Water, Not Pure or Simple

The northeastern USA is anything but a cultural or ecological desert. There are so many choices of things to attend: concerts, lectures, exhibitions or actions!  Because I was attending a splendid performance by The American Ballet Theater up at Bard College in beautiful, lush New York state, I missed author Coleman Barks' reading from his latest translation, RUMI: THE BIG RED BOOK, at the D & R Greenway Land Trust in Princeton, New Jersey in early November.  I did manage to get my hands on a copy of this beautiful book though, and in fact got a surprise signed copy because of the thoughtfulness of friends there.  And what a signature it is!  That gesture contains the attitude of the book!  Now that the Thanksgiving festivities are over and my life is settling back into a routine (I'm being hopeful here), I have finally begun to read this book that has sat invitingly on the coffee table since early November.

The introduction of RUMI: THE BIG RED BOOK has already filled me with inspiration. You who read my blog know that I am always interested in consciousness and matters of the brain, and also water, both as metaphor and physical substance. In trying to describe what it is like to "be inside a Rumi poem" Barks quotes Plotinus' metaphor for the predicament of human consciousness: a net thrown into the sea.

"We are the net.  Soul is the ocean we are in, but we cannot hold on to it.  We cannot own any part of what we swim within, the mystery we love so.  Yet the longing we feel is there because of soul.  To some degree we are what we are longing for.  Some part of the ocean swims inside the fish."

Just think about how true this is.  A few years ago I attended the traveling exhibition, "Bodies", when it was in Philadelphia.  This extensive display of systems of the human body (skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive, endocrine, and circulatory) showed how fluid living humans are.  Our bodies are composed of structures to hold, regulate, or ferry fluids around. We are the water we consume, the water we bathe and swim in.

THE FALLS, ©Joy Kreves '11, ceramic & wood.

Our veins and arteries are simply other versions of our earth's creeks and rivers.  This is why I rejoiced with so many other people last Monday, when a vote on whether to allow more fracking of the Delaware River Basin was postponed.  There is no way someone from a gas drilling company is going to convince me that pouring extremely toxic chemicals into the ground to extract natural gas beneath the rocks is a "safe" procedure, no matter how many pro-fracking ads they run on TV, as they are doing now.  People can consume all sorts of unhealthy substances for awhile, but inevitably those toxic substances will contribute to a state of disease or death.  They will infiltrate tissues and veins and organs that haven't evolved to tolerate them.  The earth's body has limit's too.  What goes around comes around; you are what you eat; what goes in must come out...etc. 

Those are just common sense sayings if one stops to notice that humans are actually part of the environment and not just existing on or off of it.  If one mistakenly thinks that God planted humans on the earth to take and take and take, then one would just think of the earth's water as another thing to use up or make a profit from instead of something whose purity and availability needs to be protected.  Those who see profits from gas drilling operations do not worry that fracking chemicals have and will inevitably continue to cause pollution of our water supplies. Mistakes happen, leaks happen, and there is no correction for the damage.  We are the water.  In fact, The Associated Press already reported on March 11, 2008, that our already treated drinking water is FULL of pharmaceutical drugs.  Our water is not pure.  But it is there, for most of us in the northeast.


Perhaps you haven't heard that the earth has a water shortage now.  The more than 7 billion people now living on the earth are using up the finite supply.  Vast areas of the earth including parts of the USA are turning into deserts - - over decades, not over millenia.  Industries of varying kinds need water to create some product so they build plants near lakes, rivers and streams.  Because they "create jobs", nobody makes them clean up after themselves. The body of water gets polluted, and the people who rely on that water for drinking and washing get sick from the pollutants.  Some die.  This is why people who care about having water are fighting fracking in our Delaware River basin.  Landowners with lakes on their property may be presented with offers for that water by corporations in much the same way that gas companies are buying (or taking) the mineral rights from landowners who now live in areas where they want to frack.

Who owns the earth?  Who owns the water?  "Some part of the ocean swims inside the fish."  Who owns the ocean that swims inside the fish?  Well, guess what?  Corporations own that ocean!  It is a fact that corporations like Nestle, Coca-Cola, The World Bank and American water companies are buying up water rights around the the country and the world now, because they see the earth's water crisis as a money-making opportunity.  The time has already come for some populations that they only have the water they can afford to buy back from the corporation.  Until someone saw this business opportunity, water was considered a free natural resource that everyone had a right to, not just those who could afford it. 

This is why last year's exhibit of "Festival of Trees" at the Morven Museum in Princeton, New Jersey upset me.  The museum was filled with many Christmas trees, each decorated by some local organization.  Christmas is another PR opportunity for the corporations who know that water on and in our earth is already disappearing at an unsustainable rate. The D & R Greenway Land Trust's tree celebrated untamed acres saved from development and the multitude of wildlife that lives on those acres.  The American Water Company had a tree there also.  The American Water Company's Christmas tree was simply a propaganda tree done to create positive feelings about a corporations that actually buy up municipal water systems and sell it back to the cities at a higher price after "treatment".  According to Judy Keen in a USA Today 4/21/2010 article,

"American Water, which operates in 35 states, is discussing deals with 75 municipalities and other entities -- the most in at least four years, CEO Don Correll says."  "Selling or leasing water systems isn't always a good deal, says Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water, a non-profit group.  Some cities that do so are 'mortgaging their future' by ceding control of a vital asset, she says, and rates often climb."

I grew up not far from Pekin, Illinois, whose water system was sold to Illinois American, part of American Water, in 1982.  The city manager at that time since said "Selling a water system to a private company is 'a terrible, terrible mistake'".

The American Water Company Christmas tree was decorated with their logo on plastic water bottles!  How lovely!  How environmentally friendly!  How infuriating!  An advertisement for this year's Christmas tree exhibit at The Morven brought back those feelings, especially since I had just watched a video of Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians and of Food and Water Watch, who will speak at The Institute For Advanced Study in Princeton this Wednesday, Nov. 30th on  "The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.  As for the Morven's exhibit?  There are so many exhibits a fine museum could have, even around the Christmas theme. Why allow it to become a PR event for corporations?  Oh, ...perhaps the water company donates money to The Morven!  I forgot!  Art museums and entire exhibitions are bought up, too.

I think I'll go dive back into the inspirational waters of Rumi now to wash these toxic dealings out of my mind by reading verses of love.  Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Overcoming The Autumn of Distractions

"Autumn" is a smooth word that conjures up images of postcard trees and cool days, a season that slides into the cold, snowy calm of winter.   The other name for this season, "Fall", is sometimes more fitting.  In "Fall", the environment is closing down and shedding all non-essentials.  In "Fall" the earth is busy cleaning house. Those leaves that were needed for spring and summer are discarded by wind and fierce rain.  Of course, just like when one begins to clean out a closet, the result is piles and more piles.  I'm not even talking about raked leaf piles; the leaves in my neighborhood are shed in such gargantuan quantities that they pile themselves all over the ground in a thick, messy carpet.  I crackle loudly as I try to slip quietly out to the mailbox without my dog noticing.  I develop an intense craving for clarity and order.

Whirlwind, ©JoyKreves

 Every year September finds me inspired for innumerable house, social, and art projects.  I am reading at least 10 books at a time, daydreaming of happy gatherings, holidays and family celebrations to come.  Then, by early November, I start to feel as if turning all those daydreams into real plans would be a burdensome project I might not be up to.  As the leaves mount and get dragged into the house with every entrance by person or dog, I begin to feel that I've lost my handle on things.  Fall is just too messy, too full.  The flurry of dry leaves is actually a perfect metaphor for my state of mind.  I am convinced that one's mind, one's body, and one's environment are integrally related.

Homesick Brain, ©JoyKreves'11

Scattered around outside are leaves and fallen branches, but scattered in the dining room are notes with possible Thanksgiving recipes to make, birthdays to remember to acknowledge (GOD, I know a lot of Scorpios), and postcards for events to attend.  There are phone numbers for friends to visit post-surgeries, and in the bedroom, piles of out of season clothes to put away.  There are two piles being assembled for donation, and another for holiday gifts.  In my studio are new artworks that haven't found exhibits or homes yet, and pieces of others that need finishing.  There are plants that had to be brought in from the colder nights but which I really  have no room for.  Around November I realize that I have accomplished very little of my plans.  Sometimes, I just feel distracted!

I'm So Distracted Today, ©JoyKreves

Several art shows are the core around which all the other stuff swirls:
 
Currently, I have work at the ArtTimesTwo Gallery, in a four-person exhibit curated by artist Madelaine Shellaby, "Interior Design:  The Brain and Spine in Art", now on view by appointment (http://www.arttimestwo.com) through March 2012.  The gallery is at The Princeton Brain and Spine Care Institute, 731 Alexander Rd, suite 200, Princeton, NJ.

My sculpture "Beautiful Life" is in an exhibit at the picturesque Hunterdon Museum of Art, 7 Lower Center St., Clinton, NJ, through January 7, 2012.

The Beautiful Life, ©JoyKreves'10

In December I will have a number of pieces at The D&R Greenway Land Trust gallery's "Textures & Trails" exhibit curated by Diana Moore, including some of my jewelry.

Essence of Bluejay, ©JoyKreves '08

I am especially excited about the opportunity to exhibit "Transported" there, my new mixed media piece there that incorporates some of the paper I made in the workshop with Judy Toby this past summer. 

Transported, ©JoyKreves'11

In JANUARY I'll be delivering three pieces to The George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave., Montclair, New Jersey, for the juried "Art Connections 8" show.
I'm also excited about completing a new three dimensional waterfall painting, out of acrylic and watercolor on ceramic and wood.  I have too many other ideas cooking to keep track of.

You just cannot stop the onslaught of swirling leaves, and you cannot stop the myriad of exquisite activities and concerts beckoning your attention.  You must not stop your creative flow, either, even as you turn off those outside faucets for the winter.  You've got to keep creating, or at least refining, as the trees poke their newly bare twigs into the uncluttered air of late autumn.  You've got to get a handle on the coming winter.

Today I visited a friend with a great tale of mind/body connectedness.  A poet, she hadn't been able to write for a long time, due to her muse being blocked by pain.  She needed surgery, which she had a couple of days ago.  Well she wrote not one, but five poems while in the hospital!  Uncorked by the diminished pain, her muse flew back into action in spite of the less than inspiring hospital environment.  It was a wonderful thing for me to see her whole being rejoicing in the return of the creative spirit which is her core.  Now mid-November, my muse seems to be just starting to settle into sharper focus, where I hope she'll stay through the winter holidays and breaks, to give me a handle on the coming winter.  I'm reaching for her fingers in the clearing air of late autumn. 

After Art Grows Up and Leaves Home

Yogis and physicists talk about a deep level of reality that underlies everything we know consciously and unconsciously.  Our experiences, thoughts and actions exist only in the top skim of things, like the rings of rippling water after we skip a stone across its surface.  The process of making art sometimes brings artists nearer to that deeper realm.  I hope the process of viewing the art can bring the onlooker there also.

My poem "Lyrics for Electron Playground" is about existing in these levels of reality .  The poem is incorporated into an artwork, "Electron Playground". That artwork is now in Rider University's Permanent Collection, and is hanging in a new building on campus, North Hall.  Last week I went to see it there.  It is beautifully installed in a plexiglass wallbox at the end of a hallway: 

ELECTRON PLAYGROUND, ©JoyKREVES, 2010

LYRICS FOR

ELECTRON PLAYGROUND

Heart beats
Dog barks
Turtle dies

Tides pull
Leaves turn
Lightnings spark

Dreams are born where
electrons dance and
baby is the oldest brain alive

Time is now here
Time is nowhere
Time is now here

Heat rises
Cat awakens
Baby cries

Moons rise
Nudes descend
Poppies bud

Dreams thrive where
electrons bounce and
youth are the prophets of night

Time is nowhere
Time is now here
Time is nowhere

Hearts stop
Sirens wail
Oceans expire

Forests grieve
Rains drown
Air sours

Dreams collide where
electrons play and
sages gaze beneath the finish line

Time is now here
Time is nowhere
Time is now here

                      -Joy Kreves ‘10

I've been prejudiced in believing that artists and people involved with the humanities have a headstart on leading meaningful lives.  Apple's Steve Jobs' life was proof that, in fact, it is the ability to think creatively in any field that enables one to leave behind a trail of significant achievements. Being able to think creatively is the key, because it gives one a better chance of finding an access to the deepest plane of reality, that plane beyond conscious reach.  I am convinced that this is where real meaning resides and those who taste it are deeply enriched by the experience.

As I was looking at my ELECTRON PLAYGROUND piece in the hallway, a friend who teaches philosophy at Rider came by.  He was excited because his office is in this new building, just down the hall from my piece, and he wanted to show me that he had hung my DOUBLE-HEADED SPIRAL over his office desk.  He purchased that piece and another from the series several years ago, and they both hung in his home for awhile.  He then proceeded to tell me a story in which he was

DOUBLE-HEADED SPIRAL, ©JoyKREVES, private collection

the classic absent-minded professor.  A prankster friend had stayed at his house and re-hung every piece of his artwork upside down.  My professor friend never noticed until he brought DOUBLE-HEADED SPIRAL to the college, that the friend had also turned my spiral upside down!  Even then, it was the gallery director who helped him hang it, who noticed my upside down signature.  It's in a metal shadowbox frame, and the friend had actually unscrewed the hanging wire to reverse the piece.  My friend, lost in the world inside of his head, never noticed that DOUBLE-HEADED SPIRAL was now DOUBLE-FOOTED SPIRAL!  I console myself by remembering that any good artwork can "work" in any direction.  Or so they claim. Actually, the space depicted in the spirals is not tied to a horizon; it is a broader more universal "deep space" that includes notions of time and timelessness, as does ELECTRON PLAYGROUND, and I admit that I have also lost track of what was right-side-up for several of the pieces at certain points in time. 

Yesterday I attended the reception for the ABSTRACT SHOW at The Coryell Gallery in Lambertville where several of my friends are showing.  Once again I came away being very confused as to what really constitutes "abstract" art.  For me, there has never been a meaningful division between abstraction and realism.  It seems a work is considered "abstract" as soon as it departs from the depiction of "things" and ventures into a depiction of "space", but as we learn that space is jammed full and not empty at all, and as we are able to see this stuff quite tangibly with increasingly high powered technology, the term "abstraction" loses meaning.  Hopefully, through technology or meditation, many of us can dive down to that deep plane of omniscient awareness that seems to be the basis that unites everything as well as everynonthing, every potential thing.  In a utopian scenario of the future most of us would get in deeper touch with our creative selves and thus leave behind a truly significant trail in our wake.  Pondering a work of art, whether upside or down, can sometimes open the door to a world so much larger than ourselves. Time may not exist in the most abstract reality, but in our manifested everyday reality, the time is now.  Art grows up and moves away, but once comprehended, it's effect is never erased. Whether we turn it upside down or sideways, whether it is "abstract" or "realistic", it aids us in leading meaningful lives.  Awesome.

Can Dogs Appreciate Art?

Relatives of mine have had dogs who "sang" along with them, or their piano playing.  The dogs may have just had the instinct to join into a stand-in for a  canine chorus. My brother's German shepherd, however, would get started with help, but went onto more solo singing than I'd expect from pure instinctual behavior. 

Last night my dog reacted to a photograph, making me wonder if dogs can make sense of two dimensional images. If dogs can make sense of pictures, it follows that they might be able to appreciate art in some way.  Perhaps they are even capable of having an aesthetic experience. 

I had sat down on the old white sofa to look at a magazine.  Because it's the only piece of furniture my dog is allowed to come up on, he happily made his arthritic effort to join me there.  I leafed through page after page of creative advertisements as he relaxed beside me, but when I came to the double spread for Bulgari in which a bare model embraces  a fragrance bottle while cuddling up to a lion, he lifted his head and strained his nose towards the magazine, sniffing intently.  My dog continued his investigation until he satisfied himself that there was no living creature there wearing that fur.  Although the ad shows a fragrance bottle, there is no sample of it in the page, so he was not reacting to a smell.  He must have reacted to the image of fur or perhaps the lion's features.  I tested the theory by continuing to turn pages of photographs and watching him ignore me.  I stuck some other pages under his nose, which he simply ignored, but when I stuck the spread with the lion in his face again he sniffed it again, for a shorter time and with less interest than the first time before relaxing again with a sigh, as if saying,  "Oh yeah, that's that same nothing I checked out before." 

In an article in Cerebrum, from the Dana Foundation, "your gateway to information about the brain and brain research", authors Gisela Kaplan, Ph.D. and Lesley J. Rogers, D. Phil., D.Sc. say,
"Creation and appreciation of art are aspects of consciousness that we have tradition-ally viewed as purely human activities, ones that express our highest cognitive abilities. If animals share at least some aspects of this ability, we will have to look upon them with more respect and perhaps change the ways we treat them."
The authors go on to say that "some researchers have dared to suggest that animals may play because they find it pleasurable to do so. Doing something for pleasure, rather than for survival, is part of how we define the act of creating art."  They warn against forming any conclusions too soon, but I'll peak around that corner to see what may lie there.  Perhaps my dog has not only the ability to appreciate art, but the ability to create it! 

I've been amazed to watch my dog play creative games.  He has trained me to throw treats out the window.  Usually he runs right to it, settles down on a plush patch of grass, and begins to devour it.  Several times, though, although I'd thrown the treat with pretty good aim, landing it near him and certainly within his sight and smell range, I've seen him pretend not to see it.  This dog who has smelled a stale oreo cookie 15 ft. away, pretended that he just could not see or smell that fresh treat right under his nose!   After a few minutes of exhaustive "searching", he finally "discovered" it, joyfully tossing it in the air.  This was pure pretending, pure playing.  To create art it is necessary to engage in lots of pretending in order to create illusions of form and space.  Having the ability to pretend implies an ability to appreciate creative pretending, does it not?

The magazine lion incident reminded me of a Halloween some years ago.  When my daughter was a toddler (before we had our dog) she had a lion costume.  We later gave it to a friend who had two adorable little girls, and one Halloween they came trick-or-treating to our house, one wearing that costume and the other in a similar one.  Our dog did not know what to make of them.  He kept his distance and looked quizzicaly up to me, then barked a very questioning alert and looked back at me with the most confused expression ever.  The funny and adorable scene left such an impression on me that I spent several hours searching for the photograph before realizing that the image was only committed to my memory.

More funny incidents occur around Christmastime, when we walk our dog around the neighborhood.  Several people display sculptures of reindeer in their yards.  Our dog has slowed down to suspiciously eye those white cutout wooden deer, and he has actually charged at the willow branch ones.  This is slightly embarrassing to both of us.  You would hope your dog could tell the difference between reality and decoration!

I have not practiced showing my dog two-dimensional images so he could perhaps appreciate portraiture.  If he could "read" a photograph of fur or a lion's face to recognize it as resembling a real animal; if he could "read" a sculpture of a deer as the actual animal, perhaps he would enjoy a little portrait gallery at his own eye level.  Hmmm....

Red Horses & Blue Dough

TAKING FLIGHT SCULPTURE Detail ©JKreves

 It's a good thing I'm not a '50's American housewife, because I detest ironing more than any other household chore.  Lucky for me, we rarely can't not get away with un-ironed clothing in this day and age.  I'd rather clean a bathroom than iron,  which makes my activity today quite ironic:

TAKING FLIGHT SCULPTURE from WETLANDS  ©Joy Kreves'10

I spent the afternooon in the garage ironing bamboo leaves.  I made a mini ironing board by cushioning a strip of cardboard with layers of cloth and used dryer sheets.  This was needed because I am getting a sculpture ready to show again (Verde Gallery's "Spaces" Exhibition) after it spent several months in storage.  When I took it out yesterday, I thought perhaps the myriad of dry bamboo leaves had curled a bit more than when the sculpture was initially exhibited.  I wasn't sure if I could even iron them permanently flat, but I made the mini ironing board, took the iron into the garage and went to town on the sculpture.    As I ironed my bamboo leaves, it occurred to me that this is not a normal thing to do. Your typical American does not spend afternoons ironing bamboo leaves. 

Baking blue dough.

Coming upstairs for a break, I came upon my daughter and her friend in the kitchen, staring at a big blue blob in the toaster oven.  My daughter explained that they had put food coloring into homemade dough, and were baking it.  This is when I realized that my family is not exactly "normal", either.  Things in our house are just a bit "off" from how other people live and spend their time.  When I raised my eyebrows, my daughter defended her creation by saying, "Well, you drew a red horse, so I can make blue dough!"

RED HORSE ©Joy Kreves

 
She is entirely correct, of course.  She grew up hearing my story about the red horse:

I was a child sitting on the floor, drawing alongside my older sister.  I was finding great pleasure in applying the RED crayon very heavily to create a solidly red horse.  My sister objected to my color choice, saying, "You can't make a red horse; horses aren't red!"  In that moment I suddenly understood that art was this great freedom in which you could depart from reality in whatever manner you could think of.  Of course I could make a red horse; I already had.

Art is what lets me and my daughter depart from the real world to dive into the rich world of the imagination.  Creating art can give one a feeling of great power.  Art can lead one to draw red horses, and bake blue dough.  Art is freedom pure and simple. Oddly it can also bring one full circle into doing what one most dislikes...but this time I'm ironing ironically.

Papermaking Perfection

Tomorrow's rain date won't be needed for Judy Tobie's papermaking workshop. Today was as perfect a day as you could want for such a venture:  sunshine, and not too sticky hot.  My daughter and  I showed up with several other people to literally dip our hands into this intriguing medium.

Judy Tobie, workshop teacher

Judy had set up long tables on the lawn with blotter cloths on them for each workshop participant to work at, and other tables over a gravel area.  On them were big plastic tubs, each filled with a pigmented paper pulp dispersed in water.

Drying paper (l.) & pulp still inside deckle (r.) on cloths

 She showed us how to hold the deckle frame and framed screen together to dip in the pulp.  Then we drained some of the water off, carried it to our table, lifted the deckle off and applied the screen to a piece of sheet (a "felt") layered over the chamois.  After lifting the screen and blotting the paper with a sponge, the paper was ready to either dry or to apply interesting items to and sandwich them under more paper layers.

 

Some workshop participants blotting their paper.

As we got the hang of this it was hard to stop for the break when Judy brought out a beautiful and delicious summer lunch to enjoy beneath the shade of a tall bamboo stand.
Our afternoon lesson was on making a simple shaped bowl form, much the same way you'd make a draped form with clay.

Shaping a bowl from paper pulp.

Since I've done work with clay for years, I was constantly comparing that medium to this as I worked.  Both are sufficiently messy that a special type of indoor studio space is warranted if one can't work outside.  Both (especially wheelthrowing clay) use a significant amount of water during the process. Both give you options for embedding textures.  Although the papermaking set up seems simpler, a serious artist might feel the need for some costly tools like a beater and a drying machine, and of course the ceramic artist needs at least a kiln to fire their finished creations.

Once the drying paper sheet is lying on the felt it can be moved onto a larger flat screen  or just onto the grass to dry in the sun.

New paper sheets drying on cloths.

My daughter worked on a circle theme with the intention of making them pages of a book:

I added pieces of bark, dry bamboo leaves, flower petals, twigs, etc. into my paper, experimenting with attaching them but not completely covering them in additional pulp layers.  As the day went on I got much more daring in my additions, applying significant pieces of bark and tall grasses to the paper. As is so often the case with workshops, just as I got to feeling like things were really cooking, it was time to clean up.

My papers on felts, drying on the lawn.

Papers finishing drying on a screen on the floor in my studio.

 Right before we came home I quickly rounded up the bits of stray pulp we'd pulled off the deckle frames and I rolled them into colorful beads.  Paper jewelry! Yet another use for this versatile medium!

Paper beads drying out.

 The trickiest part of the day was fitting all of our creations into my car, keeping them flat and not stacking them for the drive home.  Now our dining room table and chairs, and my studio floor are covered with them now until they dry enough to lift off the cloths and store.  The main thing paper and ceramic artists need?  Lots of space!
I'll look forward to a chance to participate in another papermaking workshop.  There is so much more to explore!

The Seat of Creativity

Chaos Disc, ©Joy Kreves

I have a new art studio chair, an ergoErgo "dynamic seating" chair.  There is a philosophy for everything these days, even a philosophy of sitting.

ergoErgo "dynamic seating" chair

What is the ideal chair from which to read, write, or create?  Well many people say our bodies need to move much more, and sit inactively much less. I spend most of the time in my studio standing, but occasionally when I'm working at something on a table I can sit down.

Orbit Disc, ©Joy Kreves

Ocean Disc, ©Joy Kreves

A few years ago, when I was working on a series of very detailed line drawings at a table,  I found myself developing back problems and bought one of those chairs with two seats, the lower one to put some of your weight on your knees and get your back into a better position.

Old, dangerous studio chair.

Unfortunately, I nearly fell flat on my face almost every time I used that chair, and I'm a careful person!  The phone would ring, I'd step forward as I got up to answer, catch my foot on the wheel that is unwisely placed just ahead of where your foot is, and really it is a miracle that I never actually did have that accident. I came close, so many times.  I put it out on the curb yesterday with a note taped to the seat, "FREE, but BEWARE! The wheels easily trip you up!"  Someone took it within 1/2 hour.  My conscience is clear, though; I gave fair warning. 

Aside from being less likely to seriously maim myself on my new ergoErgo chair, it takes up much less room than the other, and may even have real health benefits!  The chair's designer, Alan Heller, got the inspiration for it from watching his wife sit on one of those giant exercise balls.  It gives just a bit, the way those do, but has the advantages of taking up much less space and not rolling around the room though still allowing the sitter to shift.  Sitting on it is actually fun.  I've sat on the chair a few days this week already, while working on paintings, and haven't worried about it tripping me once!  It's lightweight enough to carry about, but seems substantial enough to last a long time.  It's even weatherproof.  Although it comes in an exciting, bright orange, I decided the black would be less distracting in my studio.

I love to read, but this is just another sedentary activity.  I just finished reading the exciting 681 page biography of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, THE LAST EMPRESS, by Hannah Pakula. This was accomplished in the smorgasboard of seating that our recently emptied nest provides.  Some of the chapters were devoured while on the bed, the sofa, the other sofa, and...okay, I have a confession.  I have one of those really decadent massage chairs that everybody wants to try out at the Brookstone stores in the mall but which are always full of children who won't get up.  I finished the book in that chair last night.  The massage chair was a big present to mark a big birthday, and I've enjoyed it for a number of years.  Because it is in a handy location near my computer, I end up sitting there more than I'd like, though.  Most of my blog posts have been written from it.  The odd thing about that chair is that when you're not getting massaged in it, you are locked into the most rigid position of all!  Partly because it is really sized for a larger person, (my feet don't reach the ground on it) it allows for less freedom of movement than any other chair in the house. This is why I am planning to lobby for another ergoErgo to be kept near that massage chair. That way the massage chair can be mainly for massaging, and I can have more quality "dynamic sitting" time! 

Now for my most important question:  Will the ergoErgo chair help me channel my creative muse?  Is "dynamic sitting" related to "inspired sitting"?  I'll bet it is, but if not, at least this studio chair isn't out to kill me!

Popcorn in My Soul

Last night's rain hitting the skylight sounded exactly like corn popping.  Odd, the connections  you think of when something is in the forefront of your mind.  Popcorn was on my mind, because I'd just been to Metuchen, NJ, to hear artist Sandy Skoglund talk about her work, and she'd shown an image of one of her room sized installations that was a landscape entirely covered with popcorn.  Searching for it again just now, I find that amazingly, the work is actually titled, "Raining Popcorn"!

Although I've been an admirer of Skoglund's art since I first came across images of it in NYC in the late 1970's, I was unfamiliar with this piece.  I immediately connected with it in a way only a Midwesterner could.  Indeed, she said her inspiration for it was the landscape surrounding the University of Iowa where she attended graduate school.  Skoglund's "Raining Popcorn" reminded me of a Carl Sandburg story my father used to read me, THE HUCKABUCK FAMILY:  AND HOW THEY RAISED POPCORN IN NEBRASKA AND QUIT AND CAME BACK.  In this story the popcorn the Huckabucks raised catches fire and explodes, the popping fields eventually filling their barn, and then their house. Their daughter, with the delightful name of Pony Pony, discovers a silver buckle inside of a squash.  Somehow this makes the family decide to move.  At least that is the way I remember the story. 

No toxic microwave packaging for me!

When I was at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, the surrounding landscape consisted of cornfield after cornfield after cornfield.  Going for a summer bike ride meant riding on miles of roads lined with cornfields on both sides, taller than myself. Having lived on the East Coast for 30+ years now, that landscape seems a surreal memory.

Harold Gregor, painter and now professor emeritus at Illinois State University, was making a name for himself by painting the absurdly monotonous Illinois cornfields in a romanticized photo-realist style.  As I heard the story, apartment dwelling New Yorkers found his depictions of big expanses of sky and horizons a sort of novelty.

My first summer job was detasseling corn.  The Illinois farmers would hire high school kids to pull off the "tassles" (seed ends).  It was disgustingly hot, hard work, for extremely low pay.  I think I may have lasted two days.  The corn was scratchy and cut up our arms and hands.

My mother, a native Ohioan, infected her children with a taste for popcorn.  A schoolteacher, a minister's wife and the church pianist, Mom was exhausted by the end of the weekend.  She wisely decided that Sunday dinner ("supper" as it is known in the Midwest) would consist of soup and popcorn, thus giving her a bit of time off from meal planning.  We seasoned our popcorn with Spatz, a very special seasoning that she ordered in bulk from an Ohio health food store.  I've never liked popcorn seasoned as well any other way.  Some months before she died, in 2000, Mom actually gave each of us kids several pounds of Spatz seasoning as a present.  It was as good as gold.  I kept mine in the freezer for years, unable to bring myself to use it up.  Only recently did I get it out, sprinkle it on popcorn, and enjoy that special flavor.

Even our big, white, fluffy cat, Muff, enjoyed popcorn.  We'd throw popped kernels to her from across the room.  Superior cat that she was, she'd catch them midair with the quickness many dogs but few cats exhibit towards such sport. 

As creatures who depend on planet earth for our sustenance, humans are forever intrinsically tied to the landscape.  Though corn has been a recurring theme in the landscape of my life, I have yet to have this influence come out in my artwork.  I know, though, that popcorn resides in my soul.  Pony Pony Huckabuck is me...Ommm...

Celebrating Creativity Through the Eyes of a Bug

Wrapped Junebug sculpture

My unveiled 2011 Junebug sculpture, ©Joy Kreves'11

Bugs are getting lots of press lately.  New Jersey, where I live, has a Brown Marmorated Stinkbug problem that has developed in the past several years.  These tough, flying bugs like to come buzzing into our houses.  They have a rank, "green" smell when you smash them.  Yes, I do smash them when I find them in MY house. I've grown used to that smell.  Also, the East Coast is increasingly suddenly suffering with bed bugs.  So far I am counting my lucky stars that these pests haven't found my residence.  May and June are known for the appearance (outside, at least!) of "June bugs".  This bug, though, has become the official mascot of art appreciation in the town of Metuchen, New Jersey, which is having its 4th annual Magical, Mystical Junebug ArtFest on Friday nights in June to celebrate the creativity that brings pleasure and meaning to our lives.  

This event is the brainchild of Metuchen's resident ceramist, Linda Vonderschmidt-LaStella.  Linda is a creative force in town already with her art studio being a hub for clay students of all ages.  I met Linda years ago, when we both belonged to "Cycles", a group of women artists.  A couple of years ago we reconnected to have a show she envisioned at Metuchen's Westerhoff Gallery.  When Linda asked me if I'd be interested in creating this year's Junebug sculpture to preside over the town for the month, I'd just finished having my solo show at Rider University Art Gallery, and was recalibrating.  I'd never made a work of art to stay outside before, and decided to take her up on this challenge. 

JUNE LOVE, ©Joy Kreves 2011

The result is a mostly aluminum sculpture that draws from ideas in my series of artworks utilizing lattice motifs to represent our deep interconnectedness with the natural environment.  The lattice sculptures are as much permeable membranes as they are concrete objects. They influence as well as alter a particular view or a particular viewpoint.  I understand my own outlook as the lattice through which I experience and process whatever life and environment have in store for me.  I find this connectedness endlessly intriguing.

JUNE LOVE, wing detail, ©Joy Kreves'11

My “June Love” sculpture on display in Metuchen this month is a natural extension of the lattice idea. I used metal mesh and perforated sheeting for both practical and conceptual reasons. The open “latticed” metal textures make the sculpture lighter and less susceptible to the wind. June bugs eat leaves, often leaving only a lattice of veins.  They have abdomens and under-wings that are transparent but for the veins.   

I took lots of artistic license with my junebug.  Her antennae became more like arm feelers, and I left off her long legs entirely.  She is much more glamorous with her swarovsky crystal eyes, than the real thing.  Perhaps my June bug will inspire romance; she chewed a heart-shaped hole from her leaf in honor of June brides and true love.  

Having grown up on Edward Lear's BOOK OF NONSENSE, I couldn't resist being inspired by my own bug and also came up with several goofy verses on the theme:

There once was a beetle named JUNE

Who would sit on a tree and just croon

As she dined night & day on green leaves she would say,

"Why can't I just sing a nice tune*?"

*June bugs are not known for making a melodious sound.

There was a small town named METUCHEN

Whose residents sang songs in Russian*

They danced through the night to the June bug's delight,

Those wonderful folks of Metuchen.

* I have no idea whether or not Metuchenites actually sing any songs in Russian.

There was a June bug in Metuchen
Who so loved the leaf she was clutchin’,
She nibbled away in a heart-shaped display
That lovely young bug of Metuchen

June Love detail, ©Joy Kreves'11

There is a schedule of events for the ArtFest including presentations by visual artists Sandy Skoglund and Jane Dickson, musicians and filmmakers. For a complete celebration of creativity, come to Metuchen on a Friday evening this month and reflect on what impact the creativity of musicians, filmmakers, chefs, writers, and visual artists has on your own life, and what that's worth.  My own answer?  Priceless!

Earth Brain

For two weeks I've been working on a new painting.  This one has been a real struggle, the kind that causes one to have frequent thoughts like, "should I just scrap the whole thing and start over?"  or even, "Why did I think I was an artist, anyway?" 
The painting's subject matter is the relationship between the earth and each one of us. As I've worked I've also been turning ideas around in my mind for this post. 

Today, as if to spur me on, I spotted a Pileated Woodpecker drilling on a short tree stump in someone's front yard.  Once nearly extinct, these striking birds have made a comeback.  I'd never seen one before.  I whipped out my handy pocket camera and caught a shot:

Pileated Woodpecker, ©JoyKreves, 2011

What does seeing this bird have to do with my painting?   When I searched "Piliated Woodpecker symbolism" I found this delightful website:  http://www.birdclan.org/woodpecker.html , which lists the bird's attributes as:

-Connection to the earth - That is just what I'm thinking about; the connection of our physical and psychic beings with the earth!

-Ability to find hidden layers - This is exactly the creative process.

-Understands rhythms, cycles and patterns - Clearly, these are necessary artistic skills.

-Warnings - What more important warning could there be than the warning that our earth home is a danger of irreversible damage? This is a theme that runs through my current work.

-Prophecy - Well, I'm honestly not sure yet how this one pertains...

-Associated with thunder - especially pertinent because there have literally been rumbles throughout the week. The storms now are just unnatural in their fury.

-The Earth's drummer - Doesn't every cause NEED a drummer? What better cause to drum for than our earth?

-Pecks away at deception until the truth is revealed - Well, that is just like the process of creating art.  One must simply keep pecking away at the painting or sculpture until its own truth is revealed, and sometimes that turns out to be rather different from what you thought you'd end up with.  If it's good, it rings true.

I wanted to write about the intimate connectedness of our human be-ing and our natural world.  This is what my artwork is about.  I am exploring the question, "What does the natural world have to do with ME?"  I believe that our brains are actually so infused with the landscape that when that landscape becomes degraded we experience suffering. 

Solastalgia, Waterfall Detail, ©Joy Kreves '10

"Solastalgia" is the word for this painful condition, a word coined by trans-disciplinary philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who experiences it first hand as he witnesses the swiftly developing environmental degradation caused by global warming around his home in Perth, Australia.  Naturalist/philosopher, Thomas Berry, was quoted recently in the  NJWild blog:  "Degraded habitat produces degraded humans."  This is the real danger.   
What positive conditions might we humans experience that are directly caused by our deep connection to the earth?  How about another of Albrecht's words, "eutierria", or a sense of existing as part of and in harmony with the earth?

Painting palette for Brain Landscape

Painting-in-progress, "Brain Landscape", photo ©Joy Kreves, 2011

Did you ever marvel at the way the network of nerves in a human body resembles the branches of a finely-limbed tree?  I have. Every level of our physical being seems to have a mirroring aspect in the environment.  Our universe is made up of patterns, colors and forms repeated on both microscopic and macroscopic levels. Artists, whose language this is, have long known that beings and their environments have visual sympathies which reflect a deep organic/psychic union.

I've put aside last week's  troublesome painting and I have embarked upon a new  "Brain Landscape" to more clearly express this idea. The first stage of this work-in-progress is shown in the photo here.  My idea begins with the famous photos of our earth as seen from outer space:  a luminous, watery blue jewel.  I am painting a brain that will have the same luminous water, in rivers and atmosphere. 

To artists and naturalists it is no surprise that a being is intrinsically tied to its environment, and yet those people who deny global warming seem to lack a sense of that connection.  Those who believe the earth and everything on and in it is here for our human disposal are lacking a fundamental understanding of what it is to be human.  Perhaps this is the degradation of humans that Thomas Berry warned about.  We cannot drill for gas, pouring toxic chemicals irreversibly into the earth without devastating results to our precious and limited supply of water.  And we are that water. Our earth has some land, surrounded by vast oceans.  Our bodies contain precious supplies of water throughout.  Here is our problem:  water is a finite resource.  The water that exists is the same water that has existed since the beginning of our earth.  This is an awesome fact.  If we poison it we will not get any more. In poisoning it we poison ourselves, and our beautiful brain landscapes will be degraded into shriveled, water starved environments incapable of supporting the eutierria that we require as healthy individuals. The rivers and oceans that make our life possible cannot come back from the brink of extinction the way the Pileated Woodpecker has.  The earth's landscape can filter out only so many poisons before the toxin load is too great and our ancient water supply is beyond saving.  Every human must nourish their beautiful, luminous earth brain.  Now.