https://chumly.com/n/22b7658
vendredi 31 janvier 2014
jeudi 30 janvier 2014
mercredi 29 janvier 2014
Introduction To The Noise Field
I stopped thinking that others might or might not understand what it is that I spend my days trying to articulate. I had to begin having faith at some point that my studies, my research, and my hard work over these last few decades had not been in vain.
I was never trying to prove anything. I repeatedly told people that I was not a scientist. I am an artist, for lack of a better word. A good way to put it would be that whatever it is that I do, I do it best and it involves Art, History, and Philosophy.
That would make it an interdisciplinary practise if I was a real scholar, like an academic of some kind, recognized by his peers. I am only recognized by my peers as a professional painter, so that's what I tell people my profession is. I also have a degree in computer-assisted sound design, so that technically would make me a qualified sound designer. I do practise the design science of sound and audio manipulation, though I also have a long-standing practise of musical composition, musical interpretation, song-writing, what have you.
I studied the recording arts, but am not an engineer. The term 'audio engineer' is a misnomer and in the 21st century it doesn't make much sense any more. In the old days, there really were full-blown engineers, electrical engineers, individuals working in electronics at the analog hardware level. One could say that they were experts with great technical mastery not only in the recording arts but in acoustic technology in general.
That is what I aspire to, but cannot permit myself to study electronics and electrical media with wild abandon until I an signed up for classes in a recognized institution of higher learning, in an engineering program. I only had one official, authentic electronics class and I instantly had to be honest with myself: I may have all sorts of talents, but electronics, electricity, circuits, wires, currents, amps and ohms and so forth and electromagnetism, physics as well, as well as most of those 'higher' more 'advanced' levels of mathematics... I maybe had the profound intuition and easy understanding, but that in my heart and mind would never qualify me as anything more than someone with great admiration, but from a very great distance.
So I am working on a Noise Field Theory but it might not be ready for publication for another 10-20 years. I'm patient, though, and will persevere in the only ways I know how to. Stick to the program. Painting and sound design for the time being. Some MOOCs on-line to learn the underlying math and theoretical computer science, programming and so forth.. the scientific, the technical part.. But in no wise would I ever allow myself to experiment with such things. It would go against everything I believe in.
But I had to start believing in myself first, and all the hard work I had done, that none of it was in vain, even though I thought I'd never make it out alive of whatever it was that possessed me. I think my desire was too ardent and it made me slightly flamboyant on the edges. But from the edges, I gained a delightful point of view, and now I'm just rolling with it. Philosophy from the edges. A little art a little at a time. Patience and perseverance, and some of that lovely music everybody seems to love so much. Now that I know it can do no harm, I am much more comfortable and restful with the thought of sharing my talents with the world.
But whether anyone will understand, or even try to, or give me a chance to explain myself, I no longer have any patience for such fruitless endeavors. The world is exactly that, a 'World'. People are 'people'. What I am, only I can be the final judge of that, so help me God.
https://chumly.com/n/22a97b9
I was never trying to prove anything. I repeatedly told people that I was not a scientist. I am an artist, for lack of a better word. A good way to put it would be that whatever it is that I do, I do it best and it involves Art, History, and Philosophy.
That would make it an interdisciplinary practise if I was a real scholar, like an academic of some kind, recognized by his peers. I am only recognized by my peers as a professional painter, so that's what I tell people my profession is. I also have a degree in computer-assisted sound design, so that technically would make me a qualified sound designer. I do practise the design science of sound and audio manipulation, though I also have a long-standing practise of musical composition, musical interpretation, song-writing, what have you.
I studied the recording arts, but am not an engineer. The term 'audio engineer' is a misnomer and in the 21st century it doesn't make much sense any more. In the old days, there really were full-blown engineers, electrical engineers, individuals working in electronics at the analog hardware level. One could say that they were experts with great technical mastery not only in the recording arts but in acoustic technology in general.
That is what I aspire to, but cannot permit myself to study electronics and electrical media with wild abandon until I an signed up for classes in a recognized institution of higher learning, in an engineering program. I only had one official, authentic electronics class and I instantly had to be honest with myself: I may have all sorts of talents, but electronics, electricity, circuits, wires, currents, amps and ohms and so forth and electromagnetism, physics as well, as well as most of those 'higher' more 'advanced' levels of mathematics... I maybe had the profound intuition and easy understanding, but that in my heart and mind would never qualify me as anything more than someone with great admiration, but from a very great distance.
So I am working on a Noise Field Theory but it might not be ready for publication for another 10-20 years. I'm patient, though, and will persevere in the only ways I know how to. Stick to the program. Painting and sound design for the time being. Some MOOCs on-line to learn the underlying math and theoretical computer science, programming and so forth.. the scientific, the technical part.. But in no wise would I ever allow myself to experiment with such things. It would go against everything I believe in.
But I had to start believing in myself first, and all the hard work I had done, that none of it was in vain, even though I thought I'd never make it out alive of whatever it was that possessed me. I think my desire was too ardent and it made me slightly flamboyant on the edges. But from the edges, I gained a delightful point of view, and now I'm just rolling with it. Philosophy from the edges. A little art a little at a time. Patience and perseverance, and some of that lovely music everybody seems to love so much. Now that I know it can do no harm, I am much more comfortable and restful with the thought of sharing my talents with the world.
But whether anyone will understand, or even try to, or give me a chance to explain myself, I no longer have any patience for such fruitless endeavors. The world is exactly that, a 'World'. People are 'people'. What I am, only I can be the final judge of that, so help me God.
https://chumly.com/n/22a97b9
mardi 28 janvier 2014
lundi 27 janvier 2014
To Those Who Would Seek To Possess Knowledge
[The Possessor Risks Becoming Possessed By That Which He Seeks To Possess]
https://chumly.com/n/2298394
https://chumly.com/n/2298394
Thoughts On Holy Baptism After 3 Years
[True conversion is an ongoing moment-to-moment process chosen freely in Inwardness]
https://chumly.com/n/2291ee5
https://chumly.com/n/2291ee5
mardi 21 janvier 2014
lundi 20 janvier 2014
samedi 18 janvier 2014
vendredi 17 janvier 2014
jeudi 16 janvier 2014
mercredi 15 janvier 2014
The Semi-Automatic Philosophy of Global Refuse
- We abandon the use of the term manifesto, This All of Us Forever
- We abandon the use of the term anarchy, This All of Us Forever
- We maintain clean daily everyday practises and disciplines to further the Inspiration driving only the most Hygienic Visions available
- We accept that there is a Mystery in life that we can neither comprehend nor explain, that puts us at risk of attempting to Read Into The Unreadable
- We believe in Liberation but only from the prison-cell of our hearts. Liberation and Liberty can never go against the principles of Beauty, Prudence, and other virtues. Otherwise, promote the civic virtues and a Culture of Civility and all will be just fine.
- Help those whose work it is to maintain the repositories of knowledge, beauty, and truth (scientific archives, libraries, museums, art studios, and so forth).
- It can only be done for the Good, and In the Name of Truth and Beauty.
- And you must be recognized by your Peers to become a Professional, period.
- And the government cannot intervene into the Art Market and force entire Professions/Trades/Industries out of business.
- Amen.
https://chumly.com/n/221b6a6
- We abandon the use of the term anarchy, This All of Us Forever
- We maintain clean daily everyday practises and disciplines to further the Inspiration driving only the most Hygienic Visions available
- We accept that there is a Mystery in life that we can neither comprehend nor explain, that puts us at risk of attempting to Read Into The Unreadable
- We believe in Liberation but only from the prison-cell of our hearts. Liberation and Liberty can never go against the principles of Beauty, Prudence, and other virtues. Otherwise, promote the civic virtues and a Culture of Civility and all will be just fine.
- Help those whose work it is to maintain the repositories of knowledge, beauty, and truth (scientific archives, libraries, museums, art studios, and so forth).
- It can only be done for the Good, and In the Name of Truth and Beauty.
- And you must be recognized by your Peers to become a Professional, period.
- And the government cannot intervene into the Art Market and force entire Professions/Trades/Industries out of business.
- Amen.
https://chumly.com/n/221b6a6
The Art Market 2.0 - Why History Almost Failed To Preserve Our Humanity
[Note: Since it is not possible for me to keep working all my life to refine my texts and risk NEVER SHARING THEM, I am writing on these blogs just the way it comes out, with no edits. But I will put a warning like this at the top indicating that this should be treated as nothing more nor less than METAFICTION. It just happens to be one of the Tools of the Trade I inherited. I just know if I don't publish this stuff now as it comes to me that I will regret it, I always have in the past. at least here I know where to find it, it's on a website with my name on it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction)
I will make it quick and simple. Those more skilled than I in interpretation and social sciences of History and Art Historiography and so forth will be able to elaborate, Philosophers too, from political-economic thinkers. to thinkers of the realms of high finance and so forth. What most people writing about the Art Market in the last 100 years failed to realize was that artists were NOT in it for the money EVER, not now, not forever. It's a much more ancient practise and doesn't even have to be explained with mysticism and magic or anything of the sort. It is so simple you will want to thank me for the joy it brings, but I must renounce on any merit or credit you might attribute to me. Just follow your heart when it inspires you to do something that can only bring joy to human hearts and preserve our great Humanity.
Here is why we have collectively preserved the Image of the Starving, Crazy Artist, why it continues to be propagated and drives so much that we do, even when we fail to realize it. What we need, first of all, is a healthy Art Market, in true Capitalist manner, a free market for art and knowledge, but that can only ever possibly bring good and continue to bring good. Currently, there is art theft and vandalism and iconoclastic enthusiasm waiting to break on every corner of the globe and it is important that we remind ourselves of why we do many of the things we do. A short explanation follows.
Imagine a small population of living beings. Say they just sit in the mud. We call them Basic Humanoids. Then as they grow into a larger pool, there is need of a Division of Labor. Now say we have 4 Trades or Traditions in the pool or population of Humanoids. Say that each trade or tradition has a "Captain" of sorts, Captain of the team. This will eventually prove that hierarchy matters and that it is naturally-occurring and often necessary to preserve our very existence on this planet. But I digress.
What happens is that when one Trade or Tradition in the Passage of Culture Through Time and History, when one of them ends up getting too big, it needs to break off into other parts. But what can happen is a Moment of Great Perplexity: It is possible to arrive at a situation where there are "Too Many Captains" and so it is no longer possible to ensure that the Captain keep the tradition or trade alive.. And he/She can be debunked or overthrown, and the collapse of an entire Technical Culture or Technical Media even, who knows, can be lost forever.
What humans do on earth is preserve and conserve and perpetuate the wonderful existence of the Arts & Cultures. There are other things, like Sciences, Philosophy, which all stem from Art, are "Branches" or "Forks" if you will. Test the theory and remove anything that might corrupt the sacred preservation of Beauty. Merge through Interpretation with proper Documentation, Readability standards, Best Practises, and so forth. But the Project MUST Start with the purest intention (Which might be Attempting The Impossible at times, but only if there is no malice that is extant).
In any case, When there is Division of Labor and there is the possibility of Diminishing Returns, then the Cultural Business risks Going Under and we Risk losing a little bit of our Humanity, by losing a Culture. This is true of All Lost Culture, and Culture is the cultivation of whatever it takes to pass on the Gift of our great Humanity.
Ergo, a form of Civic Humanism is something that one might want to study, for it would speak directly to the heart of of a Spirit of Conservation, Preservation, and so forth. But as stated, this is not my speciality.
It also means that anyone speaking of the invention or spreading of "social currencies" is LYING if they are NOT speaking in these terms or terms that are in the Same Spirit. For I, a distinguished Professional Painter and Independent Scholar, am doing it in the SPIRIT OF ALL MY PEERS. For my Peers and I have debated, discussed, discoursed, and this is the realization most of us in North America or parts thereof have been able to agree upon (Common Sense; sensus communis): We need an Art Market soon so we can start delivering these goods. We have gifts of plenty to share with the world but the world refuses to let us practise our ancient arts, our Trades, Traditions, except in small pockets (small pockets compare to the Big Pockets it could potentially unleash).
Someone might not be able to afford to purchase the Pyramids, but they could Commission an artist or Art Business, i.e. Culture Business, Arts & Culture Business to do it. One will be tempted to say that this already exists, but I can assure you that I know at least one place on earth where this does not exist, in fact the exact opposite exists. And if this exists where you live then stop listening to nay-sayers and pundits and come back to Reason. Start listening to Art Historians and Art Historiographers, I can give you lots of names. Go to your museums. Start helping out by giving artists and artisans of the creative industries and creators of creative systems that perpetuate the good of humanity through Human Arts & Culture..
What happened, my dear friends, is we fell into Socialism, or fell prey to a form of Social Capitalism where the great works of arts & Culture of the past, great works of Knowledge which humans dedicated their lifetimes to preserving and conserving, those were all about to get through in the trash, and not by some Bogey-man, but by the persistence of human naiveté I guess. Though it was never a real existential threat, it's just that there was confusion and discord, but now it is okay. Artists and Cultural Workers the world over just got through through an almost religio-ecstatic mystical pressure cooker as they received the wisdom of our ancient brothers and sisters. It is a Doctrine in concordance and harmony with, and in the Spirit of, EVERYTHING, UNIVERSALLY.
Immanuel Kant taught us that in his Critique of Judgement. That was the point, but they rebelled against him. Then those after that rebelled against those that rebelled against them, ad indefinitum. The problem is that those who once in a while think that they have solved the ancient puzzlement of the Glass Bead Game, are mistaken. It is much more sophisticated than anyone could ever understand who isn't at the top of their A-Game in at least one of the many Professions of the Arts & Cultures, and Industries, Trades, Traditions, etc. And I am a very lowly painter for I have revealed a trade secret. But I fear losing humanity forever, and so have now shared it in the appropriate spirit. Besides, I am being persecuted for the work I do and cannot currently exile myself to another land and so much both continue to live with the persecution and hope that I get to leave some of this behind for others to put back together.
My life's work has been too Encyclopedic for me to just let it go like that. I took off where Paul Otlet left off. I am about to reveal my stupid papier maché REFCARDS. What, it doesn't say somewhere that I am a writer of fiction and non-fiction? Well, I write Historiographic Metafiction too, Novelistic Phenomenologies. Except now it has been taken a step further, in a project I call 400 years of Madness.
Recommendations for Proper Orientation: Sting has a new album and musical The Last Ship, Robert Lepage has a new Four-play series called Jeux de Cartes (Deck of Cards). It will all make sense soon. I'm just happy because this was the vision I had 16 or so years ago. Finally, a time has arrived for my Novellas. I have been given the gift of an Audience! How joyful is that?!! haha
The persisting problem, though, is why I still can't get anyone interested in my stuff. Is it really because I'm not any good? Or is it because the Art Market I'm speaking of doesn't exist? Sure, Cinema works fine. Theater works fine. Music works fine. But what about the ancient art of Depiction? Doesn't anyone want to know what Dr. Cyclicus Scriptor is doing? Those who carry the sacred Scribal arts on their shoulders and their backs? Have people given up on their willingness to read things? Must I ask you to please, heavenly please, read the works of Margaret Atwood, a fellow Canadian?
The Real History of Canada was almost lost forever.. But it has been fully retrieved, and then some. It has taken far too long to piece it back together. Now so many nations and peoples can heal who have passed here on this mass grave. The earth is a mass grave, by the way, I'm sorry if you have trouble digesting that, but the earth needs bodies for Beauty to keep growing. Now now, simmer down, I told you repeatedly, look at the calendrical dates, this is Carnival Time we are going in.. It's this way or the highway buddy! Keep on keeping on, sleds fore and away mates! Follow the course,. PINXIT.
- In The Voice of Fictional Character Named Pilgrim Bronze
https://chumly.com/n/221b54f
I will make it quick and simple. Those more skilled than I in interpretation and social sciences of History and Art Historiography and so forth will be able to elaborate, Philosophers too, from political-economic thinkers. to thinkers of the realms of high finance and so forth. What most people writing about the Art Market in the last 100 years failed to realize was that artists were NOT in it for the money EVER, not now, not forever. It's a much more ancient practise and doesn't even have to be explained with mysticism and magic or anything of the sort. It is so simple you will want to thank me for the joy it brings, but I must renounce on any merit or credit you might attribute to me. Just follow your heart when it inspires you to do something that can only bring joy to human hearts and preserve our great Humanity.
Here is why we have collectively preserved the Image of the Starving, Crazy Artist, why it continues to be propagated and drives so much that we do, even when we fail to realize it. What we need, first of all, is a healthy Art Market, in true Capitalist manner, a free market for art and knowledge, but that can only ever possibly bring good and continue to bring good. Currently, there is art theft and vandalism and iconoclastic enthusiasm waiting to break on every corner of the globe and it is important that we remind ourselves of why we do many of the things we do. A short explanation follows.
Imagine a small population of living beings. Say they just sit in the mud. We call them Basic Humanoids. Then as they grow into a larger pool, there is need of a Division of Labor. Now say we have 4 Trades or Traditions in the pool or population of Humanoids. Say that each trade or tradition has a "Captain" of sorts, Captain of the team. This will eventually prove that hierarchy matters and that it is naturally-occurring and often necessary to preserve our very existence on this planet. But I digress.
What happens is that when one Trade or Tradition in the Passage of Culture Through Time and History, when one of them ends up getting too big, it needs to break off into other parts. But what can happen is a Moment of Great Perplexity: It is possible to arrive at a situation where there are "Too Many Captains" and so it is no longer possible to ensure that the Captain keep the tradition or trade alive.. And he/She can be debunked or overthrown, and the collapse of an entire Technical Culture or Technical Media even, who knows, can be lost forever.
What humans do on earth is preserve and conserve and perpetuate the wonderful existence of the Arts & Cultures. There are other things, like Sciences, Philosophy, which all stem from Art, are "Branches" or "Forks" if you will. Test the theory and remove anything that might corrupt the sacred preservation of Beauty. Merge through Interpretation with proper Documentation, Readability standards, Best Practises, and so forth. But the Project MUST Start with the purest intention (Which might be Attempting The Impossible at times, but only if there is no malice that is extant).
In any case, When there is Division of Labor and there is the possibility of Diminishing Returns, then the Cultural Business risks Going Under and we Risk losing a little bit of our Humanity, by losing a Culture. This is true of All Lost Culture, and Culture is the cultivation of whatever it takes to pass on the Gift of our great Humanity.
Ergo, a form of Civic Humanism is something that one might want to study, for it would speak directly to the heart of of a Spirit of Conservation, Preservation, and so forth. But as stated, this is not my speciality.
It also means that anyone speaking of the invention or spreading of "social currencies" is LYING if they are NOT speaking in these terms or terms that are in the Same Spirit. For I, a distinguished Professional Painter and Independent Scholar, am doing it in the SPIRIT OF ALL MY PEERS. For my Peers and I have debated, discussed, discoursed, and this is the realization most of us in North America or parts thereof have been able to agree upon (Common Sense; sensus communis): We need an Art Market soon so we can start delivering these goods. We have gifts of plenty to share with the world but the world refuses to let us practise our ancient arts, our Trades, Traditions, except in small pockets (small pockets compare to the Big Pockets it could potentially unleash).
Someone might not be able to afford to purchase the Pyramids, but they could Commission an artist or Art Business, i.e. Culture Business, Arts & Culture Business to do it. One will be tempted to say that this already exists, but I can assure you that I know at least one place on earth where this does not exist, in fact the exact opposite exists. And if this exists where you live then stop listening to nay-sayers and pundits and come back to Reason. Start listening to Art Historians and Art Historiographers, I can give you lots of names. Go to your museums. Start helping out by giving artists and artisans of the creative industries and creators of creative systems that perpetuate the good of humanity through Human Arts & Culture..
What happened, my dear friends, is we fell into Socialism, or fell prey to a form of Social Capitalism where the great works of arts & Culture of the past, great works of Knowledge which humans dedicated their lifetimes to preserving and conserving, those were all about to get through in the trash, and not by some Bogey-man, but by the persistence of human naiveté I guess. Though it was never a real existential threat, it's just that there was confusion and discord, but now it is okay. Artists and Cultural Workers the world over just got through through an almost religio-ecstatic mystical pressure cooker as they received the wisdom of our ancient brothers and sisters. It is a Doctrine in concordance and harmony with, and in the Spirit of, EVERYTHING, UNIVERSALLY.
Immanuel Kant taught us that in his Critique of Judgement. That was the point, but they rebelled against him. Then those after that rebelled against those that rebelled against them, ad indefinitum. The problem is that those who once in a while think that they have solved the ancient puzzlement of the Glass Bead Game, are mistaken. It is much more sophisticated than anyone could ever understand who isn't at the top of their A-Game in at least one of the many Professions of the Arts & Cultures, and Industries, Trades, Traditions, etc. And I am a very lowly painter for I have revealed a trade secret. But I fear losing humanity forever, and so have now shared it in the appropriate spirit. Besides, I am being persecuted for the work I do and cannot currently exile myself to another land and so much both continue to live with the persecution and hope that I get to leave some of this behind for others to put back together.
My life's work has been too Encyclopedic for me to just let it go like that. I took off where Paul Otlet left off. I am about to reveal my stupid papier maché REFCARDS. What, it doesn't say somewhere that I am a writer of fiction and non-fiction? Well, I write Historiographic Metafiction too, Novelistic Phenomenologies. Except now it has been taken a step further, in a project I call 400 years of Madness.
Recommendations for Proper Orientation: Sting has a new album and musical The Last Ship, Robert Lepage has a new Four-play series called Jeux de Cartes (Deck of Cards). It will all make sense soon. I'm just happy because this was the vision I had 16 or so years ago. Finally, a time has arrived for my Novellas. I have been given the gift of an Audience! How joyful is that?!! haha
The persisting problem, though, is why I still can't get anyone interested in my stuff. Is it really because I'm not any good? Or is it because the Art Market I'm speaking of doesn't exist? Sure, Cinema works fine. Theater works fine. Music works fine. But what about the ancient art of Depiction? Doesn't anyone want to know what Dr. Cyclicus Scriptor is doing? Those who carry the sacred Scribal arts on their shoulders and their backs? Have people given up on their willingness to read things? Must I ask you to please, heavenly please, read the works of Margaret Atwood, a fellow Canadian?
The Real History of Canada was almost lost forever.. But it has been fully retrieved, and then some. It has taken far too long to piece it back together. Now so many nations and peoples can heal who have passed here on this mass grave. The earth is a mass grave, by the way, I'm sorry if you have trouble digesting that, but the earth needs bodies for Beauty to keep growing. Now now, simmer down, I told you repeatedly, look at the calendrical dates, this is Carnival Time we are going in.. It's this way or the highway buddy! Keep on keeping on, sleds fore and away mates! Follow the course,. PINXIT.
- In The Voice of Fictional Character Named Pilgrim Bronze
https://chumly.com/n/221b54f
mardi 14 janvier 2014
Connaissons-Nous La Venise?
Il paraîtra que les anciens qui habitaient dans la région, devaient se cacher quand les Vandales venaient tout saccager. L'histoire nous raconte qu'ils ont découvert la Swamp qui est Venise par accident. Ils se sauvaient des Goths et des Hunns et puis se sont trouvés dans les égouts de Venise. Voyant que personne désirait venir les trouver dans la Boue de la Swamp de Venise, ils se sont dit, "Construisons une ville içi. Elle sera peut-être une des plus Grande Ville de l'Histoire, car nous serons capable de faire notre travail en tranquilité, car personne viendra nous déranger dans la Boue de la Swamp de Venise. Ça pue l'iable."
Hélas, j'en connais des villes et des villages comme ça, beaucoup moins coûteux qu'un Voyage en Italie. On appelle ça la Latrine. C'est là que je vais quand j'ai besoin de satisfaire mon besoin naturel de Sécurité: La Latrine Latine en Platine Ou Je Me Plaints de Peinture de Patine de mon Histoire de Grandes Babines Qui's'câche d'ein Bois de Sans-Boulots de Saints Sans-Papiers assieds sur Trône Pavée de Ste-Catherine la pitié de n'pas être Blanc pas de dents, pas d'sacoche pas d'brosse à dents, La Babine de ma Latrine Latine Bourbon Bourgeois ta platine me rattatine c'est moi qui's'cache en p'tit Sans-Coureurs-de-Bois Sans-Pitié et Sens Unique Tragédie en sens Comique. Connaissez-vous la Venise? Mettez-cela dans votre valise et sourriez. Envoyez le message à votre Face de Cuir.
https://chumly.com/n/2211e8f
Hélas, j'en connais des villes et des villages comme ça, beaucoup moins coûteux qu'un Voyage en Italie. On appelle ça la Latrine. C'est là que je vais quand j'ai besoin de satisfaire mon besoin naturel de Sécurité: La Latrine Latine en Platine Ou Je Me Plaints de Peinture de Patine de mon Histoire de Grandes Babines Qui's'câche d'ein Bois de Sans-Boulots de Saints Sans-Papiers assieds sur Trône Pavée de Ste-Catherine la pitié de n'pas être Blanc pas de dents, pas d'sacoche pas d'brosse à dents, La Babine de ma Latrine Latine Bourbon Bourgeois ta platine me rattatine c'est moi qui's'cache en p'tit Sans-Coureurs-de-Bois Sans-Pitié et Sens Unique Tragédie en sens Comique. Connaissez-vous la Venise? Mettez-cela dans votre valise et sourriez. Envoyez le message à votre Face de Cuir.
https://chumly.com/n/2211e8f
The Experience of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire Painting
Friday, February 14, 2003
11:56:48 AM
This past Wednesday evening, my sister and I attended the L’invitation au voyage exhibit currently on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. Rather than get into a general account of my experience of this exhibit, on loan from the Hermitage Museum in St-Petersburg, which I am doing elsewhere anyhow, I want to speak specifically of a Cézanne painting which I saw there, before my memory starts playing tricks on me.
The painting was called Mont Sainte-Victoire, from the late nineteenth century, though I fail to remember the date exactly. A strange thing is that I remember almost nothing from it except that I had a powerful experience before it.
I walked into one of the rooms and was faced immediately with a painting. At first, I perceived it, I saw a painting and walked towards it. I saw the colors, the forms, and then realized it was a Cézanne. I recognized it as Cézanne and saw the art historical implications flash through my head, i.e. what it means to see a Cézanne, what it means to be a Cézanne painting in a museum.
I knew of his Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings, knew that the region was very dear to him, was almost a sacred or religious site to Paul Cézanne. I began crying. I had cried before while viewing a Cézanne painting, and in fact, at the Museum of Fine Arts I have only ever cried before Cézanne paintings, and specifically ones in which nature is depicted, say, landscape paintings, or ones with forests (I think the other one was his Déjeuner sur l’herbe). I have had shivers run through my spine before other paintings and painters, Riopelle, Dali, but Cézanne, for some reason, and in his landscapes particularly, speaks more closely to my emotions, to my psyche, to some deep abyss in my inward dimension.
I began to feel melancholic, but quickly changed my mind when I began noticing that the tears were creating an obstacle to my viewing, not physically in the sense of making the act of seeing difficult, but the overwhelming feeling of despair, of despondency, or just plain sadness is what it was, made it difficult for me to contemplate the painting with any objectivity, and so I heard Immanuel Kant’s voice in my head and tried indifference.
The proper term, rather than indifference, would be disinterestedness. I made an attempt to see the painting without interest, and it helped greatly. I believe that this was when I saw Cézanne as just another human being, like me, like these people in the museum alongside me. A nice amount of disinterestedness, I believe, along with other things, allowed me to not be moved by the painting. I was moved nonetheless, but not in a dramatic, histrionic fashion. I saw the painting for what it was, and this, I am beginning to understand, and perhaps falsely, but nonetheless: I think this was what Kant meant.
There was definitely something monumental about this Mont Sainte-Victoire. I may have seen one of his Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings before at the same exhibit in which I saw the Déjeuner sur l’herbe. I first saw the painting as powerful, as sublime, but then began seeing it as a painting, an object before me. I went in and out of seeing it and seeing myself seeing it. It was alienating when I saw my sight before it, saw my own eyes as objects perceiving another object. I saw through the eyes of Picasso and other painters who saw this and other Cézanne paintings before me. It was definitely dialectical, metaphysical. I felt interest. My tears were interested tears. I appropriated the painting to my emotions, to my feelings of sadness and despair. Despair at what? At life, at being alive while Cézanne is dead, at seeing the painting outlive the painter. And I was a painter, a living painting, prostrated before a work of art. The impulse of crying felt theatrical, even artificial. This is not how art normally moves me. And though there was ample incentive to keep crying, for I do not cry often any more and I felt the need to, and once you begin tearing up, it is almost a necessity to give in to the swelling lamentation.
I did not give in. I cut it short at its inception, before it took over my body. I remained a fool before fool’s gold nonetheless, but I did not falsify my experience of the art object through any pretence or affectation. I tried a new manner, viewing it as-is, and it was a small, humble thing, a little canvas with little import. Ah, but it does not, cannot end there! The canvas now which I saw with disinterested eyes has kept its tranquil power, its serene immensity! I fear that tears, had I given into them, would have led to a type of forgetfulness or oblivion, that I would not be sitting here now capable of relating small nuances about the experience, that throwing myself into the tumults of sublimity would obtain in the end a sort of blanket of smog through which the crystal of experience would vanish into inaccuracy and possibly falsification or an ailing remembrance. I cannot, however, state with any level of certainty that I am not now falsifying or correcting that experience of being before one of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings, for it was such a thing, like I said, dialectical & metaphysic, that cannot be expressed with utmost precision afterwards. I can look back, but those half-tears are still there. I am still prone to sublime feelings of helplessness and insurmountable immensity. But at least I did not deify Cézanne, and that has humbled the both of us.
https://chumly.com/n/2208512
11:56:48 AM
This past Wednesday evening, my sister and I attended the L’invitation au voyage exhibit currently on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. Rather than get into a general account of my experience of this exhibit, on loan from the Hermitage Museum in St-Petersburg, which I am doing elsewhere anyhow, I want to speak specifically of a Cézanne painting which I saw there, before my memory starts playing tricks on me.
The painting was called Mont Sainte-Victoire, from the late nineteenth century, though I fail to remember the date exactly. A strange thing is that I remember almost nothing from it except that I had a powerful experience before it.
I walked into one of the rooms and was faced immediately with a painting. At first, I perceived it, I saw a painting and walked towards it. I saw the colors, the forms, and then realized it was a Cézanne. I recognized it as Cézanne and saw the art historical implications flash through my head, i.e. what it means to see a Cézanne, what it means to be a Cézanne painting in a museum.
I knew of his Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings, knew that the region was very dear to him, was almost a sacred or religious site to Paul Cézanne. I began crying. I had cried before while viewing a Cézanne painting, and in fact, at the Museum of Fine Arts I have only ever cried before Cézanne paintings, and specifically ones in which nature is depicted, say, landscape paintings, or ones with forests (I think the other one was his Déjeuner sur l’herbe). I have had shivers run through my spine before other paintings and painters, Riopelle, Dali, but Cézanne, for some reason, and in his landscapes particularly, speaks more closely to my emotions, to my psyche, to some deep abyss in my inward dimension.
I began to feel melancholic, but quickly changed my mind when I began noticing that the tears were creating an obstacle to my viewing, not physically in the sense of making the act of seeing difficult, but the overwhelming feeling of despair, of despondency, or just plain sadness is what it was, made it difficult for me to contemplate the painting with any objectivity, and so I heard Immanuel Kant’s voice in my head and tried indifference.
The proper term, rather than indifference, would be disinterestedness. I made an attempt to see the painting without interest, and it helped greatly. I believe that this was when I saw Cézanne as just another human being, like me, like these people in the museum alongside me. A nice amount of disinterestedness, I believe, along with other things, allowed me to not be moved by the painting. I was moved nonetheless, but not in a dramatic, histrionic fashion. I saw the painting for what it was, and this, I am beginning to understand, and perhaps falsely, but nonetheless: I think this was what Kant meant.
There was definitely something monumental about this Mont Sainte-Victoire. I may have seen one of his Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings before at the same exhibit in which I saw the Déjeuner sur l’herbe. I first saw the painting as powerful, as sublime, but then began seeing it as a painting, an object before me. I went in and out of seeing it and seeing myself seeing it. It was alienating when I saw my sight before it, saw my own eyes as objects perceiving another object. I saw through the eyes of Picasso and other painters who saw this and other Cézanne paintings before me. It was definitely dialectical, metaphysical. I felt interest. My tears were interested tears. I appropriated the painting to my emotions, to my feelings of sadness and despair. Despair at what? At life, at being alive while Cézanne is dead, at seeing the painting outlive the painter. And I was a painter, a living painting, prostrated before a work of art. The impulse of crying felt theatrical, even artificial. This is not how art normally moves me. And though there was ample incentive to keep crying, for I do not cry often any more and I felt the need to, and once you begin tearing up, it is almost a necessity to give in to the swelling lamentation.
I did not give in. I cut it short at its inception, before it took over my body. I remained a fool before fool’s gold nonetheless, but I did not falsify my experience of the art object through any pretence or affectation. I tried a new manner, viewing it as-is, and it was a small, humble thing, a little canvas with little import. Ah, but it does not, cannot end there! The canvas now which I saw with disinterested eyes has kept its tranquil power, its serene immensity! I fear that tears, had I given into them, would have led to a type of forgetfulness or oblivion, that I would not be sitting here now capable of relating small nuances about the experience, that throwing myself into the tumults of sublimity would obtain in the end a sort of blanket of smog through which the crystal of experience would vanish into inaccuracy and possibly falsification or an ailing remembrance. I cannot, however, state with any level of certainty that I am not now falsifying or correcting that experience of being before one of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings, for it was such a thing, like I said, dialectical & metaphysic, that cannot be expressed with utmost precision afterwards. I can look back, but those half-tears are still there. I am still prone to sublime feelings of helplessness and insurmountable immensity. But at least I did not deify Cézanne, and that has humbled the both of us.
https://chumly.com/n/2208512
ALERT EVGENY MOROZOV IS NOT A QUALIFIED ART HISTORIOGRAPHER
Neither am I for that matter. Here is a quick-list of Qualified Art Historians. These are individuals Qualified to make statements about art history. Anyone not qualified can risk spreading discord and confusion which can have terrible, lasting effects. Again, I am only a Professional Painter who has studied these things to inform his own Professional art practise. I am not an art historian or a historiographer. Here are a few who are qualified to speak on this subject, and whose lessons one can safely learn without the creation of undue burdens to oneself or to others, without the dispersion of unnecessary discord and confusion:
- James Elkins
- David Cottington
- The people of the MoMA in New York
There are others, but for now, especially for North American citizens, as it is my profession, Painting, to promote civic virtues, I must ask anyone interested in Art History, the history of Art Movements and the proper and correct Interpretation of such ideas, concepts, Philosophy, I must sincerely as all those with Interest in these Things to start reading the works of James Elkins and David Cottington, or go visit the MoMA in New York. They can tell you what you should be doing to fix the problem of confusion about Art History, the confusion about Truth and Beauty, and such things, that spread discord and confusion and make Reality and maybe History ILLEGIBLE. Please heed this warning and never take what Evgeny Morozov says on behalf of a Practise and Profession in which he was never properly trained to gain the Recognition of his Peers, and so be Qualified to make Statements on behalf of such things. Otherwise, he is Hacking History, and great art historiographers know all too well the dangers of such a thing. Read what James Elkins and David Cottington and the people at the MoMA in New York have to say about that. Anyone speaking on behalf of Art History without a License to do so, should be stopped immediately. They spread discord and confusion and help make reality ILLEGIBLE. They do not possess the requisite literacies to be speaking on behalf of such extraordinarily difficult and sensitive subjects. Only distinguished historians can do so. I am not one of them, just a lowly painter. But I am a qualified professional who has earned his recognition and will no longer let my Profession be defiled by vandals who purport to be Artists and yet spread confusion and discord. They must be stopped. End of Warning.
https://chumly.com/n/2207a0a
- James Elkins
- David Cottington
- The people of the MoMA in New York
There are others, but for now, especially for North American citizens, as it is my profession, Painting, to promote civic virtues, I must ask anyone interested in Art History, the history of Art Movements and the proper and correct Interpretation of such ideas, concepts, Philosophy, I must sincerely as all those with Interest in these Things to start reading the works of James Elkins and David Cottington, or go visit the MoMA in New York. They can tell you what you should be doing to fix the problem of confusion about Art History, the confusion about Truth and Beauty, and such things, that spread discord and confusion and make Reality and maybe History ILLEGIBLE. Please heed this warning and never take what Evgeny Morozov says on behalf of a Practise and Profession in which he was never properly trained to gain the Recognition of his Peers, and so be Qualified to make Statements on behalf of such things. Otherwise, he is Hacking History, and great art historiographers know all too well the dangers of such a thing. Read what James Elkins and David Cottington and the people at the MoMA in New York have to say about that. Anyone speaking on behalf of Art History without a License to do so, should be stopped immediately. They spread discord and confusion and help make reality ILLEGIBLE. They do not possess the requisite literacies to be speaking on behalf of such extraordinarily difficult and sensitive subjects. Only distinguished historians can do so. I am not one of them, just a lowly painter. But I am a qualified professional who has earned his recognition and will no longer let my Profession be defiled by vandals who purport to be Artists and yet spread confusion and discord. They must be stopped. End of Warning.
https://chumly.com/n/2207a0a
lundi 13 janvier 2014
On Meeting The Other In a Genuine and Gentle Face-to-Face Encounter
I learned a great deal from the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, the little that I did read. All I know is that I had just bought one of his books and was reading an engineering or design book on the importance and virtue of failure. The next thing I knew, I had slipped and broken a leg, and I spent many months in the hospital. When I came out, there was an inundation in the basement and I nearly lost everything. I lost the Levinas book and the other one, and all the stuff I had typed on the typewriter for The History-Project that I worked on from Summer, 2001 to about October, 2004. Thankfully, I am still here and have finished putting all the pieces back together. I am ready to go on now. This is just the beginning. Let me explain what is happening.
There hasn't been an authentically Canadian, no genuine Canadian "philosophy" EVER. It has taken us all 400 years to come up with one, but this one is also different in an important way. This one has the work of many great Canadians and Québécois thinkers baked in. It has a lot of the information theory and engineering baked in also, in fact it would never have come about if that sstuff hadn't pushed people in Quebec and Canada into a pressure-cooker type of existence much worse than Stalinism.
The beauty is multi-fold. For one, it is an expression of the pulse of life on earth. It is also a great Encounter, a great Moment in history where so many individuals are blessed with things some of our parents never would have dreamed of possessing.
What you are experiencing right now, that feverish feeling, almost like you have been possessed by a virus, that is not a Sickness. That is the Seignioral Consciouness liberating itself. That is the Baron Complex finally being liberated from the prison-cell of his soul. These are all just fancy ways of expressing things, what are called Conceptual Personae. Philosophy has always had them, and requires more and more of them.
As I have said from the beginning, there can be no Art without also History and Philosophy. The philosophy is important. There is no unified Theory of Conceptual Art, for instance. We still don't all see eye-to-eye (face-to-face?) about Modernism itself. That is what happened in the last 100 years or so. As I had also said, we have not caught up yet to the experience of the Locomotor.
I studied the etymology of what people said, I traced back the sounds, and heard them saying things they knew not that they were saying. I called it Tonal Cinema, the images of the notes they sang as they told stories of their ancestors. Except that in concrete reality, they were just speaking their minds..
That is the problem. One has to speak with one's heart, letting the sound, the human voice, slowly bubble up from beneath, in the abdomen.. If one forces it, it causes problems in the world, seriously, potentially lethal ones. Moshe Feldenkrais knew that we needed to move on a Plane of Ease, similar to a kind of Plane of Immanence in the Deleuzian way, but different. Humans are kinespheres, mobile kinespheres, moving crystal-balls if you will... Call it the Moving Spherical Cinema-Ball.. The Mobile Kino-Kine.. As for the rest, it is TRUE Interaction, Communication... we have liberated the Virtual by connecting it to the Concrete and Grounded.... It was because of a break, the break in the continuum caused by the lack of a genuine philosophical system of this Nordic place, that was NOT in conflict but could concord with what came BEFORE COLONIALSM.
In other words, there could be no POST-Colonialism in Canada until the Old Branch of Times Long Ago met with the other Ancient Branch, but that the Fork That Never Merged (i.e. Colonialism in the Americas) finally ENCOUNTERED the Iroquois and First Nations and Inuit and others FOR THE FIRST TIME.
From an Article on Levinas (Wiki):
"Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Lévinas, the irreducible relation, the epiphany, of the face-to-face, the encounter with another, is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. "The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness." At the same time, the revelation of the face makes a demand, this demand is before one can express, or know one's freedom, to affirm or deny. One instantly recognizes the transcendence and heteronomy of the Other. Even murder fails as an attempt to take hold of this otherness.
"Following Totality and Infinity, Levinas later argued that responsibility for the other is rooted within our subjective constitution. It should be noted that the first line of the preface of this book is "everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality." This idea appears in his of recurrence (chapter 4 in Otherwise Than Being), in which Levinas maintains that subjectivity is formed in and through our subjection to the other. Subjectivity, Levinas argued, is primordially ethical, not theoretical: that is to say, our responsibility for the other is not a derivative feature of our subjectivity, but instead, founds our subjective being-in-the-world by giving it a meaningful direction and orientation. Lévinas's thesis "ethics as first philosophy", then, means that the traditional philosophical pursuit of knowledge is secondary to a basic ethical duty to the other. To meet the Other is to have the idea of Infinity." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Levinas
https://chumly.com/n/22024fa
There hasn't been an authentically Canadian, no genuine Canadian "philosophy" EVER. It has taken us all 400 years to come up with one, but this one is also different in an important way. This one has the work of many great Canadians and Québécois thinkers baked in. It has a lot of the information theory and engineering baked in also, in fact it would never have come about if that sstuff hadn't pushed people in Quebec and Canada into a pressure-cooker type of existence much worse than Stalinism.
The beauty is multi-fold. For one, it is an expression of the pulse of life on earth. It is also a great Encounter, a great Moment in history where so many individuals are blessed with things some of our parents never would have dreamed of possessing.
What you are experiencing right now, that feverish feeling, almost like you have been possessed by a virus, that is not a Sickness. That is the Seignioral Consciouness liberating itself. That is the Baron Complex finally being liberated from the prison-cell of his soul. These are all just fancy ways of expressing things, what are called Conceptual Personae. Philosophy has always had them, and requires more and more of them.
As I have said from the beginning, there can be no Art without also History and Philosophy. The philosophy is important. There is no unified Theory of Conceptual Art, for instance. We still don't all see eye-to-eye (face-to-face?) about Modernism itself. That is what happened in the last 100 years or so. As I had also said, we have not caught up yet to the experience of the Locomotor.
I studied the etymology of what people said, I traced back the sounds, and heard them saying things they knew not that they were saying. I called it Tonal Cinema, the images of the notes they sang as they told stories of their ancestors. Except that in concrete reality, they were just speaking their minds..
That is the problem. One has to speak with one's heart, letting the sound, the human voice, slowly bubble up from beneath, in the abdomen.. If one forces it, it causes problems in the world, seriously, potentially lethal ones. Moshe Feldenkrais knew that we needed to move on a Plane of Ease, similar to a kind of Plane of Immanence in the Deleuzian way, but different. Humans are kinespheres, mobile kinespheres, moving crystal-balls if you will... Call it the Moving Spherical Cinema-Ball.. The Mobile Kino-Kine.. As for the rest, it is TRUE Interaction, Communication... we have liberated the Virtual by connecting it to the Concrete and Grounded.... It was because of a break, the break in the continuum caused by the lack of a genuine philosophical system of this Nordic place, that was NOT in conflict but could concord with what came BEFORE COLONIALSM.
In other words, there could be no POST-Colonialism in Canada until the Old Branch of Times Long Ago met with the other Ancient Branch, but that the Fork That Never Merged (i.e. Colonialism in the Americas) finally ENCOUNTERED the Iroquois and First Nations and Inuit and others FOR THE FIRST TIME.
From an Article on Levinas (Wiki):
"Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the encounter with the Other. For Lévinas, the irreducible relation, the epiphany, of the face-to-face, the encounter with another, is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. "The Other precisely reveals himself in his alterity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial phenomenon of gentleness." At the same time, the revelation of the face makes a demand, this demand is before one can express, or know one's freedom, to affirm or deny. One instantly recognizes the transcendence and heteronomy of the Other. Even murder fails as an attempt to take hold of this otherness.
"Following Totality and Infinity, Levinas later argued that responsibility for the other is rooted within our subjective constitution. It should be noted that the first line of the preface of this book is "everyone will readily agree that it is of the highest importance to know whether we are not duped by morality." This idea appears in his of recurrence (chapter 4 in Otherwise Than Being), in which Levinas maintains that subjectivity is formed in and through our subjection to the other. Subjectivity, Levinas argued, is primordially ethical, not theoretical: that is to say, our responsibility for the other is not a derivative feature of our subjectivity, but instead, founds our subjective being-in-the-world by giving it a meaningful direction and orientation. Lévinas's thesis "ethics as first philosophy", then, means that the traditional philosophical pursuit of knowledge is secondary to a basic ethical duty to the other. To meet the Other is to have the idea of Infinity." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Levinas
https://chumly.com/n/22024fa
How To Help Someone Who Is Suffering From Bilingualism
Bon soir. Je voulais interpeller les Québécois, ma patrie, mes confrères. Vous voyez, je suis né içi dans notre belle province. J'a toujours aimé ça et je n'ai pas voyagé tant que ça, presque pas. Quand mon grand-père est mort, j'ai beaucoup souffert. J'ai souffert depuis ce temps-là. Mais j'a tout compris pourquoi les gens n'aime pas les Québécois, ou on tendance de ne pas être très gentil avec nous, et la raison pour nous perdons la bataille contre notre propre désir d'autonomie.
Ça ce passe tout dans le visage de l'autre, dans notre réaction interne quand nous pensons et réfléchissons à son visage, et ce qui se joue entre les deux, une sorte de jeu de mirroir. Ça peut aller très loin. Ça peut aller tellement vite que ça crée une guerre, ou pire, ça mais la fin à notre planète.
C'est pour ça que j'ai toujours dit que j'étais un très bon outil pour tout les autres, car je vois tout et j'entends tout et j'attend 20 ans avant de dire qqch. Et si vous regardez comme il faut, je n'ai rien révélé à personne. C'est les autres qui ont de la peur dans leur coeur, sur leur visages. L'enfer c'est les autres, vous venez de comprendre, finalement. Maintenant laissez-moi dormir en paix, s.v.p.
C'est pour ça qu'il faut se regarder dans le mirroir, pour voir quel face nous portons. Je connais tout ça depuis que j'était petit enfant.. et tout ce que j'ai fait dans ma vie était pour ramasser les dégâts des abus des autres, de leur violence visuelle, de leurs mauvaises interprétation de mon visage, de l'expression de mon visage.
Car nous ne parlons pas tous les mêmes langues, n'avons pas tous les mêmes expressions corporelles, nos gestes, ainsi de suite. Rajoute les différentes valeurs, croyances religieuses ou pas, croyances politique, etc. Ça finit par nous empêcher d'être libre.. Imaginez maintenant ce qui se déssine secrètement dans ce drôle de patinage en zig-zag de petits regard entre les individus. Ce que je fait est un travail difficile, laissez-moi le faire. Sinon moi je n'aurai pas de paix, et c'est à cause de votre haine que vous projeter sur un de vos compatriotes, des plus ardents amoureux de la grande culture québécois et canadienne-française ainsi que la culture anglaise aussi, en fait, toute culture est bonne. Si elle n'est pas bonne, c'est impossible que ça soit une culture. Le problèeme a toujours été qu'on s'attachais trop à NOTRE CULTURE... qui n'est pas un problème du tout. Le problème était que nous pensions que notre culture à nous était de CETTE TERRE QUE NOUS AVONS DÉFFRICHÉ. Elle HABITE ici, mais elle part d'un départ, d'une grande MIGRANCE. Et la CULTURE ELLE-MEME est une expression de la SURVIVANCE de la vie. Si nous sommes tous d'accord là-dessus, nous avons gagné. Aller partager vos découvertes avec vos proches cette semaine et après et soyez prêts pour une Renaissance culturelle qui se propagera à tout les coins du monde..
https://chumly.com/n/22022de
Ça ce passe tout dans le visage de l'autre, dans notre réaction interne quand nous pensons et réfléchissons à son visage, et ce qui se joue entre les deux, une sorte de jeu de mirroir. Ça peut aller très loin. Ça peut aller tellement vite que ça crée une guerre, ou pire, ça mais la fin à notre planète.
C'est pour ça que j'ai toujours dit que j'étais un très bon outil pour tout les autres, car je vois tout et j'entends tout et j'attend 20 ans avant de dire qqch. Et si vous regardez comme il faut, je n'ai rien révélé à personne. C'est les autres qui ont de la peur dans leur coeur, sur leur visages. L'enfer c'est les autres, vous venez de comprendre, finalement. Maintenant laissez-moi dormir en paix, s.v.p.
C'est pour ça qu'il faut se regarder dans le mirroir, pour voir quel face nous portons. Je connais tout ça depuis que j'était petit enfant.. et tout ce que j'ai fait dans ma vie était pour ramasser les dégâts des abus des autres, de leur violence visuelle, de leurs mauvaises interprétation de mon visage, de l'expression de mon visage.
Car nous ne parlons pas tous les mêmes langues, n'avons pas tous les mêmes expressions corporelles, nos gestes, ainsi de suite. Rajoute les différentes valeurs, croyances religieuses ou pas, croyances politique, etc. Ça finit par nous empêcher d'être libre.. Imaginez maintenant ce qui se déssine secrètement dans ce drôle de patinage en zig-zag de petits regard entre les individus. Ce que je fait est un travail difficile, laissez-moi le faire. Sinon moi je n'aurai pas de paix, et c'est à cause de votre haine que vous projeter sur un de vos compatriotes, des plus ardents amoureux de la grande culture québécois et canadienne-française ainsi que la culture anglaise aussi, en fait, toute culture est bonne. Si elle n'est pas bonne, c'est impossible que ça soit une culture. Le problèeme a toujours été qu'on s'attachais trop à NOTRE CULTURE... qui n'est pas un problème du tout. Le problème était que nous pensions que notre culture à nous était de CETTE TERRE QUE NOUS AVONS DÉFFRICHÉ. Elle HABITE ici, mais elle part d'un départ, d'une grande MIGRANCE. Et la CULTURE ELLE-MEME est une expression de la SURVIVANCE de la vie. Si nous sommes tous d'accord là-dessus, nous avons gagné. Aller partager vos découvertes avec vos proches cette semaine et après et soyez prêts pour une Renaissance culturelle qui se propagera à tout les coins du monde..
https://chumly.com/n/22022de
How to Give Someone Who Suffers From Terrible Anxieties and Insecurity A Warm Sensation of Soothing Calm
Ignore them. Pretend they don't exist. Imagine you saw an individual with a physical handicap, rolling in the supermarket in a wheelchair. You walk by them and they give you a s mile. You try to smile back but you only manage a broken grin, a half-smile, a kind of pained smirk.
You think you did the right thing, try to smile at the person with a physical handicap, except that you maybe just did something truly horrible to them. I think it's time people started doing the difficult thinking, cause I can't keep being the only one around here who thinks clearly. Let me explain.
A cascading effect can occur with individuals who suffer from what might be called "moral suffering". If I see someone with a look on their face that I think looks "pained" to me, then I can do one of two things: I can either feel Empathy (which is Compassion, is an active moving towards the person inwardly but not outwardly, the result being an expression of pure joy in the Encounter with the other) or I can feel Sympathy (which is similar to "sympathetic vibrations" with regard to resonance in linear systems, where two strings of the same frequency cause each other's amplitude to increase because of sympathizing vibrations).
Empathy is the right way of Encountering the other. I call it empathetic participation because to me it is participation with the other, it is an encounter with the other, it is the both of us Seeing each other for the first time. However, if that person happens to be sitting in a wheelchair, and I look at them with Sympathy for their "pain", I am actually doing them a grave indignity.
I realize no one likes to talk about this stuff, but the world is about to either enter into a Crusade to destroy the universe by getting rid of every one's sadness forever, or people just learn to have Empathy instead of hurting those already possessed with more Shame and feelings of Powerlessness and Solitude that you or anyone else can ever imagine.
Unless of course you have shed tears of joy before, and tears are always tears of joy, for they remind us of our humanity. Otherwise, if you have struggles in your heart, if you are possessed with internal struggles that live day by day and fight wars in your chest that cause you to rage and be angry and so forth.. If you project that onto other people's faces, onto the world, what do you think will happen?
They see your Disgust-that-You-Think-Is-Love and their pain gets infinitely worse. You essentially just symbolically did a great violence to them. We call this symbolic violence. We need symbols because we use language and so forth, but please, for the love of God, if I can have anything given to me from heaven, it is my liberation from this curse, of having an ambiguous, hard to read face, which is the result of my having trouble reading the face of others..
And so my struggle is certainly the worst struggle currently possible on earth.. And I'm not doing have bad, cause I stopped caring about other people's facial reactions and expressions to the reactions and expressions of my face, and so on and so on, WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THE CASCADE OF FACE-ANTIFACE ROUTINES.
Example: This is me from about 10 years ago or so which was one of the happiest moments in my life. I was with someone I loved very much who took this picture. I was laughing and having a good time, and he snapped the picture, and this is what came out. But I wonder, what does that look like to other people? I have the uncanny ability of knowing what my face looks like from the outside, because I'm so used to what people's constant overreactions are to my face. They see ambiguity and the constant barrage of individuals mis-interpreting my emotions state ends up putting me in impossible situations. It is such an absurd and ridiculous existence I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Indifference is the best reaction to have to people. The world is scared and they probably wish I didn't exist, those who may want to stop the world from being a much more peaceful place. Or maybe because I am writing in English they think I am evil?
https://chumly.com/n/2202196
You think you did the right thing, try to smile at the person with a physical handicap, except that you maybe just did something truly horrible to them. I think it's time people started doing the difficult thinking, cause I can't keep being the only one around here who thinks clearly. Let me explain.
A cascading effect can occur with individuals who suffer from what might be called "moral suffering". If I see someone with a look on their face that I think looks "pained" to me, then I can do one of two things: I can either feel Empathy (which is Compassion, is an active moving towards the person inwardly but not outwardly, the result being an expression of pure joy in the Encounter with the other) or I can feel Sympathy (which is similar to "sympathetic vibrations" with regard to resonance in linear systems, where two strings of the same frequency cause each other's amplitude to increase because of sympathizing vibrations).
Empathy is the right way of Encountering the other. I call it empathetic participation because to me it is participation with the other, it is an encounter with the other, it is the both of us Seeing each other for the first time. However, if that person happens to be sitting in a wheelchair, and I look at them with Sympathy for their "pain", I am actually doing them a grave indignity.
I realize no one likes to talk about this stuff, but the world is about to either enter into a Crusade to destroy the universe by getting rid of every one's sadness forever, or people just learn to have Empathy instead of hurting those already possessed with more Shame and feelings of Powerlessness and Solitude that you or anyone else can ever imagine.
Unless of course you have shed tears of joy before, and tears are always tears of joy, for they remind us of our humanity. Otherwise, if you have struggles in your heart, if you are possessed with internal struggles that live day by day and fight wars in your chest that cause you to rage and be angry and so forth.. If you project that onto other people's faces, onto the world, what do you think will happen?
They see your Disgust-that-You-Think-Is-Love and their pain gets infinitely worse. You essentially just symbolically did a great violence to them. We call this symbolic violence. We need symbols because we use language and so forth, but please, for the love of God, if I can have anything given to me from heaven, it is my liberation from this curse, of having an ambiguous, hard to read face, which is the result of my having trouble reading the face of others..
And so my struggle is certainly the worst struggle currently possible on earth.. And I'm not doing have bad, cause I stopped caring about other people's facial reactions and expressions to the reactions and expressions of my face, and so on and so on, WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THE CASCADE OF FACE-ANTIFACE ROUTINES.
Example: This is me from about 10 years ago or so which was one of the happiest moments in my life. I was with someone I loved very much who took this picture. I was laughing and having a good time, and he snapped the picture, and this is what came out. But I wonder, what does that look like to other people? I have the uncanny ability of knowing what my face looks like from the outside, because I'm so used to what people's constant overreactions are to my face. They see ambiguity and the constant barrage of individuals mis-interpreting my emotions state ends up putting me in impossible situations. It is such an absurd and ridiculous existence I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Indifference is the best reaction to have to people. The world is scared and they probably wish I didn't exist, those who may want to stop the world from being a much more peaceful place. Or maybe because I am writing in English they think I am evil?
https://chumly.com/n/2202196
On The Truth of Cultivating Too Much Enthusiasm Inwardly with Regard To Painting(s)
I will keep this short, but it is my life's work and very important to me. Sometimes it feels like I am bringing 50,000 years of art history back from the dead. I assure you that I am not. I am merely practising a simple trade called painting. I began at a young age, came from a family of Painters, and so have spent my life engaged in this pain-staking process of personal and private cultivation of civic virtues so that I could properly practise the art which I felt was my vocation to practise while I was on earth.
And so the theme for the painting I have not yet begun is Enthusiasm and how cultivating whatever it takes to keep Enthusiasm in check, when Enthusiasm is left to roam a little too wildly, fervor and fundamentalism can result, and then if the risk is of losing human dignity, or worse, of losing all the dignity that any human ever had on this earth, then it is only normal that one would choose to cultivate some darker, deeper universal human values universally communicable across peoples and nations everywhere since the beginning of time, namely what might be called "martial virtues" such as Honor, Valor, and so forth.
If there is no dignity in life or in death or anywhere in between, then there is no humanity. Culture is part of the process of cultivating civic virtues. The art of Painting is a Liberal Art whose duty is to promote the Civic Virtues. Our Communities are in need of this kind of communitarian "culture" but there is always the risk of too much Enthusiasm in anything, if there is not proper cultivation of the other virtues. I believe that some day we will have a form of Civic Media that helps promote the civic virtues to a much wider audience, for being a Painter these days, and knowing these things, I can only hope that it comes soon and spreads from community to community so that we can have happy hearts and souls and love one another as Neighbors.
https://chumly.com/n/22001ce
And so the theme for the painting I have not yet begun is Enthusiasm and how cultivating whatever it takes to keep Enthusiasm in check, when Enthusiasm is left to roam a little too wildly, fervor and fundamentalism can result, and then if the risk is of losing human dignity, or worse, of losing all the dignity that any human ever had on this earth, then it is only normal that one would choose to cultivate some darker, deeper universal human values universally communicable across peoples and nations everywhere since the beginning of time, namely what might be called "martial virtues" such as Honor, Valor, and so forth.
If there is no dignity in life or in death or anywhere in between, then there is no humanity. Culture is part of the process of cultivating civic virtues. The art of Painting is a Liberal Art whose duty is to promote the Civic Virtues. Our Communities are in need of this kind of communitarian "culture" but there is always the risk of too much Enthusiasm in anything, if there is not proper cultivation of the other virtues. I believe that some day we will have a form of Civic Media that helps promote the civic virtues to a much wider audience, for being a Painter these days, and knowing these things, I can only hope that it comes soon and spreads from community to community so that we can have happy hearts and souls and love one another as Neighbors.
https://chumly.com/n/22001ce
Esto perpetua - May she endure forever
[Sketch of what "America The Bountiful" might look like by A.G. (c) 2014]
https://chumly.com/n/21fdca4
https://chumly.com/n/21fdca4
dimanche 12 janvier 2014
William Hogarth and a Line or Two About Theories of Painting
As a professional painter, I can make recommendations about painting in general, be it about what Techniques one might want to employ in what Context, whether it is Appropriate, and so forth. I know a great deal about Harmonies of different Kinds, be they instances - or lack thereof - of the various Kinds of Color Harmony, or more Formal, Structural Types and their Interactions in the Abstract.
I will say this, however, before I go any further. Please do not cultivate the desire in your Heart to become painters, unless of course you are prepared for a really hard, pain-staking Process of continuously re-inventing yourself with the major Constraint of Never being able to break from Tradition, not even once.
At least in your formative years, you are still permitted the slight error here and there, but only ever errors in the Atelier or Art Studio. You can never permit yourself a Professional error in your entire lifetime, or you can Scrap the Idea of ever becoming a painter. Did you do any bad deals, sign some rotten papers, did you not do proper Accounting in your Household that progressed and then developed into a maligned condition?
Don't worry, it's okay, we all make mistakes, you'll be forgiven eventually. But the decision of becoming a Painter, I mean, you have to really be able to do nothing else. You never Start by Becoming an Artist. You end up becoming one after either Doing Only One Thing all your life or else you ended up there because you had tried to do something you liked and then for whatever reason after a lifetime, you ended up being great at everything, a Wonderful Generalist Become Painter as opposed to the Professional Painter, such as myself, who came to it by Being Born Into the Tradition Itself, but who decided as a child and then a young man that this was his - my - freely chosen Profession on earth.
This is still true, at least for the Time Being. It's why I do not tend to laugh unless cued by someone in a Cinema or Theater or something. It is a pity that so many individuals seem to have lost this thing called Culture. It is not a value judgment on any individuals. It's just that we all have our own Culture(s) whether we like it or not. We have Languages, we have Habits & Customs, we have different Manners of Being or of Receiving called Manners, or Manners of Doing, Behaving, or Moving called Mannerisms.
I find that in the General Population so much has been lost with regard to Culture(s), and not just the Cultures themselves, but the Rules & Regulations of Our Communications and Interactions with Others, and so much more. I could go on for hours, days, years, decades, and Have Been. You see, I too must Restrict Myself. I could say much much More than this, that is, I can, but certainly shall not. I could be giving someone The Wrong Message.
So to recapitulate what I have just tried to tell The Audience Gathered Before This Page - and After! - my recommendations about Painting of any kind are always to look Elsewhere First. Leave it to Someone Else. Sometimes we have an Impulse and it's just The Wrong One. Sometimes we have an Idea and it's just not a Good One. Sometimes we have the impetus to say or do something without having properly considered all the possible risks & perils it could potentiate. In Painting, at Least, One Can Never Afford To Regret Anything. Regrets and Remorse, at least to me, are not matters for Business and Commerce, which is why I continue to repeat and thereby stress the point Culture IS a Business. Regrets and Remorse, Repentance, Fear, Contrition, and so forth, either happens Before Painting or else Afterwards. But in the Atelier, there is only One Thing Possible: PURITY OF HEART, GREAT RESOLVE, AND PERSEVERANCE. But these days things are so Fragmented, it's hard at times to find a place with Wi-Fi you can just plug in and not be worried that you are putting yourself or others at risk.
N.B.: To prep you for future readings on these and related Subjects, let me tell you why I am giving Capital Letters to some of my Words. Rather than use hash-tags or some other Mechanism, this will allow the Page to be easily scanned for Keywords, visually that is. I find that this is Ideal. You can then flip through it quickly and I feel secure in knowing that I have taken the time, patience, and effort required to ensure that I minimize the possibility of my Words Being used Against Myself or Against Others. A Profession is only a Game if One is Playing Sports or perhaps if One is a Professional Gambler, but I only know of the Professions which I Practise daily and am At Liberty to Practise, since I have Received the Recognition of my Peers. Without that, there can be a Break From Tradition, and Painting is part of a Sacred Tradition going back Beyond the Recording of History Itself by Us. A Break in that Rhythm is a Break in the Pulse of the World, and when the World has Things such as Wheels of Commerce and so forth, which are very Powerful and move very Fast etc., then, I say: One small misstep for man can also become one great tragedy for all of humanity. I do believe that this is the almost Cosmic Irony that the Poets and Authors wrote about when they spoke of The Human Comedy, The Comedy of Errors, or The Divine Comedy. More on that soon, on the Culture of Laughter and some hilarities from the notebooks of Rabelais, because it is Carnival Season in Quebec! God bless you all. :)
https://chumly.com/n/21f6e4d
I will say this, however, before I go any further. Please do not cultivate the desire in your Heart to become painters, unless of course you are prepared for a really hard, pain-staking Process of continuously re-inventing yourself with the major Constraint of Never being able to break from Tradition, not even once.
At least in your formative years, you are still permitted the slight error here and there, but only ever errors in the Atelier or Art Studio. You can never permit yourself a Professional error in your entire lifetime, or you can Scrap the Idea of ever becoming a painter. Did you do any bad deals, sign some rotten papers, did you not do proper Accounting in your Household that progressed and then developed into a maligned condition?
Don't worry, it's okay, we all make mistakes, you'll be forgiven eventually. But the decision of becoming a Painter, I mean, you have to really be able to do nothing else. You never Start by Becoming an Artist. You end up becoming one after either Doing Only One Thing all your life or else you ended up there because you had tried to do something you liked and then for whatever reason after a lifetime, you ended up being great at everything, a Wonderful Generalist Become Painter as opposed to the Professional Painter, such as myself, who came to it by Being Born Into the Tradition Itself, but who decided as a child and then a young man that this was his - my - freely chosen Profession on earth.
This is still true, at least for the Time Being. It's why I do not tend to laugh unless cued by someone in a Cinema or Theater or something. It is a pity that so many individuals seem to have lost this thing called Culture. It is not a value judgment on any individuals. It's just that we all have our own Culture(s) whether we like it or not. We have Languages, we have Habits & Customs, we have different Manners of Being or of Receiving called Manners, or Manners of Doing, Behaving, or Moving called Mannerisms.
I find that in the General Population so much has been lost with regard to Culture(s), and not just the Cultures themselves, but the Rules & Regulations of Our Communications and Interactions with Others, and so much more. I could go on for hours, days, years, decades, and Have Been. You see, I too must Restrict Myself. I could say much much More than this, that is, I can, but certainly shall not. I could be giving someone The Wrong Message.
So to recapitulate what I have just tried to tell The Audience Gathered Before This Page - and After! - my recommendations about Painting of any kind are always to look Elsewhere First. Leave it to Someone Else. Sometimes we have an Impulse and it's just The Wrong One. Sometimes we have an Idea and it's just not a Good One. Sometimes we have the impetus to say or do something without having properly considered all the possible risks & perils it could potentiate. In Painting, at Least, One Can Never Afford To Regret Anything. Regrets and Remorse, at least to me, are not matters for Business and Commerce, which is why I continue to repeat and thereby stress the point Culture IS a Business. Regrets and Remorse, Repentance, Fear, Contrition, and so forth, either happens Before Painting or else Afterwards. But in the Atelier, there is only One Thing Possible: PURITY OF HEART, GREAT RESOLVE, AND PERSEVERANCE. But these days things are so Fragmented, it's hard at times to find a place with Wi-Fi you can just plug in and not be worried that you are putting yourself or others at risk.
N.B.: To prep you for future readings on these and related Subjects, let me tell you why I am giving Capital Letters to some of my Words. Rather than use hash-tags or some other Mechanism, this will allow the Page to be easily scanned for Keywords, visually that is. I find that this is Ideal. You can then flip through it quickly and I feel secure in knowing that I have taken the time, patience, and effort required to ensure that I minimize the possibility of my Words Being used Against Myself or Against Others. A Profession is only a Game if One is Playing Sports or perhaps if One is a Professional Gambler, but I only know of the Professions which I Practise daily and am At Liberty to Practise, since I have Received the Recognition of my Peers. Without that, there can be a Break From Tradition, and Painting is part of a Sacred Tradition going back Beyond the Recording of History Itself by Us. A Break in that Rhythm is a Break in the Pulse of the World, and when the World has Things such as Wheels of Commerce and so forth, which are very Powerful and move very Fast etc., then, I say: One small misstep for man can also become one great tragedy for all of humanity. I do believe that this is the almost Cosmic Irony that the Poets and Authors wrote about when they spoke of The Human Comedy, The Comedy of Errors, or The Divine Comedy. More on that soon, on the Culture of Laughter and some hilarities from the notebooks of Rabelais, because it is Carnival Season in Quebec! God bless you all. :)
https://chumly.com/n/21f6e4d
Book Farm Society Destroyed by Faulty Book Distribution
[Abstract: I wrote this 20 years ago or so, when I was still a child living at home. It was to be my submission for English class, in the form of an Essay (and also unfortunately my earliest piece of Computer-Writing that is extant, others were lost forever, what Grief that is!). Though meant to be an Essay, I find now that it came out as Fiction. I just know that after that point, I started distributing simple solutions to complex impossible-to-solve problems, one rapid chess-move at a time, or bead in the Glass Bead Game, as others would say. All attributable to a simple accounting error in one's Private Household Ledger-book upsetting the Personal Hygiene and Balance of one's Mental Furniture Catalogue and seemingly extending outwards radially for all Eternity. But it's just Common Sense to me. God Bless America!]
I was just informed, by a certain informer, that I am in possession of a book belonging to him. This book was borrowed by a man whom felt he had the right to lend something he did not own, for I now have this book (having been lent it); under any circumstances, books which are borrowed can never be lent out by the borrower because this breaks the rule of book distribution, amendments and modalities which I shall reveal.
I would like to state that it is with great pride and honor that I will be returning the object of false distribution, and I do feel pain in my heart upon hearing of cases such as this. A person simply does not have the right to do as he so wishes with an object he does not own. This book was kindly given to me and I was told that I could keep it for as long as I wanted to. Now, I must ask, when did this person earn the right indulge in such criminal mastery? Did he not know of his most obvious offence? As far as I can apprehend, the book was used as a device to express this traitor's evil intentions; it was a demonstration of hatred for mankind, and maybe this contributed slightly to our society's decay.
The responsibilities accompanied with borrowing books are numerous. Books can attain great lengths and within them extreme amounts of knowledge and wisdom can be stored. Perhaps people need to care more. If the borrower was given a quick psycho-analysis, I am utterly convinced that his trustworthiness would stand out clearly.
people need to care more about books (and knowledge kept within).
people need to care more about the private lives of others.
perhaps the proprietor wishes not to have a certain person possess his book.
look at a person's bookshelf and ye shall see his mind.
therefore lending a book is lending a part of ourselves and our personal history.
I was at a garage sale and I could not believe my eyes when I saw a rack of books; how could one possibly wish to give out his books? I realized that he must have incredible amounts of confidence in himself and trust for others; to give away our life's all...
The only reason I want to live is to appreciate art with mankind while contributing to our world's insurmountable amount of art and beauty.
If I am the composer of a book and I wish to tell everyone what I think but someone buys my book and wishes only his intimate friends to read my work, do his friends have the right to let others (strangers) read his book?
Books are immaculate.
[Source of Image: William Hogarth Sitting Next To a Self-Portrait of William Hogarth, Public Domain I hope! h/t]
https://chumly.com/n/21f5ee6
I was just informed, by a certain informer, that I am in possession of a book belonging to him. This book was borrowed by a man whom felt he had the right to lend something he did not own, for I now have this book (having been lent it); under any circumstances, books which are borrowed can never be lent out by the borrower because this breaks the rule of book distribution, amendments and modalities which I shall reveal.
I would like to state that it is with great pride and honor that I will be returning the object of false distribution, and I do feel pain in my heart upon hearing of cases such as this. A person simply does not have the right to do as he so wishes with an object he does not own. This book was kindly given to me and I was told that I could keep it for as long as I wanted to. Now, I must ask, when did this person earn the right indulge in such criminal mastery? Did he not know of his most obvious offence? As far as I can apprehend, the book was used as a device to express this traitor's evil intentions; it was a demonstration of hatred for mankind, and maybe this contributed slightly to our society's decay.
The responsibilities accompanied with borrowing books are numerous. Books can attain great lengths and within them extreme amounts of knowledge and wisdom can be stored. Perhaps people need to care more. If the borrower was given a quick psycho-analysis, I am utterly convinced that his trustworthiness would stand out clearly.
people need to care more about books (and knowledge kept within).
people need to care more about the private lives of others.
perhaps the proprietor wishes not to have a certain person possess his book.
look at a person's bookshelf and ye shall see his mind.
therefore lending a book is lending a part of ourselves and our personal history.
I was at a garage sale and I could not believe my eyes when I saw a rack of books; how could one possibly wish to give out his books? I realized that he must have incredible amounts of confidence in himself and trust for others; to give away our life's all...
The only reason I want to live is to appreciate art with mankind while contributing to our world's insurmountable amount of art and beauty.
If I am the composer of a book and I wish to tell everyone what I think but someone buys my book and wishes only his intimate friends to read my work, do his friends have the right to let others (strangers) read his book?
Books are immaculate.
[Source of Image: William Hogarth Sitting Next To a Self-Portrait of William Hogarth, Public Domain I hope! h/t]
https://chumly.com/n/21f5ee6
Beautiful Pictures, Something Everybody Loves
[Abstraction of Common Sense; Hygienic Mental Furniture Catalogues. A.G. (c) 2014]
https://chumly.com/n/21f5125
https://chumly.com/n/21f5125
samedi 11 janvier 2014
Girl Within Girl Says Grace - Letters to The Mariae
[Empty canvas. Unfinished bronze. Painting delivery box. A.G. (c) 2014]
https://chumly.com/n/21f255c
https://chumly.com/n/21f255c
vendredi 10 janvier 2014
On Painting The Concept(s) of History
In the Summer of 2001, I began a new artistic project I called The History-Project. It would be one of my most lasting artistic visions, though perhaps not the most lasting of all, hoping as I do that there is always much, much more to come.
Basically, what I have realized over the years is that I am not an abstract painter or painter of abstractions, abstract paintings. All I have ever done is paint what I saw in my surroundings. It was a historical footnote, or accident, that I happened to have been born with one foot in the 20th century and the other to be sprawled, sliding across the 21st.
I only ever choose to write these things with the hope in my heart that it a) be useful to someone and b) useful, but never obscene or ugly or in any way distasteful to anyone ever. This was difficult because it is the story of my life, and as people love telling me, life isn't easy, or life isn't always rosy, etc. At the same time, I've only ever wanted to give a faithful record of what I saw, thought, and did, and maybe a little of what I have felt. It was important to me that my fidelity to the handicraft could never be denied or even questioned.
The problem is that people often read things into my work and my explanations too. It is for that purpose that it seems as though I am making such elaborate, sophisticated short-cuts and wrap-arounds and all sorts of stuff that ends up looking quite ugly on the surface. But I believed in the power of great discipline and so sought to be so rigorous in my methods, meticulous and systematic in my daily practise, that I imagined to myself a few years ago, a story where they would say of the Painter once he has passed on, that, "He Alone Brought On An Age of Discipline".
Heed These Words: As I was saying before, there's no magic trick to being an Artist. I find it rather unfortunate that people keep wanting to be an artist as soon as they encounter one, or that someone might say something as absurd as, "We All Have a Little Artist In Us." We really don't. "Artist" is not a job title or job description.
Here is what is to be the salient point in all of this. Painting is one of the only things I ever wanted to do, more or less since I was born here. But the massive proliferation of individuals wanting to be "Artists" has made it nearly impossible for me to practise my craft.
At first, it was more or less easy to maintain. I just lived in complete isolation where no one could have found me if they tried, even people who knew where I was, they couldn't have done me any harm, and here is why.
History grows out of itself. History grows out of itself and "eats its tales" if you will. The problem is, one cannot just wake up one morning and decide: "I Shall Now Paint a Portrait of History". That wouldn't make any sense, except that that's what History looked like to me, not a portrait, but what I saw everywhere around me looked like human History to me. And so I painted it, and any semblance of a normal life for me disappeared that very same day.
What happened is that everything in the universe seemed to start working against me. I thought that this was a strange thing for me to be thinking, and I did what the painter in me does in such a context, I added a brush-stroke or two, and called it "The Persecution Sets In." (These are not literal examples, it was just to point out that a sophisticated and masterful Documentation process has always gone on concurrently. Painters in today's secular societies are like anyone else, they get interrupted every now and then. The difference is that when I got interrupted and couldn't paint, when I took off again, this too would be projected onto the canvas and maybe received a name like, "Constant Interruptions are So Beautiful It Hurts My Senses.")
In any case, and in conclusion, DO NOT TRY ANY OF THIS AT HOME. Unless you are a distinguished professional painter with at least 5 years of practise, you shouldn't put any more faith in what was said here than you would in the comics of Sundays paper. I mean that, and 5 years is not enough. I would say 15 years of continuous practise AFTER you had already spent another 15 or so honing down the skills and learning the art.
So that's that. Imagine how painful it is to dedicate your life to something and then be forced into a position where you can never do it. To add insult to injury, everyone suddenly wants to become An Artist Like You, making it impossible to even breath properly now, since it is so exquisitely asphyxiating.
Asphyxiatingly yours,
A.G.
https://chumly.com/n/21e7f2c
Basically, what I have realized over the years is that I am not an abstract painter or painter of abstractions, abstract paintings. All I have ever done is paint what I saw in my surroundings. It was a historical footnote, or accident, that I happened to have been born with one foot in the 20th century and the other to be sprawled, sliding across the 21st.
I only ever choose to write these things with the hope in my heart that it a) be useful to someone and b) useful, but never obscene or ugly or in any way distasteful to anyone ever. This was difficult because it is the story of my life, and as people love telling me, life isn't easy, or life isn't always rosy, etc. At the same time, I've only ever wanted to give a faithful record of what I saw, thought, and did, and maybe a little of what I have felt. It was important to me that my fidelity to the handicraft could never be denied or even questioned.
The problem is that people often read things into my work and my explanations too. It is for that purpose that it seems as though I am making such elaborate, sophisticated short-cuts and wrap-arounds and all sorts of stuff that ends up looking quite ugly on the surface. But I believed in the power of great discipline and so sought to be so rigorous in my methods, meticulous and systematic in my daily practise, that I imagined to myself a few years ago, a story where they would say of the Painter once he has passed on, that, "He Alone Brought On An Age of Discipline".
Heed These Words: As I was saying before, there's no magic trick to being an Artist. I find it rather unfortunate that people keep wanting to be an artist as soon as they encounter one, or that someone might say something as absurd as, "We All Have a Little Artist In Us." We really don't. "Artist" is not a job title or job description.
Here is what is to be the salient point in all of this. Painting is one of the only things I ever wanted to do, more or less since I was born here. But the massive proliferation of individuals wanting to be "Artists" has made it nearly impossible for me to practise my craft.
At first, it was more or less easy to maintain. I just lived in complete isolation where no one could have found me if they tried, even people who knew where I was, they couldn't have done me any harm, and here is why.
History grows out of itself. History grows out of itself and "eats its tales" if you will. The problem is, one cannot just wake up one morning and decide: "I Shall Now Paint a Portrait of History". That wouldn't make any sense, except that that's what History looked like to me, not a portrait, but what I saw everywhere around me looked like human History to me. And so I painted it, and any semblance of a normal life for me disappeared that very same day.
What happened is that everything in the universe seemed to start working against me. I thought that this was a strange thing for me to be thinking, and I did what the painter in me does in such a context, I added a brush-stroke or two, and called it "The Persecution Sets In." (These are not literal examples, it was just to point out that a sophisticated and masterful Documentation process has always gone on concurrently. Painters in today's secular societies are like anyone else, they get interrupted every now and then. The difference is that when I got interrupted and couldn't paint, when I took off again, this too would be projected onto the canvas and maybe received a name like, "Constant Interruptions are So Beautiful It Hurts My Senses.")
In any case, and in conclusion, DO NOT TRY ANY OF THIS AT HOME. Unless you are a distinguished professional painter with at least 5 years of practise, you shouldn't put any more faith in what was said here than you would in the comics of Sundays paper. I mean that, and 5 years is not enough. I would say 15 years of continuous practise AFTER you had already spent another 15 or so honing down the skills and learning the art.
So that's that. Imagine how painful it is to dedicate your life to something and then be forced into a position where you can never do it. To add insult to injury, everyone suddenly wants to become An Artist Like You, making it impossible to even breath properly now, since it is so exquisitely asphyxiating.
Asphyxiatingly yours,
A.G.
https://chumly.com/n/21e7f2c
FOR THE OFFICIAL HISTORICAL RECORD
I have been a prolific artist in my life. It's a wonder, though, that I was able to do any work at all. I can finish a painting in 3 minutes if I want, but it could take me 25 years before I can get the picture right in my mind's eye. Otherwise, I might spend 5 years painting it. I took my time, I resisted painting the image for as long as I could, and then it happened. The image came out all in one piece, finished in under 3 minutes.
Heed These Words: I do not recommend that anyone take up the art of painting. At least if you want to paint, go ahead, be my guest, but please for basic Goodness' sake, do not try to become a professional painter. I succeeded in becoming one and it has been worse than hell itself. It has been hell on earth for me.
I have constantly had my work interrupted. As I said, it's a wonder I even did any painting at all. Yet I made thousands of paintings and countless many more images if you counted everything I put to paper, cardboard, or canvas in my short time on earth, you couldn't live long enough to go through it all.
But as I said, I sometimes went almost 3 years without painting a single thing. After a while, I rarely did more than 15 minutes per week of anything. The rest of the time, I was recuperating or else trying to restore things after others had malicious done everything in their power to torture me, or worse. They were perhaps trying to do much worse, but they failed to do anything at all.
Instead, they cost themselves some wonderful opportunities, opportunities to share one's self with another, to share the content of one's thoughts, the content on one's chest. I seem to attract monsters. I used to be too naive to see I was being caused grave indignities, and believe me on this one, loss of one's dignity hurts less when you are aware that it was lost. When you only find out 20 years later, it is akin to a death-sentence.
No one seems to want to speak of these things. Well. It is the Great Canadian Winter presently and my ancestors that came here on the first voyages - from Europe, across the Atlantic - almost all died the first winter. I understand that it is not something anyone likes to think about, but the Winters in the North are like mass graves. When one walks out in the tundra, one is lucky to be alive at every step of the way. It is not something I can afford to forget, ever.
I remember when I was a young boy, one of our common friends, a boy of my age, died buried in the snow in his yard. He had made a snow-fortress, but hadn't made it properly. I was sure that we had all learned how to make a quinzhee, but apparently we had not. It cost a young boy his life, and much grief followed. A quinzhee, when made according to tradition, will never collapse on you unless a tree or large branch or something of that Nature were to land on it. Besides, it still wouldn't do much harm, because when you carved it out, you thinned the ceilings to the requisite width, which doesn't have to be very thick, at least not where we were positioned, in that small town by the Great Mountain.
Therefore, for the official historical record, if I sing sorrowful tunes in the winter, it is not to offend your ears. It is the sound the outside makes, the empty space with winds shaking through the glistening frozen air. It sounds like a field of noise with this crystalline sound at times, depending on the temperature. One is fearful of that sound, one cannot help but be very afraid.
And then one remembers the day that Great Peace came and the wonderment that ensued. And then one remembers these terrible Winters of the Soul. So long as I have a musical instrument near-by, in the winter, especially just before Carnival Season, which is just before the Lenten season, you can be certain that I will be singing many songs, Songs both Sorrowful and Gleeful.
I mention this because this is the time of year that I have always done my finest painting. There is a time in the Fall, but it culminates in January of the New Year, more or less. It culminates because I know that the odds are stacked against me. Every winter I pray and I pray that I make it through okay, because so many others were not as fortunate as I.
So God bless you and yours, and tread lightly, ice and snow and freezing rain can be very dangerous, not to mention the gelid temperatures.
https://chumly.com/n/21e744f
Heed These Words: I do not recommend that anyone take up the art of painting. At least if you want to paint, go ahead, be my guest, but please for basic Goodness' sake, do not try to become a professional painter. I succeeded in becoming one and it has been worse than hell itself. It has been hell on earth for me.
I have constantly had my work interrupted. As I said, it's a wonder I even did any painting at all. Yet I made thousands of paintings and countless many more images if you counted everything I put to paper, cardboard, or canvas in my short time on earth, you couldn't live long enough to go through it all.
But as I said, I sometimes went almost 3 years without painting a single thing. After a while, I rarely did more than 15 minutes per week of anything. The rest of the time, I was recuperating or else trying to restore things after others had malicious done everything in their power to torture me, or worse. They were perhaps trying to do much worse, but they failed to do anything at all.
Instead, they cost themselves some wonderful opportunities, opportunities to share one's self with another, to share the content of one's thoughts, the content on one's chest. I seem to attract monsters. I used to be too naive to see I was being caused grave indignities, and believe me on this one, loss of one's dignity hurts less when you are aware that it was lost. When you only find out 20 years later, it is akin to a death-sentence.
No one seems to want to speak of these things. Well. It is the Great Canadian Winter presently and my ancestors that came here on the first voyages - from Europe, across the Atlantic - almost all died the first winter. I understand that it is not something anyone likes to think about, but the Winters in the North are like mass graves. When one walks out in the tundra, one is lucky to be alive at every step of the way. It is not something I can afford to forget, ever.
I remember when I was a young boy, one of our common friends, a boy of my age, died buried in the snow in his yard. He had made a snow-fortress, but hadn't made it properly. I was sure that we had all learned how to make a quinzhee, but apparently we had not. It cost a young boy his life, and much grief followed. A quinzhee, when made according to tradition, will never collapse on you unless a tree or large branch or something of that Nature were to land on it. Besides, it still wouldn't do much harm, because when you carved it out, you thinned the ceilings to the requisite width, which doesn't have to be very thick, at least not where we were positioned, in that small town by the Great Mountain.
Therefore, for the official historical record, if I sing sorrowful tunes in the winter, it is not to offend your ears. It is the sound the outside makes, the empty space with winds shaking through the glistening frozen air. It sounds like a field of noise with this crystalline sound at times, depending on the temperature. One is fearful of that sound, one cannot help but be very afraid.
And then one remembers the day that Great Peace came and the wonderment that ensued. And then one remembers these terrible Winters of the Soul. So long as I have a musical instrument near-by, in the winter, especially just before Carnival Season, which is just before the Lenten season, you can be certain that I will be singing many songs, Songs both Sorrowful and Gleeful.
I mention this because this is the time of year that I have always done my finest painting. There is a time in the Fall, but it culminates in January of the New Year, more or less. It culminates because I know that the odds are stacked against me. Every winter I pray and I pray that I make it through okay, because so many others were not as fortunate as I.
So God bless you and yours, and tread lightly, ice and snow and freezing rain can be very dangerous, not to mention the gelid temperatures.
https://chumly.com/n/21e744f
WINTERS OF THE SOUL
[Yet another of my paintings that was deliberately stolen that I still cannot account for]
https://chumly.com/n/21e71bc
https://chumly.com/n/21e71bc
WINTERS OF THE SOUL
[I invented the Red Square on Fri. 26, Sep, 2008, 03h27, and it was meant to be profoundly beautiful]
https://chumly.com/n/21e6f3a
https://chumly.com/n/21e6f3a
THERE WAS NEVER A PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
[AEGRI SOMNIA - Nothing but a shameful, sick man's dreams, Advantage Downstream]
https://chumly.com/n/21e0726
https://chumly.com/n/21e0726
mercredi 8 janvier 2014
WINTERS OF THE SOUL - Comédie de Vérité, Pour/Contre
[Une Charte qui nous propose de s'engager dans une lute inferno-iconoclastique]
https://chumly.com/n/21d7336
https://chumly.com/n/21d7336
HABITANCE - Parochialism (Parish Church)
[Iconophile, Iconophobe, Iconoclaste => Janvier, 2014, Québec Subsidiaire, Régime Provincial]
https://chumly.com/n/21d72c9
https://chumly.com/n/21d72c9
HABITANCE - Manorialism (Feudal)
[La survivance du régime seigneurial: Un régime qui ne veut pas mourir]
https://chumly.com/n/21d7272
https://chumly.com/n/21d7272
On Reading Things Wrong and The Imperative Of Trying To Read Them Right
I want to make a public admission of remorse, first and foremost, so that I can continue with a clearer conscience, if possible. A few years ago, I made a portrait of the family member of someone who had done great things. I thought that I was doing it with the very best intentions, but should not be judged by the apparent eloquence of my speech when making such apologies. This was someone that I had always had the greatest appreciation for, for I truly did believe in what they were doing at the time. I still do, yet over the years, repeatedly people judged this person so harshly and so severely that I myself became confused at times as to the sincerity and earnestness of the man's intentions. The portrait I made was of one deceased, from this person's extended family.
I am abhored by myself now thinking of what I did. I thought I was being prudent, doing it for the right reasons. All would be fine and dandy except that a moment ago it just occurred to me that I had published in a photo album on-line what was essentially just a private sketch in my daily art practise. That the sketch was made in the first place, in the privacy of my Atelier, this I hope can be forgiven. No one is permitted to enter the sanctity of such a private place as the studio of an established professional painter, that would be a disgrace and an indignity, if it were done without his consent and that there could be no doubt about whether he or she consented to the entry or not.
Yet here I was all this time myself not aware that I had done that thing that I most abhor in the world at times: I had myself intruded into the private, personal life of a solitary individual in the sense that I can never have the right to manipulate or move things around or enter into their personal history for my own satisfaction, unless I was being asked to do so by them or on their behalf, then it would have been my duty to accept their request and accommodate to their desires. That is neither pleasant not satisfactory to me but part of the work I felt compelled to do in my life, which was follow in the tradition of my ancestors.
I want to say it was an accident, but it was unacceptable behavior on my part and can never be forgiven as far as I am concerned. I have removed the picture and must now ensure that it doesn't exist anywhere.
If there is a problem, it has my signature on it and so cannot be forged, and I will answer for what I have done. I only ask one thing, that I be treated fairly and with dignity, and that I be allowed to do something to make it right, or that I be forgiven for my own indolence.
One can think and say that "It's just a portrait" but nothing is ever just a portrait. In fact, nothing is ever just an image or a canvas or a symbol or a word or a name or a person or anything in this world, when it is a question of what a person thinks and says. But the sanctity of a person and their rights to dignity in life and in death, what I did could have been deemed a sacrilege, and for that atrocity I can never forgive myself.
Again, one can say "The artist in his youth made a tiny slip up," but that can never be used to justify getting it wrong when you had every reason to be getting it right, and should have gotten it right in the first place. It's important for me as an artist, in any case, to be very careful, wary, and ever prudent in how I administer the economy internal to my daily practise, that nothing that leaves the Atelier ever be misconstrued by anyone. For anyone harmed by what I have painted, I am to be held accountable for it, for it was the work of my own hands. You can forget that History might remember me as the man who made the lousy portrait to begin with, because that is unimportant. It was a portrait and all the Honor goes to those who I might have offended who should never have been offended. I have the right to do my work, to paint portraits or what have you, but I do not have the right to offend you. No one does.
Lastly, I didn't think it was funny at the time. I did it with the same ardent hyper-solemnity with which I always do my work when I am at home. Once again, this only stresses and emphasizes how important it is for painters to always keep their art within the confines of the canvas itself. It is why we invented Frames. It would be the same for a writer who failed to keep the writing on the page. For when writing goes off the page, people could be hurt or offended, and that is unpardonable offence in my book.
https://chumly.com/n/21d6208
I am abhored by myself now thinking of what I did. I thought I was being prudent, doing it for the right reasons. All would be fine and dandy except that a moment ago it just occurred to me that I had published in a photo album on-line what was essentially just a private sketch in my daily art practise. That the sketch was made in the first place, in the privacy of my Atelier, this I hope can be forgiven. No one is permitted to enter the sanctity of such a private place as the studio of an established professional painter, that would be a disgrace and an indignity, if it were done without his consent and that there could be no doubt about whether he or she consented to the entry or not.
Yet here I was all this time myself not aware that I had done that thing that I most abhor in the world at times: I had myself intruded into the private, personal life of a solitary individual in the sense that I can never have the right to manipulate or move things around or enter into their personal history for my own satisfaction, unless I was being asked to do so by them or on their behalf, then it would have been my duty to accept their request and accommodate to their desires. That is neither pleasant not satisfactory to me but part of the work I felt compelled to do in my life, which was follow in the tradition of my ancestors.
I want to say it was an accident, but it was unacceptable behavior on my part and can never be forgiven as far as I am concerned. I have removed the picture and must now ensure that it doesn't exist anywhere.
If there is a problem, it has my signature on it and so cannot be forged, and I will answer for what I have done. I only ask one thing, that I be treated fairly and with dignity, and that I be allowed to do something to make it right, or that I be forgiven for my own indolence.
One can think and say that "It's just a portrait" but nothing is ever just a portrait. In fact, nothing is ever just an image or a canvas or a symbol or a word or a name or a person or anything in this world, when it is a question of what a person thinks and says. But the sanctity of a person and their rights to dignity in life and in death, what I did could have been deemed a sacrilege, and for that atrocity I can never forgive myself.
Again, one can say "The artist in his youth made a tiny slip up," but that can never be used to justify getting it wrong when you had every reason to be getting it right, and should have gotten it right in the first place. It's important for me as an artist, in any case, to be very careful, wary, and ever prudent in how I administer the economy internal to my daily practise, that nothing that leaves the Atelier ever be misconstrued by anyone. For anyone harmed by what I have painted, I am to be held accountable for it, for it was the work of my own hands. You can forget that History might remember me as the man who made the lousy portrait to begin with, because that is unimportant. It was a portrait and all the Honor goes to those who I might have offended who should never have been offended. I have the right to do my work, to paint portraits or what have you, but I do not have the right to offend you. No one does.
Lastly, I didn't think it was funny at the time. I did it with the same ardent hyper-solemnity with which I always do my work when I am at home. Once again, this only stresses and emphasizes how important it is for painters to always keep their art within the confines of the canvas itself. It is why we invented Frames. It would be the same for a writer who failed to keep the writing on the page. For when writing goes off the page, people could be hurt or offended, and that is unpardonable offence in my book.
https://chumly.com/n/21d6208
mardi 7 janvier 2014
The Genesis of The Antiface Strategy
I'm looking at myself in the mirror constantly. I don't use terms I am not qualified to use, and if I do, the first thing I say is that I am about to use a term I am not qualified to use. Otherwise, I just keep my mouth shut. I don't know anything about anybody. I'm just the face in the mirror who looks back at me standing in the outside world.
As a professional painter and accomplished self-portraitist, I am qualified to use the terms Mirror and Face in this context, and have used them appropriately, until proof of the contrary. I can also pronounce myself on Qualification as far as my trade goes, because I am a Professional.
However, I am a young professional as far as years of practise go, so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt and verified against the counsel of those more accomplished in the art than I. I am also not always speaking on behalf of the tradition, but I must still watch what I say, because what the mirror tells me is I am no longer a child, but an adult.
Why people would have wanted to scream and shout at such a beautiful child, Goodness only knows. Mirrors are great for shedding tears, to see what hurting looks like, but you can't keep crying all the time when you're a Painter. It fogs up the eyesight. It is a truly joyful thing to see, though, the sight of one's own face disappearing in that way. With it comes the drying of the eyes, the face is newly painted with a bashful smile, and joy everlastingly radiates outwardly.
It is the Gift of Tears, and in my case was the part of the Genesis of The Concept of Antiface, in the work that I have done in my professional art practise over the years. I hope that it can make you smile or otherwise have a nicer day. I have included a portrait of myself taken via Screenshot many years ago, when I was somewhat younger.
In the case of this photo, the Screen-capture shows us that it was a picture I had posted on the web and that I was being asked if I knew the individual in the picture. If I knew the person, I was prompted to Tag them with their name. I found it rather Imbecilic to be asked if I recognized myself. In terms of facial recognition, machine learning, and all that, I knew that tagging myself was the quickest way to avoid having to use any algorithms whatsoever. My Face's Visual Signature could then be catalogued and used in computer systems until the end of time.
It made me sad, yet happy at the same time, that I couldn't be so easily fooled. I have spent a lifetime inside the Mirror, staring back at myself standing in the world. I am a painter, after all, and so took a Snapshot so I could remember that that actually happened, since I was almost certain no one would believe me.
I am releasing it now From The Archives as I like to say. This was the face I was asked about. After almost a decade, I am ready to give my answer. Yes, I know who that is, it's the guy in the Picture on the page you are looking at on this website. Who is he? How the hell should I know? I don't know anything about anybody. I'm just a lowly professional painter, and an accomplished self-portraitist. I know who I am, do you know who you are? Take a look in the mirror and let me know. Blessings and good tidings to you from inside the Atelier.
https://chumly.com/n/21c6d2b
As a professional painter and accomplished self-portraitist, I am qualified to use the terms Mirror and Face in this context, and have used them appropriately, until proof of the contrary. I can also pronounce myself on Qualification as far as my trade goes, because I am a Professional.
However, I am a young professional as far as years of practise go, so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt and verified against the counsel of those more accomplished in the art than I. I am also not always speaking on behalf of the tradition, but I must still watch what I say, because what the mirror tells me is I am no longer a child, but an adult.
Why people would have wanted to scream and shout at such a beautiful child, Goodness only knows. Mirrors are great for shedding tears, to see what hurting looks like, but you can't keep crying all the time when you're a Painter. It fogs up the eyesight. It is a truly joyful thing to see, though, the sight of one's own face disappearing in that way. With it comes the drying of the eyes, the face is newly painted with a bashful smile, and joy everlastingly radiates outwardly.
It is the Gift of Tears, and in my case was the part of the Genesis of The Concept of Antiface, in the work that I have done in my professional art practise over the years. I hope that it can make you smile or otherwise have a nicer day. I have included a portrait of myself taken via Screenshot many years ago, when I was somewhat younger.
In the case of this photo, the Screen-capture shows us that it was a picture I had posted on the web and that I was being asked if I knew the individual in the picture. If I knew the person, I was prompted to Tag them with their name. I found it rather Imbecilic to be asked if I recognized myself. In terms of facial recognition, machine learning, and all that, I knew that tagging myself was the quickest way to avoid having to use any algorithms whatsoever. My Face's Visual Signature could then be catalogued and used in computer systems until the end of time.
It made me sad, yet happy at the same time, that I couldn't be so easily fooled. I have spent a lifetime inside the Mirror, staring back at myself standing in the world. I am a painter, after all, and so took a Snapshot so I could remember that that actually happened, since I was almost certain no one would believe me.
I am releasing it now From The Archives as I like to say. This was the face I was asked about. After almost a decade, I am ready to give my answer. Yes, I know who that is, it's the guy in the Picture on the page you are looking at on this website. Who is he? How the hell should I know? I don't know anything about anybody. I'm just a lowly professional painter, and an accomplished self-portraitist. I know who I am, do you know who you are? Take a look in the mirror and let me know. Blessings and good tidings to you from inside the Atelier.
https://chumly.com/n/21c6d2b
vendredi 3 janvier 2014
The Serial Method in Painting
I am a serial painter in many ways. In other ways, I am perhaps not so serial. It began a long time ago. It kind of just happened. I happened to have been painting every day for a very long time. I often had 20 paintings drying at the same time in the studio.
You see, I have always been cursed - or blessed! - with great prolificness. It's a curse because I've had to leave entire Collections behind when moving. If you happen to have the misfortune of being "maxed-out" space-wise, as they say, and you are moving into a smaller space, what can you possibly do with over a thousand paintings?
There's only so muck IKEA furniture will do to solve your problems, especially when they are not problems easily solved by common sense. It's in fact un-common sense to be so prolific. So what do you do?
You work at a smaller scale, format-wise I mean. You make smaller paintings. When you make smaller paintings, you can make many more of them. You end up filling space, but they are more easily stored. When you run out of space, you start over, but on paper this time, or cardboard.
As you can see, the complexity of maintaining a prolific practise of this scale quickly causes intractable problems, like ones where you have to leave all your works in a Large format behind, next to the garbage by the side of the road.
What, you thought friends or family would bail you out, come take your paintings for you? Never. No one wants them. The galleries don't want them, your family and friends certainly don't want them. Besides, it's your freely chosen profession, you paid good money for the materials. These are valuable pieces, you can't be expected to give them away for free.
But you can throw them in the garbage. There's a huge difference. If no one wants to buy them and no one wants to take them, if you're only choice is someone taking it out of pity or else getting a free ride and a free pass to your decades-long art practise and ingenuous labor by taking it off your hands to hang on their wall or something.. Think again, you destroy them, deface them, throw them in the garbage. Have a bonfire.
But keeping a massive archive is laborious work. Works on paper need the right environment. Quebec winters and weather here in general are not good for any works of art. You can forget about keeping paper.
Keep them in storage. But I don't just have access to a museum here! Who do you think I am, Pablo Picasso? I'm just a lowly serial painter.
I have therefore been forced to bust my brains to constantly think of way out of intractable problems. You can do it all digitally, but I am an analog serial painter. I like to have real physical works, they last longer than digital ones. They are easier to preserve in that sense. But as you can see, the Large formats get thrown in the trash. The paper rots, turns yellow. Mold gets in, fungus. It can be a fire hazard. You're not hoarding, you're building neatly aligned, massive collections of works of the finest art. But you see, that's not how it works today.
The market died in Quebec. I can't export works in Large formats. I can't keep them, I can't store them. I make works in small formats. Easy to transport, send to people. I make limited series. I make interleaving and interweaving series. I have multiple series going on concurrently like threads in a processor. The trick is you make less. You resist the temptation to make art. You are a prolific painter, you take a few years off. You have to. You're allowed a vacation like anyone else.
You spend a few seasons working on setting up the archive properly. You organize the collections that are extant. You work on new processes, treatments, new methods, invent a few technologies, think about new manufacturing processes. You study theoretical computer science, computer programming, you start to build your own digital archives. Life is pretty sweet.
The trick though is to be able to crank out 100 paintings a day if you have to, but be able to not paint for years if you want to. It's painting on-demand, just like Netflix with movies and television shows. At any instant, you can stream fine art of the highest quality in massive quantities. But you keep an eye on your inventory. You stash caches of paintings in secret places, underground when possible, or in a vault somewhere.
You keep entire series, collections, project hidden for up to 10, 20 years. No one knows they exist. You release them on a precise schedule. You're already 10, 20 years ahead of the game. You can take your time. You release it on a tight schedule and you work on those processes, managing inventory, keeping up the archives, you spend some time working on your Succession Strategy.
You already have works that you know can withstand hundreds of years of history. You skip the market. If the market is dry, is weak, is broken, dilapidated, you donate works to national archives, museums. No one knows your name in this town, but maybe you're big in China with limited series in tightly orchestrated, coordinated mobile shows under a pseudonym.
What, if I choose a pseudonym, I can make him Chinese, can't I? A Chinese serial painter? You go where the market is at. It's not a crime to use the methods your tradition gave to you. It is your inheritance, your heritage. You use it to your advantage.
Donate to organizations, charities. Banks need art work, so do government offices. No one cared that you existed, now no one knows you exist, and yet you are everywhere and will be for the next several hundred years if all goes as planned.
Maybe someday you'll patent it all as a business method. Call it the Art Operation. But I still haven't told you about the serial method of painting. It's a trade secret. Make your own darn paintings and see. If you're any good, maybe you will make eyes turn. But if you're truly great, you might be fortunate enough to be invisible. Let everyone have their fifteen minutes. Go for the long haul and be in the archives for thousands of years.
But you have to be smart about it. You can't follow trends. Look what trends did! Picasso's papier-collé work, how's that going for his Succession? Come on, paper is no good, cardboard isn't any better. It's canvas you want! But storing canvases is a pain in the ass. So you innovate. But if people think you're just going to give them the business method for free when they didn't care about your art when they had the chance, forget about it. There's no collector or investor big enough that I will bow down to him or her. Wave your billions in my face, I don't care. I'm not that type of person. I actually care enough about my work to not let anyone have it. Not unless it's on my terms and solely on my terms.
But, again, you have to be good for it. You have to have a method. You're not worth your weight in cardboard or anything if you can't deliver the goods, if you aren't good for it. You have to be delusional or really great at what you do. I let others decide. There's nothing magic or mystical about it. I did my research, I did my homework. And I haven't even started. I was just polishing off the methods for the last 30 years. What were you up to?
https://chumly.com/n/21ba434
You see, I have always been cursed - or blessed! - with great prolificness. It's a curse because I've had to leave entire Collections behind when moving. If you happen to have the misfortune of being "maxed-out" space-wise, as they say, and you are moving into a smaller space, what can you possibly do with over a thousand paintings?
There's only so muck IKEA furniture will do to solve your problems, especially when they are not problems easily solved by common sense. It's in fact un-common sense to be so prolific. So what do you do?
You work at a smaller scale, format-wise I mean. You make smaller paintings. When you make smaller paintings, you can make many more of them. You end up filling space, but they are more easily stored. When you run out of space, you start over, but on paper this time, or cardboard.
As you can see, the complexity of maintaining a prolific practise of this scale quickly causes intractable problems, like ones where you have to leave all your works in a Large format behind, next to the garbage by the side of the road.
What, you thought friends or family would bail you out, come take your paintings for you? Never. No one wants them. The galleries don't want them, your family and friends certainly don't want them. Besides, it's your freely chosen profession, you paid good money for the materials. These are valuable pieces, you can't be expected to give them away for free.
But you can throw them in the garbage. There's a huge difference. If no one wants to buy them and no one wants to take them, if you're only choice is someone taking it out of pity or else getting a free ride and a free pass to your decades-long art practise and ingenuous labor by taking it off your hands to hang on their wall or something.. Think again, you destroy them, deface them, throw them in the garbage. Have a bonfire.
But keeping a massive archive is laborious work. Works on paper need the right environment. Quebec winters and weather here in general are not good for any works of art. You can forget about keeping paper.
Keep them in storage. But I don't just have access to a museum here! Who do you think I am, Pablo Picasso? I'm just a lowly serial painter.
I have therefore been forced to bust my brains to constantly think of way out of intractable problems. You can do it all digitally, but I am an analog serial painter. I like to have real physical works, they last longer than digital ones. They are easier to preserve in that sense. But as you can see, the Large formats get thrown in the trash. The paper rots, turns yellow. Mold gets in, fungus. It can be a fire hazard. You're not hoarding, you're building neatly aligned, massive collections of works of the finest art. But you see, that's not how it works today.
The market died in Quebec. I can't export works in Large formats. I can't keep them, I can't store them. I make works in small formats. Easy to transport, send to people. I make limited series. I make interleaving and interweaving series. I have multiple series going on concurrently like threads in a processor. The trick is you make less. You resist the temptation to make art. You are a prolific painter, you take a few years off. You have to. You're allowed a vacation like anyone else.
You spend a few seasons working on setting up the archive properly. You organize the collections that are extant. You work on new processes, treatments, new methods, invent a few technologies, think about new manufacturing processes. You study theoretical computer science, computer programming, you start to build your own digital archives. Life is pretty sweet.
The trick though is to be able to crank out 100 paintings a day if you have to, but be able to not paint for years if you want to. It's painting on-demand, just like Netflix with movies and television shows. At any instant, you can stream fine art of the highest quality in massive quantities. But you keep an eye on your inventory. You stash caches of paintings in secret places, underground when possible, or in a vault somewhere.
You keep entire series, collections, project hidden for up to 10, 20 years. No one knows they exist. You release them on a precise schedule. You're already 10, 20 years ahead of the game. You can take your time. You release it on a tight schedule and you work on those processes, managing inventory, keeping up the archives, you spend some time working on your Succession Strategy.
You already have works that you know can withstand hundreds of years of history. You skip the market. If the market is dry, is weak, is broken, dilapidated, you donate works to national archives, museums. No one knows your name in this town, but maybe you're big in China with limited series in tightly orchestrated, coordinated mobile shows under a pseudonym.
What, if I choose a pseudonym, I can make him Chinese, can't I? A Chinese serial painter? You go where the market is at. It's not a crime to use the methods your tradition gave to you. It is your inheritance, your heritage. You use it to your advantage.
Donate to organizations, charities. Banks need art work, so do government offices. No one cared that you existed, now no one knows you exist, and yet you are everywhere and will be for the next several hundred years if all goes as planned.
Maybe someday you'll patent it all as a business method. Call it the Art Operation. But I still haven't told you about the serial method of painting. It's a trade secret. Make your own darn paintings and see. If you're any good, maybe you will make eyes turn. But if you're truly great, you might be fortunate enough to be invisible. Let everyone have their fifteen minutes. Go for the long haul and be in the archives for thousands of years.
But you have to be smart about it. You can't follow trends. Look what trends did! Picasso's papier-collé work, how's that going for his Succession? Come on, paper is no good, cardboard isn't any better. It's canvas you want! But storing canvases is a pain in the ass. So you innovate. But if people think you're just going to give them the business method for free when they didn't care about your art when they had the chance, forget about it. There's no collector or investor big enough that I will bow down to him or her. Wave your billions in my face, I don't care. I'm not that type of person. I actually care enough about my work to not let anyone have it. Not unless it's on my terms and solely on my terms.
But, again, you have to be good for it. You have to have a method. You're not worth your weight in cardboard or anything if you can't deliver the goods, if you aren't good for it. You have to be delusional or really great at what you do. I let others decide. There's nothing magic or mystical about it. I did my research, I did my homework. And I haven't even started. I was just polishing off the methods for the last 30 years. What were you up to?
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