Mozart, they speak of nothing
but light and delight,

though it is true, the heavy blades of the world
are still pounding underneath
And this is what you can do too, maybe,

if you live simply and with a lyrical heart
in the cumbered neighborhoods or even,
as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace,

offering tune after tune after tune,
making some hard-hearted prince
prudent and kind, just by being happy.
from Thirst by Mary Oliver

illustration by Maira Kalman

New Work

Added 3 new drawings to the gallery today, each is 4 x 6 inches. Click here and scroll down to see!

Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2010

"I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful." -- Louise Bourgeois

Give or Take, 2002

Spider, 2003

from the Tate Modern

Tate Modern Exhibition from 2007 here; New York Times obituary here.

See the trailer for the 2008 documentary entitled: "Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress, and The Tangerine" here.