The Sublime
JPCeja
What is 'the sublime', and what does Immanuel Kant say about it?
I tried to read Kant's Critique of Judgement, but I found it to be just as
unreadable as his other Critiques. File a lawsuit against me, but I have nary
an idea what he's talking about.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go for a walk.
Pablo Secca
A Painter
Alison A Raimes
"Kant defines sublimity as the capacity of certain phenomena to evoke an
awareness of our supersensible self. Vast and destructive natural
phenomena (*mathematically* and *dynamically* sublime respectively)
overwhelm our ability to comprehend them at the level of ordinary
perception and imagination and so evoke a feeling of inhibition and
pain. But the failure and inadequacy of our cognitive faculties at the
sensible level serves only to stimulate the employment of rational
comprehension. The phenomenal totality of cast items, and immense
destructiveness, can be comprehended as an idea - i.e.. in rational
terms at the level of thought. This leads primarily to insights
concerning our existence as rational beings. These insights have, at the
same time, a fundamentally moral import. They exemplify our rational
self-sufficiency and superiority over nature. In the final analysis, it
s this rational/moral faculty which is absolutely sublime. "
Mojca Oblak_The Possibility of the Sublime_
I am assuming that having read Kant you are familiar with the terms used
so haven't explained them. Let me know if this helps or not.
In article <19991106234236...@ng-fp1.aol.com>, JPCeja
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
Don't forget to take a line with you.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
JPCeja
That's quite a definition. It sheds light. I seem to remember having read
someone's
thoughts on the Sublime long ago, but I was vaguely unfamiliar with the
terminology,
etc., and after a bit, the words lost their meaning and became nonsignifying: a
lot of
letters that were fun to read, but meant about as much as the paper they were
written on.
Now,...
>"Kant defines sublimity as the capacity of certain phenomena to evoke an
>awareness of our supersensible self.
I more or less think I understand what the "supersensible self" is. Is
knowledge of this
characterized by a dim awareness, or, perhaps a simple recognition of the
supersensible
self's existence, recognized only at a cold, rational distance? Perhaps what
I'm asking is
whether this knowledge can be empirical... I suppose, the very words tells me:
'super'-sensible would seem to imply that empirical knowledge is impossible...
But this is
where I become unfirm. I am unsure whether I quite grasp the concept of the
'supersensible self.'
Now, then...
>The phenomenal totality of cast items...
Cast items? Rookie am I, that's a new one on me.
>...These insights have, at the
>same time, a fundamentally moral import...
I see clearly what the insights are, but I question whether they have this
'fundamentally'
moral import. Does he say that such insights as these 'bring in' moral systems
or 'are
important to' moral systems? A funny double-take on the word 'import.'
Furthermore, he says they (the insights)...
>... exemplify our rational
>self-sufficiency and superiority over nature.
Is this superiority and self-sufficiency the source of this moral aspect
('morality') of the
Sublime? When Oblak says 'moral,' does he refer to the responsibilities of
humanity's
role or place in regards to nature?
I can't shake the feeling that I may be riding a different rail than you.
Pablo Secca
Post note: for my sake, analyze this: I watch a thunderstorm roll across a
plain, or looking
at an enormous painting of one. What would Kant say about these in regards to
the
sublime?
JPCeja
Alison A Raimes
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>
>>"Kant defines sublimity as the capacity of certain phenomena to evoke an
>>awareness of our supersensible self.
>
>I more or less think I understand what the "supersensible self" is. Is
>knowledge of this
>characterized by a dim awareness, or, perhaps a simple recognition of the
>supersensible
>self's existence, recognized only at a cold, rational distance? Perhaps what
>I'm asking is
>whether this knowledge can be empirical... I suppose, the very words tells me:
>'super'-sensible would seem to imply that empirical knowledge is impossible...
>But this is
>where I become unfirm. I am unsure whether I quite grasp the concept of the
>'supersensible self.'
Kant claims that as humans, our *free rational/moral being* makes us
more than nature - we can claim superiority over nature because of this.
Because there is nothing to measure this greatness by, it alone is
worthy of the term *sublime*. In other words, no, this knowledge is
definitely not empirical. This is what he names the *supersensible
self*.
>
>Now, then...
>
>>The phenomenal totality of cast items...
>
>Cast items? Rookie am I, that's a new one on me.
Typo alert !!!!!!!! Vast items it should have been ;-)
>
>>...These insights have, at the
>>same time, a fundamentally moral import...
>
>I see clearly what the insights are, but I question whether they have this
>'fundamentally'
>moral import. Does he say that such insights as these 'bring in' moral systems
>or 'are
>important to' moral systems? A funny double-take on the word 'import.'
>
My own interpretation is that our *awareness* of our supersensible self
and our ability to recognise that we are superior over nature is
important to us, as human beings, because it signifies our self-
sufficiency. That this serves as an important part of our moral
structure.
>Furthermore, he says they (the insights)...
>
>>... exemplify our rational
>>self-sufficiency and superiority over nature.
>
>Is this superiority and self-sufficiency the source of this moral aspect
>('morality') of the
>Sublime? When Oblak says 'moral,' does he refer to the responsibilities of
>humanity's
>role or place in regards to nature?
Well Kant wrote thousands of pages on this, as you well know. He tried
to answer three questions: What can I know ? What ought I know ? and
What may I hope for ? In the process he maintained that it is impossible
to know anything *a priori* about the world as it is, independently of
our cognitive apparatus. As a result of this he claimed that the Sublime
was an experience linked to the feeling of *respect* (that being a part
of our moral structure). In addition to this he stressed that the
sublime must be sought only in the mind of the judging subject and not
in the object itself and that Nature was only a *means* to the
experience (not the experience) and then only in so far as it involves
formlessness and excess of magnitude (size or power).
The idea of it being possible to transport this feeling to art is
problematic. How does one render the Infinite, Formless, Unpresentable
and Respect ? One can only imply it and hope to make the viewer engage
in the idea. Traditionally artists have used *nature* as a means of
implying the feeling and in so doing have suggested that nature is the
sublime. That is where his philosophy became corrupted beyond
recognition.
>
>I can't shake the feeling that I may be riding a different rail than you.
>
Don't forget to wave .....
>
>Pablo Secca
>
>Post note: for my sake, analyse this: I watch a thunderstorm roll
across a plain, or looking at an enormous painting of one. What would
Kant say about these in regards to the sublime?
I hope you know the answer to this one now ;-)
Regards.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
John Haber
>Typo alert !!!!!!!! Vast items it should have been ;-)
Be careful. Marilyn doesn't allow them.
John
John Haber
jha...@haberarts.com
http://www.haberarts.com/
JPCeja
Oblak:
>>>...These insights have, at the
>>>same time, a fundamentally moral import...
>>
Me:
>>I see clearly what the insights are, but I question whether they have this
>>'fundamentally'
>>moral import. Does he say that such insights as these 'bring in' moral
>systems
>>or 'are
>>important to' moral systems? A funny double-take on the word 'import.'
>>
>
You:
>My own interpretation is that our *awareness* of our supersensible self
>and our ability to recognise that we are superior over nature is
>important to us, as human beings, because it signifies our self-
>sufficiency. That this serves as an important part of our moral
>structure.
Well put, but I still don't see to see how this superiority over nature serves
as such an important part of our moral structure. Do these moral systems arise
out of some sort of responsibility or/of place? Does this knowledge lead to
morals (I would think not) or just play a part in the system that one holds?
>>Post note: for my sake, analyse this: I watch a thunderstorm roll
>across a plain, or looking at an enormous painting of one. What would
>Kant say about these in regards to the sublime?
>
>I hope you know the answer to this one now ;-)
Right.
Pablo Secca
Alison A Raimes
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>Well put, but I still don't see to see how this superiority over nature serves
>as such an important part of our moral structure. Do these moral systems arise
>out of some sort of responsibility or/of place? Does this knowledge lead to
>morals (I would think not) or just play a part in the system that one holds?
Hi Pablo.
I had plenty of time yesterday to think about Kant while I was away from
the computer, and as usual, all my conclusions are a blur this morning.
They really ought to build computers into the steering wheels ;-) An
artist friend of mine just revealed that he has a masters in philosophy
and warned me not to attempt any explanation of Kant. Good advise. I
don't think one should ever try and *explain* a philosopher, but rather
to enquire into what he is saying as a means of expanding our thoughts -
don't you ?
So many of our ideas on the sublime in art have been formed from Kant's
writings, it would be irresponsible not to try and interpret what he was
saying, though I think many other philosophers made a much better job of
discussing the subject - particularly Edmund Burke in *A philosophical
enquiry into the sublime and beautiful*.
Above all its imperative to place the writings in the context of when
they were written and the social structure in place at that time. To
pluck from them and translate into modern day thinking may not often
work - which I think is why Kant fails to grab us these days (that and
his persistence to try and say the same thing in one hundred different
ways).
My inquiry is based on this mistranslation, particularly Barnett
Newman's adoption of the term, and to try and identify what today's
modern day sublime is.
I promised John Haber some remarks on his essay on the subject later
today - if time permits. Maybe you could join us ?
Best regards.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
JPCeja
> An
>artist friend of mine just revealed that he has a masters in philosophy
>and warned me not to attempt any explanation of Kant.
I agree, more or less. Kant is an explanation of Kant is an explanation of
Kant... You Kant get any clearer than that (no, I could not resist).
>I
>don't think one should ever try and *explain* a philosopher, but rather
>to enquire into what he is saying as a means of expanding our thoughts -
>don't you ?
>
Sure, sure... but make sure the words are known to us as well... (I see and
hear all these complaints about lingo... Complaining about occupational
parlance seems a bit trendy and hip, nowadays... There are accusations flying
about how one can hide behind terms... can speak nonsense, and get away with
it, and we'll all just nod. This is true to a point, but words and terms are a
wonderful way of getting thoughts out into the world, and this in turn queue's
and cue's the brain up, letting more thought pass. I suppose in delving in any
sort of thing (art, philsophy, law) there is a self-serving requirement to get
to know the 'slang' because plain English is at times just that.)
>...but rather
>to enquire into what he is saying as a means of expanding our thoughts -
I agree. Good way of putting it. I cannot restate that.
>So many of our ideas on the sublime in art have been formed from Kant's
>writings, it would be irresponsible not to try and interpret what he was
>saying,
Not so irresponsible as silly.
>though I think many other philosophers made a much better job of
>discussing the subject - particularly Edmund Burke in *A philosophical
>enquiry into the sublime and beautiful*.
What a humourous thing-- someone says something, and then we all go away and
keep re-saying it to ourselves until we think we've got it.
>its imperative to place the writings in the context of when
>they were written and the social structure in place at that time. To
>pluck from them and translate into modern day thinking may not often
>work - which I think is why Kant fails to grab us these days (that and
>his persistence to try and say the same thing in one hundred different
>ways).
...and that lovely 80-proof 18th century style of writing. Halfway through the
critique, he takes leave of his senses, I believe... then gets them back.
Also, it's difficult for the floor to grab us so much as hold us, so to
speak...
>to try and identify what today's
>modern day sublime is.
Keeping what you just wrote fully in mind, I would venture to say that it can
be proposed that the 'true sublime' would be 'timeless,' thus invalidating any
modern-day idea of the 'sublime'... Could there be an 'eye of the beholder'
for the sublime? Is it an idea such as that?
It seems at times somewhat amazing that Kant could hit a target so fast-moving
and amorphous as this idea or concept. And then, once he more or less talked
about it, so could everyone else....
>I promised John Haber some remarks on his essay on the subject later
>today - if time permits. Maybe you could join us ?
'Today' is an odd word to use on the internet. I am not familiar with John
Haber, but I would be happy to look at it and see if I have anything to say.
Pablo Secca
Today, I was painting and my easel tipped over and the wet canvas fell on me:
it was a horribly annoying and traumatic experience. I curse like a sailor
when I'm painting normally, so you can imagine how much I flare when something
like this happens.
Alison A Raimes
>>discussing the subject - particularly Edmund Burke in *A philosophical
>>enquiry into the sublime and beautiful*.
In article <19991110164917...@ng-bd1.aol.com>, JPCeja
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>
>What a humourous thing-- someone says something, and then we all go away and
>keep re-saying it to ourselves until we think we've got it.
Pablo: I think the most important thing about what you wrote is to
remind us to keep looking at writings in the context of when they were
written, and to recognise out inability to translate across times and
cultures. What I am interested in - and am basing my MFA thesis on - is
the idea of the sublime and our inability to comprehend the term. That
means looking at the changes in perceptions and how and what has
affected them.
>Keeping what you just wrote fully in mind, I would venture to say that it can
>be proposed that the 'true sublime' would be 'timeless,' thus invalidating any
>modern-day idea of the 'sublime'... Could there be an 'eye of the beholder'
>for the sublime? Is it an idea such as that?
That's one I would like to throw into the forum and find out what people
think. A cyber friend (from one of the arts lists I subscribe to), is
visiting London from New York at the moment - he kindly treated me to
the Renaissance Florence exhibition at the National Gallery today. What
struck me the most, in between battling with the crowds to get to view
the work, was the realisation that today we have lost the ability to
focus on detail. I can't help feeling there may be something in this
that relates to our experiences of the sublime. He and I discussed this
in some depth - including the crowds around the work that made it
impossible to become absorbed in the actual art.
>
>Today, I was painting and my easel tipped over and the wet canvas fell on me:
>it was a horribly annoying and traumatic experience. I curse like a sailor
>when I'm painting normally, so you can imagine how much I flare when something
>like this happens.
Well, as a pourer of paint I end up swimming in the stuff .... its pure
bliss... enjoy the sensuality of the materials ;-)
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
John Haber
>Pablo: I think the most important thing about what you wrote is to
>remind us to keep looking at writings in the context of when they were
>written, and to recognise out inability to translate across times and
>cultures.
Definitely, a lot of good criticism and philosophy involves
re-inserting ideas, books, and art into their histories. Things can
come out more limited that way (as after some feminist criticism) but
also, of course, newly accessible (as after iconology).
>>Keeping what you just wrote fully in mind, I would venture to say that it can
>>be proposed that the 'true sublime' would be 'timeless,' thus invalidating any
>>modern-day idea of the 'sublime'... Could there be an 'eye of the beholder'
>>for the sublime? Is it an idea such as that?
>That's one I would like to throw into the forum and find out what people
>think.
The point I'm making applies to LOTS of things that aspire to entirely
timeless significance, such as religious art. Sometimes the
historical context for what aspire to universal truths jumps out at
people of its own accord over time, and things start to seem worth
joking about (as in a great recent e-mail joke about Existentialism)
or lost to comprehension without footnotes (which is one reason people
take art history or art appreciation).
Even if, say, there really is a God, studying people's concepts of it
are going to teach something. In fact, I'd say that my job in
approaching the Madonnas in the Frick I also compared just CAN'T be to
worry over how Mary was, and it can't be to admit that her meaning to
the artists is lost to translation. I've got these paintings to worry
about, and they need her. Otherwise, they become lost in another way:
they disappear into a "timeless" world that does not and never has
existed, the one for true believers like Mani, who find the beauty and
realism of a work a given that words can only spoil.
That's why I was trying to look at how the sublime popped up a couple
of times in history and, with the example of Constable, what it meant
for art.
jh
M.
You too still having trouble with your email?
Marilyn
Alison A Raimes
>Yawn...
>You too still having trouble with your email?
>
>Marilyn
I feel obliged to point out that your sentence is grammatically
incorrect, seeing as that seems to be your sole purpose for posting to
this newsgroup.
Now go back to sleep.
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>Definitely, a lot of good criticism and philosophy involves
>re-inserting ideas, books, and art into their histories. Things can
>come out more limited that way (as after some feminist criticism) but
>also, of course, newly accessible (as after iconology).
The problems arise when ideas are plucked out of context and in placed
in isolation become distorted from the origination. I am not saying this
doesn't often have some very agreeable results, just that we have to
aware that there is a greater picture. I am re-reading Edmund Burke's *A
Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful* because my own
notions of the subject have changed so radically since my first reading.
They have been challenged and developed by exposure to a number of
different theories on the term and in the process my first reading of
this particular work may not have the same impact as now - which means I
need a new set of notes ! Burke is adamant that in reading him not to
isolate one essay but to always read the entire book as a whole.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Marilyn Welch
Oops my eyes were glazed over,
and I switched homonynoms 'too' for 'two.'
That happens when you see a sublime post by someone who
Kant interpret philosophy.
Marilyn
JPCeja
>Pablo: I think the most important thing about what you wrote is to
>remind us to keep looking at writings in the context of when they were
>written, and to recognise out inability to translate across times and
>cultures. What I am interested in - and am basing my MFA thesis on - is
>the idea of the sublime and our inability to comprehend the term. That
>means looking at the changes in perceptions and how and what has
>affected them.
The Idea of the Sublime and our inability to comprehend the term... I compare
it to standing in front of an object so big
that it goes into the sky with no end, goes into the horizon until it
disappears, and we’re left with this wall which we
can’t quite grasp... It’s so big, we may not even know it’s there.
But what I find interesting is this:
>A cyber friend (from one of the arts lists I subscribe to), is
>visiting London from New York at the moment - he kindly treated me to
>the Renaissance Florence exhibition at the National Gallery today. What
>struck me the most, in between battling with the crowds to get to view
>the work, was the realisation that today we have lost the ability to
>focus on detail. I can't help feeling there may be something in this
>that relates to our experiences of the sublime. He and I discussed this
>in some depth - including the crowds around the work that made it
>impossible to become absorbed in the actual art.
Your experience at the national gallery, about the lack of focus on detail...
evoked some thoughts, about scandalous
nature of people (they bounce around in mechanical groups), that (the sublime)
God is in the details, the modern lack of
attention, ‘that empty chase’ fueled by the doubt in effort, and more over,
about the loss of experience, what say: a
trivialization or cheapening of experience through a certain excess of
simulatory experience such as television and
movies, and finally, the fact that art usually fails to be experience...
(Yet, then I thought, think of ‘Guernica.’
How would the experience differ if five people viewed the painting, listed
below:
1. Some Spaniard who lived through the actual bombing of Guernica.
2. Some person who lived through a bombing raid at a different time, elsewhere.
3. Someone who did not live through any raid, but rather saw or read some news
about the bombing of Guernica.
4. Some person who did not live through any raid, but rather saw or read some
news about the bombing of some other
place besides Guernica, and finally
5. A person who never heard of such a thing: Let’s propose, hypothetically,
that this person lived on a ‘primitive’ island
somewhere all his life.
Put these five people in front of the painting and their experiences differ
from a little to a lot. I might add that for the
fifth person, the experience of hearing something new and so (assuming)
terrible may be an experience in itself.)
Perhaps, Alison, we moderners (or postmoderners) will stop believing in the
sublime... after all, it’s certainly not
empirical and we can’t comprehend it. Throw out my above-mentioned metaphor
if you wish, think of this one: the
concept of the sublime is a rumble that we hear deep in the earth... did we
hear it, or is it just our ears playing tricks on
us? Is it what we think it is, or is it something else...? An earthquake,
perhaps (lets not turn this into an allegory.)?
Speaking of Guernica, the lady who cleans this house walked by, saw an old
painting of mine and turned the vacuum
off long enough to tell me that it looked very cubist. It more or less could be
described as being vaguely so. This lady,
whose name I cannot remember (even though she’s been here for months) then
proceeded to tell me that cubism was
‘egotistical.’ Certainly, we can say, Picasso had a big ego. He was a
‘macho’, he always had a woman or two by his
side, he was jealous.
This lady told me she wrote a book during college about it, and that she
preferred all of the art that looked like what it
was. I showed her another of my paintings, a later one, which was, by my
vulgarity, half ‘cubist in spirit’ (I am aware of
how silly and crude that sounds) and half a real, to-life rendering of a
woman’s face. Remarked this lady, ‘I half-like it.’
She continued vacuuming.
Well, I should stop myself... I could write droves about semi-representational
art being (or not being) egotistical or
self-centered... Then I wonder if nameless realism is ultimate humility... then
I wondered if this is in fact, a good
thing...
>Well, as a pourer of paint I end up swimming in the stuff .... its pure
>bliss... enjoy the sensuality of the materials ;-)
>
I find it fascinating that you pour paint... Do you use buckets of, say, Galkyd
resin to achieve that glassy transparency,
or use something else? I imagine you use oil, I myself used acrylic for a bit,
then I tried oil and immediately went out to
buy oil paints. I enjoy those sticky, buttery, creamy daubs that you can play
with, and make impastos with... Bliss with a
hair brush. Acrylic is very limiting. The only thing it has going for it is
that it dries quickly.
Pablo Secca
Alison A Raimes
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>The Idea of the Sublime and our inability to comprehend the term... I compare
>it to standing in front of an object so big
>that it goes into the sky with no end, goes into the horizon until it
>disappears, and we’re left with this wall which we
>can’t quite grasp... It’s so big, we may not even know it’s there.
Hi Pablo: Your description is pretty much what most people would write
if posed with the same question. Its formed from the ideas of artists
like Caspar David Friedrich and modern day painters who have adapted the
idea of *vastness* and human scale as a means of rendering the sublime
and has almost always, in some way or another, been linked to the
landscape. The problem remains that the idea of the sublime was
originally beyond man's comprehension - infinity and voids before
science gave us reasons, for instance. But something more than that. Its
as if we are standing on the outside and something is pulling us towards
it - the rush of fear at losing control and yet the desire to allow the
pull - the sensation of knowing something is there but that we can
safely observe from a far, that we have control. The danger comes when
you allow your mind to try and go after it - anyone who has experienced
astral projection will describe leaving the body and looking back on
themselves and the difficulty of bringing themselves back. Its
fascinating stuff. Most people will never attempt the experience again.
>Your experience at the national gallery, about the lack of focus on detail...
>evoked some thoughts, about scandalous
>nature of people (they bounce around in mechanical groups), that (the sublime)
>God is in the details, the modern lack of
>attention, ‘that empty chase’ fueled by the doubt in effort, and more over,
>about the loss of experience, what say: a
>trivialization or cheapening of experience through a certain excess of
>simulatory experience such as television and
>movies, and finally, the fact that art usually fails to be experience...
There you go Pablo - you just described the modern day human effort to
induce the experience ! I have been trying to identify what it is that
has made us incapable of experiencing the sublime and have started to
think it has a lot to do with the changes in the demands of our sensory
perceptions and also, and perhaps more importantly, about speed. It
always leads to the same word - *awe* - when we are now in *awe* it is
in response to a physical experience. Man walking on the moon; the
Hubbell telescope; microscopic investigations into cell structures;
roller coaster rides; computer games; Imax cinema; flying at the speed
of sound - bigger, faster, the first. Our demands insist on constant
sensory satisfaction. Of course non of this has to do with the sublime
... or does it ?
>
>(Yet, then I thought, think of ‘Guernica.’
>How would the experience differ if five people viewed the painting, listed
>below:
>
>1. Some Spaniard who lived through the actual bombing of Guernica.
>2. Some person who lived through a bombing raid at a different time, elsewhere.
>3. Someone who did not live through any raid, but rather saw or read some news
>about the bombing of Guernica.
>4. Some person who did not live through any raid, but rather saw or read some
>news about the bombing of some other
>place besides Guernica, and finally
>5. A person who never heard of such a thing: Let’s propose, hypothetically,
>that this person lived on a ‘primitive’ island
>somewhere all his life.
>
This is an excellent exercise. It challenges how our experiences affect
our aesthetic judgement and poses the question as to whether or not an
emotional response can be obtained solely by means of a painting. The
success of which would be truly judged if the response of all five
people reacted the same way, which would be highly unlikely.
>Put these five people in front of the painting and their experiences differ
>from a little to a lot. I might add that for the
>fifth person, the experience of hearing something new and so (assuming)
>terrible may be an experience in itself.)
>
We would have to then assume that, if our studies of human nature are
accurate, these people will have had some form of experience that would
be equivalent and that they may react more emotionally than the others.
Perhaps ?
>Perhaps, Alison, we moderners (or postmoderners) will stop believing in the
>sublime... after all, it’s certainly not
>empirical and we can’t comprehend it. Throw out my above-mentioned metaphor
>if you wish, think of this one: the
>concept of the sublime is a rumble that we hear deep in the earth... did we
>hear it, or is it just our ears playing tricks on
>us? Is it what we think it is, or is it something else...? An earthquake,
>perhaps (lets not turn this into an allegory.)?
>
If anything which excites the idea of pain - danger in particular -
anything that can be viewed as *terrible* could be a source of the
sublime, in particular human catastrophe. When the danger or pain
becomes close it is unable to *delight* us, but from a safe distant it
does satisfy us - (delight being, according to Edmund Burke, the
sensation which accompanies the removal of pain or danger). Burke gave a
very good example of human need for satisfying this sensation. His
example was to have, in one arena, the most remarkable programme of
artistic genius and then in the arena next to it, an execution. Which do
you think would draw the biggest crowd ?
>Speaking of Guernica, the lady who cleans this house walked by, saw an old
>painting of mine and turned the vacuum
>off long enough to tell me that it looked very cubist. It more or less could be
>described as being vaguely so. This lady,
>whose name I cannot remember (even though she’s been here for months) then
>proceeded to tell me that cubism was
>‘egotistical.’ Certainly, we can say, Picasso had a big ego. He was a
>‘macho’, he always had a woman or two by his
>side, he was jealous.
>This lady told me she wrote a book during college about it, and that she
>preferred all of the art that looked like what it
>was. I showed her another of my paintings, a later one, which was, by my
>vulgarity, half ‘cubist in spirit’ (I am aware of
>how silly and crude that sounds) and half a real, to-life rendering of a
>woman’s face. Remarked this lady, ‘I half-like it.’
>She continued vacuuming.
>
I hope she vacuums in the corners ;-)
>Well, I should stop myself... I could write droves about semi-representational
>art being (or not being) egotistical or
>self-centered... Then I wonder if nameless realism is ultimate humility... then
>I wondered if this is in fact, a good
>thing...
Start a new thread ... folks are strange about entering into an ongoing
dialogue that has only a couple of people in it ... and of course, we
don't want to send Marilyn back to sleep do we ?
>I find it fascinating that you pour paint... Do you use buckets of, say, Galkyd
>resin to achieve that glassy transparency,
>or use something else? I imagine you use oil, I myself used acrylic for a bit,
>then I tried oil and immediately went out to
>buy oil paints. I enjoy those sticky, buttery, creamy daubs that you can play
>with, and make impastos with... Bliss with a
>hair brush. Acrylic is very limiting. The only thing it has going for it is
>that it dries quickly.
Yes, I mix up jars of oil and Galkyd in different consistencies - the
fumes are incredible. Mostly the proportion of Galykd to oil paint is
10:1 (Galkyd:oil) and after that it is a mater of adding turps depending
on what sort of pour I want. With no turps I can get an almost straight
line from one side of the canvas to the other. By adding turps it
becomes more of a wash - more uncontrollable but gives textures that
look like the surface of the moon through a telescope. First I do
several glazes on the canvas making sure that some areas are much
thinner than others - giving it a pull/push effect, and then pour across
the glass like surface. Its as much like action painting as you can get
- the most exciting parts of the process occur as the paint mingles and
collides on the canvas. I keep threatening to video the process because
there are so many changes during the making of it - put it this way, you
don't go and answer the telephone during the making !
Happy painting.
--
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Alison A Raimes
writes
>Haber wrote:
>...Some usual Haber gas deleted.
Honestly John, you really have to do something about your bowel problems
..... I mean, if I am fat and flatulent (as Mani always calls me),
imagine the problems we will have if we ever go hot air ballooning over
London.
>
>The massive diarrhea about the "sublime " that passed through this
>thread is about as informative as last years racing sheet.
Ah ha ! that's how Mani spends his afternoons ... it certainly isn't in
the studio making art.
>
>Lets face it, after all the blow bags here name dropped their favorite
>philosopher etc. The "sublime etc." simply adds up to a very inflated
>way of saying "I like it."
>
You got it !
>But if the failures here left it that, they would be stuck with all
>that extra time to paint and not knowing what to do with it.
>
Durrrrrrrrrrrr ??????
mdeli
...Some usual Haber gas deleted.
>of times in history and, with the example of Constable, what it meant
>for art.
The massive diarrhea about the "sublime " that passed through this
thread is about as informative as last years racing sheet.
Lets face it, after all the blow bags here name dropped their favorite
philosopher etc. The "sublime etc." simply adds up to a very inflated
way of saying "I like it."
But if the failures here left it that, they would be stuck with all
that extra time to paint and not knowing what to do with it.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my web page, A Skeptical View of Modern Art and
my book, comments, work at:.
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
Larry Seiler
That is all I've gotten out of the few times I've peeked in upon this
thread.
For me, it begins with whether or not I should want my success as a painter
measured by the art "world"....unless one views the art world's opinion
simply a scratch upon the surface of time as of no consequence.
Art does serve many purposes and often at the same time. Done to benefit
the public...history...the cause of style and some inconsequential
ideology. Or simply...perhaps to appease the nature of the artist.
Also...one individual can evolve through these many varied stages where
one's reason is of prime importance at one stage of their life, and to
where they would oppose their own earlier ideals later in life.
While some argue endlessly about what art is...some simply have a passion
for the feel and smell of paint. Others are fascinated with color and the
effects of light.
If one's ego is in tact such that one is free to investigate, find and
yield to their own passions...one really could care less what the art world
thinks. One simply loves to paint.
Further more...one can eventually end up in life making discovers that
promise personal significance that does not have to pass inspection here.
Certainly such would not then be "personal" significance. I may enjoy the
company of a person for whom after describing others say does not exist.
Such opinions do not thereby make this person suddenly disappear.
That one does not adequately describe the sublime does not absolutely infer
the sublime does not exist. It may only mean that one's attempt to
describe is poor.
Experiencing the sublime for me paralyzes any need I had to be impressed by
mankind. It makes such need for that moment null and void.
While often the brundt of jokes as regards spirituality and man...those
that entertain and engage the spiritual life do arrive at new paradigms
which for them are experientially real and significant. Meeting others
with similarly held values finds a common ground whereby expressing certain
terms finds understanding.
For me...the sublime begins its grip on my heart when my spirit demands
that that which is viewed MUST be painted. Only that of the natural
environment..the outdoors, has for me this effect.
I never get this feeling of man made things or of mankind.
The challenge is the question of how successfully I can attempt to imitate
with paint, the fear/threat that I could fall miserably far from it.
Increasing my ability to capture an imitation...makes the factor of awe
that greater when certain special moments suddenly present a possible
impasse for my skill. It demands greater aesthetic attention. This sense
that by somehow paying attention...that Spirit behind that which is sublime
"may" reveal a secret. One's ability to see may be enlightened to see that
much more. It is a romancing with that which is transcendent...with that
which is Greater.
The end of the session leaves one speechless. It has become personal and
the experience cannot be explained to anyone. Somehow you wish you could
crack open your skull and the experience would appear like in a vapor to a
significant other whom would then know what you know. But, alas...it
remains locked inside.
You feel privileged to carry this great secret.
Should you be a spiritual person...believe in a Higher Being...part of you
is allowed to be birthed and grow to experience an emotional attachment
that suddenly makes your detachment from the world desireable.
peace,
Larry Seiler
artist's site- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
WetCanvas Artists page- (shorter and quicker loading)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.html
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
JPCeja
Well, I don't know if I should really be responding to this, but I will...
>Lets face it, after all the blow bags here name dropped their favorite
>philosopher etc. The "sublime etc." simply adds up to a very inflated
>way of saying "I like it."
Well, that's one way of putting it, and your opinion, like everyone's, is valid
(clearing my throat), but I think that you look upon this process (of
self-definition) with too much detachment. When you look and see a bookshelf
filled to capacity with hundreds of Haydn symphonies, you may be astounded and
shocked that a man could write as much, especially when you take one of those
books and flip through all those notes. But, if you were Haydn himself, or one
of Haydn's long-time assistants, being close and inside to the production would
make such a bookshelf understandable and no big news. When you step back and
give a detached double take (as you are and do, Mani) is when you can easily
look upon something with wide eyes, in this case, wide eyes of outrage and
offense.
Beyond "I like it", there's more. Behind "I don't like it", there's more. Let
me see if I can put this correctly... It almost seems, I have concluded
(however tentatively) that the concept of the sublime is at its most tangible
when you experience something (through sight, sound, etc.) that (some say)
slightly
scares you, vaguely intrigues you, perhaps intimidates you, but, most of all,
reminds you that there is a universe on top of you.
>But if the failures here left it that, they would be stuck with all
>that extra time to paint and not knowing what to do with it.
I have not been around long enough to fail too much. You?
(s'it maunh ntuare to ytr ot gureif hgntis tuo.)
Pablo Secca
Hegel!
(there, I name-dropped)
Alison A Raimes
man is incapable of experiencing the sublime in today's society in my
research paper. It illustrates it well.
Regards
Alison.
In article <01bf2ea1$1f8845a0$ab68...@lseiler.execpc.com>, Larry Seiler
<lse...@ez-net.com> writes
Alison A Raimes
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>(s'it maunh ntuare to ytr ot gureif hgntis tuo.)
>
>
>Pablo Secca
>
>
> Hegel!
>
>
>(there, I name-dropped)
The man speaks Scottish too !
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Erik A. Mattila
Alison A Raimes wrote:
> Thanks for that, Larry. I am going to use this to demonstrate how that
> man is incapable of experiencing the sublime in today's society in my
> research paper. It illustrates it well.
>
> Regards
>
> Alison.
How does that work, Alison? I find that hard to accept - but then I don't know
what your argument is. I suppose it would boil down to how one defines "the
sublime." Larry's post is thoughtful and interesting (as usual) but in my
opinion he oversteps some boundaries -- that is 'the discourse' on the subime
that as it exists in historical documents. And that is not to say that
personalizing the idea has no merit or meaning, of course.
I lived once in Trinidad, California (just north of Eureka) and could see the
little harbour from my living room window. A furious storm had swept in from
the Alutians which was kicking up forty footers. I watched Pilot Rock, which
sticks up out of the ocean 60 or 70 feet, totally engulfed by the 'ninth wave'
two or three time. Very awsome - it raised my cackles. To add to the drama,
the offshore wind was knocking 50 foot rooster tails off the top of the combers
as they came crashing on to the beach. I watched three crab boats go down
which were supposed to be protected on the landward side ot Trinidad Head. And
the weather outside was perfectly miserable, cold and wet, yet soon cars began
to clog up the street as hundreds of people from Eureka, McKinlyville, Elk
Creek, Blue Lake arrived to witness the fury of nature. You know, it was
absolutely thrilling. This is why your idea puzzles me. I'm wondering, for
example, if the opposite is true, i.e. our capacity to experience the sublime
causes the parking problems on the Grand Canyon's south rim every year.
Have you looked at Etienne-Louis Boullee in the context of your inquiry? (b.
Paris, France 1728; d. Paris 1799) I think Boulee conceived architectual space
in accord with the theoretical discourse of the sublime, and his designs were
intended to evoke that quality of incomprehension which would qualify as
'sublime.' A few problematics arise, however. One is that 'the sublime' may
be posited outside of nature, or independant nature, since architectual space
can evoke the same response as the grand panorama. Secondly, there seems to me
to be a remarkable affinity between Boulee's archetectural fantasies and
Nuremburg Stadium - or at least Albert Spiers owed some homage not only to the
Romans, but also to Le Boulee and the discourse on the sublime in order to
achieve the quality of intimidation intended in fascist architecture. Third,
since if you accept Le Boullee as a Subliminist (?) then what is the common
demoninator, in terms of human experience, between Victoria Falls and
Neuremberg Stadilum. The only thing I can come up with is 'scale.' More
appropriately scale as measured by the human standard. (I read somewhere,
sometime, that the size of the human was exactly in the middle of the biggest
big and the smallest small of the objects of the universe. Ha ha ha. How
homocentric and valorizing) But scale seems rather simple - certainly not
worthy of a greate cultural discourse as 'The Sublime.' But actually, on
closer look, it may be quite important. I think our senses and experience
provide us with a sense of scale, and this sense has its limits. When you go
beyond these limits you enter the realm of incomprehesion. Think of all those
comparisons we use. The amount of material removed in the Culebra Cut in
Panama would make 250,000 piles of dirt the size of the Empire State Building.
Well, early anthropologists theorized that primitives counted like this: One,
two, three, four and many. A more earthy example is a man I knew who crushed
his hand at work while setting a 20 ton steel tank in place at an oil
refinery. Tradesmen develop a sense of scale on a very intimate level, given
experience. You can learn to flop around 20' twobyfours effortlessly once you
get on top of harmonics, and the weight of tools and materials become so
familiar that a reliable analog map can set in your mind which allows you to
understand exactly these objects will behave. But when you transgress the
limit of understanding scale, you are in the unknown land. In my example the
crane was gently swing the tank into position. A guide rope was on one end of
the tank, which would respond to the slightest tug and swing the nose of the
tank this way or that. As it came close to home, my friend had his hand on the
side of the tank, near a steel girder. Mind you - everything is in slow motion
(modern cranes can move weight smoothly with incredible precision). The tank
came to the girder, with his hand between, and the inertia of the heavy tank
was so great that it wouldn't stop until all the bones in his hand were ground
up into tiny splinters. It is impossible to understand weights like this on a
gut level, I think, since they are so far out of range of our human scale.
I can see your argument in terms of the many interfaces we impose between
outselves and the perception of the sublime, however. But then the counter
argument would be that it is no longer about experience itself, but rather
about the new forms of representations of the world which we get drawn into in
our day to day existence. Like the Hubble Telescope that you've mentioned. I
think the pictures of the great gas column out there, somewhere, are awesome.
I've spent hours contemplating the scale of these photos. But on the other
hand, they are representations - I mean the product of the telescope. Here's
what really got me one time. I was reading Battaille's "Tears of Eros" and at
the end of the book he had a series of photos of the infamous Chinese execution
"The Death of Ten Thousand Cuts." The convict is pumped full of opium, then
tied to a stake and some medical experts begin to take his body apart, piece by
piece, without killing him. Seeing these images horrified me, and I threw the
book down on the coffee table, and it sat there for a month or so. Everytime I
saw it I felt that urge once again look, but I wouldn't allow myself to do so.
I began to get obsessed with the question why I wouldn't look, and then I
became amazed because I was thinking, well, how can a person react like this to
what was actually just tiny spots of black ink on paper, organized into the
form of a representation which made the claim of historical veracity. I never
did look, by the way, and it's been ten years now. I wonder if I ever will?
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>
>How does that work, Alison? I find that hard to accept - but then I don't know
>what your argument is. I suppose it would boil down to how one defines "the
>sublime." Larry's post is thoughtful and interesting (as usual) but in my
>opinion he oversteps some boundaries -- that is 'the discourse' on the subime
>that as it exists in historical documents. And that is not to say that
>personalizing the idea has no merit or meaning, of course.
In reply to why I think Larry's post on what he perceives as the sublime
illustrates what is *not*, in my opinion, the *sublime* - incidentally I
am not attacking Larry personally in any way, but using his post as part
of the ongoing dialogue.
My argument boils down to the misuses of the word *sublime* - I am
trying to investigate how this has affected our sensibilities in
relation to attempting to render the *sublime* experience, something
that I do not believe is possible. And of course, yes, I am trying to
place it in its historical context in relation to how the word has come
to mean something different to its original grounding. In fact my entire
argument is that we cannot describe, and we certainly cannot render, the
sublime.
Personal experiences like Larry's are important in showing what is not,
in the truest sense of the word, sublime. He starts by saying that the
only thing he gets out of this thread is that experiences can be
interpreted by individuals differently. In light of the discussion and
in terms of my research I intend to show that the experience is the same
in all humans, in the way that pleasure and pain are universally
accepted terms.
Larry spends a couple of paragraphs discussing the success, purpose,
role of the artists and of course, throws in the obligatory mention ego
.... which according to most people on raf is exclusive to artists
(chortles from the philosophy groups) ! In doing so he illustrates how
man is bent on trying to rationalise a phenomena that cannot be
explained. Larry identifies his sublime as *nature* and the landscape -
that some transcendental experience from immortalising and worshipping
that which is not manmade and allows him to have a sublime experience.
He says: *For me ..... the sublime begins its grip on my heart when my
spirit demands that which is viewed MUST be painted*.
I have to ask: Why MUST it be painted ? HOW can it be painted - HOW can
you take an experience that belongs to the inexplicable and make it into
manmade. What happens when you do that ? For me, this whole idea is
hypocrisy when viewed in this context and this is where Kant would have
blown a fuse ! There is, however, nothing unusual in Larry's reply - in
fact I would say it is a typical response.
The idea that man wants a secret to be revealed is why the sublime
experience is impossible - its absurd. Man is unable to accept the idea
because he cannot rationalise it. The only reason that man wants to
*rationalise* such an idea is for his own comfort - the feeling that
there is a celestial light somewhere we can spend eternity in. In order
to achieve this sense of comfort he has to create an experience that
points to an understanding of our future - what Larry calls *romancing
with that which is transcendental*. In that word he identifies how the
sublime became - man insists on romancing an idea and in the process it
becomes a non-experience.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Larry Seiler
Interesting comments....
I'll simply reply on one area you touched...
<snip>
Larry identifies his sublime as *nature* and the landscape -
that some transcendental experience from immortalising and worshipping
that which is not manmade and allows him to have a sublime experience.
He says: *For me ..... the sublime begins its grip on my heart when my
spirit demands that which is viewed MUST be painted*.
I have to ask: Why MUST it be painted ? HOW can it be painted - HOW can
you take an experience that belongs to the inexplicable and make it into
manmade. What happens when you do that ?
<snip>
For one...I believe one can know that which is revealed by the
Inexplicable...that is, that which the Inexplicable desires to reveal. I
believe that the Inexplicable is a Being that can only be known to the
extent that that Being makes Himself known, to that extent one is open to
have such known to them.
The act of painting...is like me at 45 years of age playing in a big sand
box. It is play time. Like the memories of a parent lovingly watching on,
I sense the "Inexplicable" bidding me, "come...and I will show you great
and mighty things".... A time of One on one.
It is like a dance of love. It is a bidding to celebrate life. To
remember the momentariness of this life, see things in perspective such
that which modernity and living calls priority resulting in stress is seen
from another vantage point. A bigger picture.
When a scene says to my heart that it must be painted....it brings a
promise of great fun about to be experienced. The possibilities of coming
to understand something new about the effects of light...and that as if a
secret shared by that the "Inexplicable". A recalling that all these
things are as a gift revealing the depth of love of this "Inexplicable."
The sublime is a call that mysteries may be revealed, and something
understood of the magnitude of the glories of this "Inexplicable". It is
not a worship of nature....but a meeting of minds of one seeker/artist with
a Master Inexplicable Artist.
It is as though I were obsessed with the works of one particular artist,
and whenever I saw one such work of his/hers...I suddently had to grab a
panel and respond to its effect upon me. To understand the mysteries of
that which is marvelous...wonderful; those things that combine to make this
particular work beautiful. Furthermore...it is as though at some
particular point...the Masterful artist is discovered to be peering over my
shoulder pleased to see my interest in his work...curious to see if you
have any notion of those elements that composed his work....and that moment
where you hope the Artist is pleased with the work's development.
A number of things are happening- 1) the challenge to me as an artist, as
to whether or not I can discover and produce that aesthetically which is
appealing to my eye. Thus a certain amount of risk...success pitted
against the potential of failure. 2) a sense of something "bigger" than
myself...encountered in a prolonged still and quiet place. 3)
contemplation....a process of separation of that which modernity would seek
to seduce me versus gaining freedom over one's prurience and inclination to
distraction. A chance to come to know oneself...and one's purpose.
There is this awesome transcendent Inexplicable that bids me come and play.
Let us celebrate life. It comes as you say not by those things
manmade...but not so as to worship them as so much to withdraw from that
manmade, a place where the works of the Inexplicable have yet to show
themselves spoiled by man.
It is not so much taking the Inexplicable and making it manmade. The
painting is a reminder of an experience...it may capture some remnant of
the moment...a moment bigger than I. It is a response TO the Inexplicable
and evidence of His glory and beauty.
That someone else might be able in looking at my work...sense something of
that same bid to "come".....some small smidgeon of beauty perhaps touches
in them the remembrance of "the dance." Our connection is in recognition
of that larger than ourselves...the author for whom we both have been
affected.
That this experience is so awesome is evidenced by the difficulty even to
describe this.
Nature alone would not account for this for me. The beauty in the person
of nature's Creator reveals itself....and the more splendid the array, the
more taking of breath in the scene...the more the moment promises to
reveal. The passion...the discipline, the pursuit. An answer to the call
to come. Play...dance. Enjoy.
I simply don't hear the call to come...to play, to dance where I see that
which mankind has made ugly. Instead...I see need. As an artist, I can
respond and create according to man's condition....but, it is as though I
am in control and a servant. A duty.
I am not required when responding to the sublime to paint for the benefit
of serving man...but rather to come and enjoy. To be refreshed. To
celebrate. The potential scene has to promise some sense that my duty to
man for the moment can be set aside....and that a time of refreshing and
joy, a potential to receive whispers and secrets from the Inexplicable.
That I sell such works later is a sharing of the joy I have experienced,
but brings satisfaction as such only if it touches a resounding similarity
that others experience. That they stand in front of the painting and
smile...stop for a moment; close their eyes and imagine themselves being
there, means they understand something of the need to be refreshed by this
great Inexplicable's presence. Touching something of the sublime.
peace...
Larry
Alison A Raimes
<lse...@ez-net.com> writes
>Hi Alison...
>
>Interesting comments....
>
>I'll simply reply on one area you touched...
Thanks for you reply, Larry. I think we will have to agree to disagree
on what we interpret as the *sublime*. You have described to me the
affect of beauty and love of nature in relation to your art - in itself
a beautiful idea. Although there are some interesting assimilation's
between the feeling of beauty, love and indeed awe that can be
translated as part of the sublime experience, for me it is a moment
somewhere between terror and insignificance - and the awareness of it.
It is even a physical experience - the body's muscles tense - the
overwhelming feeling of the unknown mixed with the excitement of a
physical experience - such as Erik describes. I fail to see how this can
be made into a visual experience other than in the mind. If you take the
wonder and excitement and even fear of the unknown and rationalise it,
then the experience cannot exist - it is dependant on something beyond
our comprehension.
I imagine that God could be seen as a sublime experience before
Christianity introduced the idea of the *love of God*. Prior to that no
such feeling existed - we were subservient to the idea of a greater
power and aware of our insignificance. Now we believe that we are able
to rationalise this feeling - and thus the feeling is diminished. The
idea of the love of God may well be the moment when the sublime in
religious thought ceased to exist.
Nikolaus Maack
[sublime baloney]
As I am sure you are aware, in the modern art world it's more
important to have a clever explanation as to why your art is
significant, than to have good art. This is because no one can tell
what is good art anymore. Every rule has been bent, battered, and
broken.
For this reason, it is essential for artists to spend a great deal of
time learning to bullshit their way through life. Should one fail to
learn how to bullshit, one cannot possibly succeed. Therefore it's
important for artists to practice the art of bullshitting in this
excellent newsgroup. We need to refine our sales skills.
Asking the masses to ignore bullshit, and rely on things like taste
and intuition is -- for most -- simply unacceptable. How am I
supposed to make sure that my personal tastes reflect the same tastes
of my very rich and socially powerful neighbor? I must appear to act
in concert with his voice, otherwise I will be shunned and mocked. If
he is collecting abstracts, and I'm collecting landscapes, it creates
a certain amount of anarchy and discomfort. If I wish to be "like
him", and therefore, respected, I must follow his lead. Therefore,
taste and intuition must be discarded.
My neighbor, of course, is following the lead of someone else. Quite
possibly, his lead comes from some art gallery owner with a great
number of abstract paintings they'd like to be rid of. The art
gallery owner pours bullshit into my neighbor's ear, my neighbor buys
art based on this bullshit, and I emulate my neighbor's bullshit.
Thus an art movement is born.
The difficulty lies in the fact that -- due to the overflowing amount
of bullshit in the world -- it is nearly impossible to tell genuine
intuition and taste from a sales pitch. When the gallery owner says
to you that this canvas, painted entirely red, is a significant piece
of work, are they lying? Perhaps they genuinely believe it. Maybe
the owner adores this piece. Or maybe the owner wants to earn enough
money to pay for a cottage in Maine.
The way around all bullshit is to trust your own intuinition and
taste. Look at the red canvas and see if it does anything for you.
If it doesn't, walk away. Magically, the entire issue is resolved.
If your socially powerful neighbor says you should be collecting
abstracts, and you don't like abstracts, politely tell your neighbor
to go and fuck himself.
What's amusing is that many people who have studied art in a "serious"
way, insist that one must be taught to appreciate certain kinds of art
work. If you don't appreciate the red canvas, for example, it's the
art student's opinion that the painting has failed to communicate with
you -- not because the work is shit -- but because you are an
uneducated moron.
What's funny is that a member of a religious cult would argue that the
reason the beliefs of their church -- please cut off your genitals at
the door -- seem ridiculous is not because they are ridiculous, but
because you are unenlightened. Spend a week in the temple being
indoctrinated, and all will become clear. Your bank account will also
empty, but such are the risks of pursuing enlightenment.
And herein lies the difficulty. If you want to be an artist, and to
buy art, and to enjoy art, trust your own intuition and taste. If you
want to be a modern art cult member, learn to enjoy the sound of
bullshit, and cut your genitals off at the door.
Nik
---
PSST! Wanna buy a postcard?
Original hand painted art, for cheap. See:
The Nik Maack Art Gallery
http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~mrtribe
Ponderable
>buy art, and to enjoy art, trust your own intuition and taste. If you
>want to be a modern art cult member, learn to enjoy the sound of
>bullshit, and cut your genitals off at the door.
>Nik
Enjoyed your post.
Ever read "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand? You'd really like it.
Ironically, as I hear it, Ayn was something of a cult leader.
Tim Folzenlogen
Nikolaus Maack
>Ever read "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand? You'd really like it.
My life is very strange sometimes. I think you're the third person
who has recommended I read this book.
Meanwhile, I have other friends who, at the very mentioning of Ayn
Rand's name, lose their minds, and start jumping up and down,
screaming about what a psychotic bitch she is, how she is responsible
for the plague, for moon men raping our children, and for pinball
machines that TILT if you so much as breathe on them.
>Ironically, as I hear it, Ayn was something of a cult leader.
One friend of mine goes so far as to talk about the "Randroids" on the
internet, who have seemingly been programmed by evil Ayn Rand novels.
I don't know what to think. I picked up one of her books, read the
first sentence, yawned, and put it back. Maybe I was in a bad mood
that day. Dunno. I should try again.
Ponderable
>Nik
Really. You should. You'd like that book. You could definitly identify with it.
And it's okay to admire an author, or even a cult leader. Everyone has pluses.
It only gets weird when people put them above themselves.
Tim
mdeli
this thread is about as informative as last years racing sheet.
Its the sort of baloney that art teachers encourage students to
discuss while failing to teach them the craft they do not know.
Lets face it, after all the blow bags here name dropped their favorite
philosophers and went off their usual convoluted ramble etc., the
"sublime etc." simply adds up to a way of saying "I like it, I feel
awe."
But if the failures here left it that, they would be stuck with not
knowing what to do with all that extra time to paint.
Larry Seiler
> on what we interpret as the *sublime*.
well...it certainly is interesting to see different ideas on the subject.
For that I have no regret in the dialog.
OF course...interpretation will vary upon experience, ideological
differences, etc; For one...your description of the tension connected with
terror was for me the first I had heard to be connected with "sublime." I
have no foundation of anything remote that helps me make that connection,
and agreeing to disagree seems appropriate.
I have read books written by a number of artists having similar ideological
ethical viewpoints as myself, and attend a summer festival annually with
about 150 bands, a major art show etc., which include numerous seminar
speakers....again all looking pretty much through the same colored glasses.
I offer this only to perhaps explain why I've not heard of other uses of
"the sublime" as some mention here. I don't have a dictionary in front of
me, but I'm certainly curious now because of our conversations to try and
understand more of what the word means to others, and why. Take care...
Larry
Larry Seiler
> discuss while failing to teach them the craft they do not know.
> Lets face it, after all the blow bags here
<snip>
Hhmmm...well Mani...seeing that I'm of that camp, and also an art
teacher...please give me an indepth critique of my work, and how it fails
in the "craft". I will be very VERY interested in having you give me a
lesson that might help me improve. I want to improve. I hope my next
painting will be my best. That has always been my desire.
You might begin with the five pieces on Wetcanvas which will take less of
your time downloading.
Thanks in advance for what it will mean to my future development. Perhaps
you might direct me to several of your paintings to provide example that
will increase my understanding in how better to advance my craftmanship.
Larry
Erik A. Mattila
terrific web pages up on the subject of "The Sublime" under "The Victorian
Web" section -- here:
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/sublime/sublimeov.html
It's quite annotated, but it gives you a very comprehensive overview of this
very formal aesthetic theory, including pages on Burke, Wordsworth and
Turner. It also briefly defines that aspect of the discourse which addresses
the sense of terror one might draw from nature. But because it was a formal
inquiry, it is rule-bound, and the trouble that I'm seeing in this discussion
is our attempts to make 'the sublime' mean whatever we want it to mean.
Personally, I think it's quite culture bound, additionally. I mean a
community living day to day in the spray of Victoria Falls may not be quite as
awestruck by it's splendor as a tourist. But that was one of the problems
with the Victorians, they were so impressed by their own personage they
imagined every one in the world must be naturally striving towards that high
station of being. So nature, as it was conceived, was terrifying (or could
be). Good material for the psychoanalyst's couch.
But come on, you're a mountain man. Surely you must have encountered people
visiting Montana who feel insecure, even frightened, of the openess there.
Since I've always enjoyed those places few travel to, just for the solitude
and absence of human artifact, I've recommended visiting some of these
pristine areas to others who refused to go because there was no traffic
there. "What happens if you have a auto problem, what will you do?"
Subsequently a trip to nature is a trip to a place like Yosemite, which is
actually a city of 60,000 people at any given time. (Yellowstone?). A whole
lot of people feel very insecure being alone.
Erik
Larry Seiler
--
Erik...
Hahaha.....if you mean lacking the spine to argue for argument's sake as
an easy way out? Nah...I see no real merit in it. I do sense that there
must be varying positions on it based to some degree upon experience which
would be like people speaking different languages arguing though they not
understand each other.
It's possible that the artists I associate with despite our various
attendances to our many festivals simply are not familiar or concerned with
this other use of the term. That our unfamiliarity exists intrigues me.
Perhaps we have borrowed the term to describe our experience making art in
the presence of the transcendent.
>Brown University has some
> terrific web pages up on the subject of "The Sublime" under "The
Victorian
> Web" section -- here:
>
> http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/sublime/sublimeov.html
very cool...I definitely will spend some time there, and perhaps will
better understand the conversation here.
> It's quite annotated, but it gives you a very comprehensive overview of
this
> very formal aesthetic theory, including pages on Burke, Wordsworth and
> Turner. It also briefly defines that aspect of the discourse which
addresses
> the sense of terror one might draw from nature.
"Terror?" I'm curious...(sure I'll visit the site), but in that sense is
it referring to where one feels small, perhaps even insignificant? I think
why I'm struggling in that sense to understand its use to define the
sublime is that among those I have associated with for the past 25 years
believe we have a relationship and identity with the Transcendent Author of
that which made the grandeur scene that brings that sense of feeling small.
As such, our feelings are not of terror....awe yes, but not terror. A
demonstration of power. Beauty.....and certainly highlights instead a
sense of our significance.
I can definitely understand where secular ideologies not prepared to accept
the possibility of such where feeling so small and insignificant can lead
to a sense of terror in the presence of the sublime. I'm not trying to
bait or lead up to a spiritual/theological discussion. Simply trying to
account for the differences as we look at the word "sublime."
> is our attempts to make 'the sublime' mean whatever we want it to mean.
I can definitely see what you are saying...
Hey...I gotta run and cut short. But will return to read the remainder.
Peace,
Larry
Nikolaus Maack
>No, if someone wants bullshit why not provide it for him? You should
>realize that people prefer bullshit. Why not capitalize on the fact?
Morals. Ethics. Being a good human being. A sense of decency. A
sense of right and wrong. The desire not to rip off other people.
The desire to make good art appreciated and bad art ignored. A
respect for real art.
A turd hanging on the wall means a lack of space for something of real
significance.
>Perhaps the Emperor's tailors took their paycheck elsewhere and made
>some good clothes.
I doubt it. Once you start making see-through clothing, it's hard to
go back to the pins and needles of the real thing.
Alison A Raimes
<lse...@ez-net.com> writes
>I offer this only to perhaps explain why I've not heard of other uses of
>"the sublime" as some mention here. I don't have a dictionary in front of
>me, but I'm certainly curious now because of our conversations to try and
>understand more of what the word means to others, and why. Take care...
Larry: if you return to my original post on the subject you will find I
was always investigating the Kantian sublime and I have always made that
very clear. If you are interested in what I am writing about then you
would have to read Edmund Burke's essay on the sublime and beautiful.
I really do have to sign off now and leave you all to it.
Have fun !
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Larry Seiler
Yah...that is the problem with threads, etc., too easy to jump in and
assume one has enough sense of the subject where the conversation is at to
put two cents in. I apologize for that. That is not to say though, and
perhaps goes without saying that a philosophical perspective includes often
many opposing views, and it behooves all of us to determine what makes the
most sense.
Take care...
Larry
Ponderable
>teacher...please give me an indepth critique of my work, and how it fails
>in the "craft". I will be very VERY interested in having you give me a
>lesson that might help me improve. I want to improve. I hope my next
>painting will be my best. That has always been my desire.
Can more than Mani play this game?
Your Wetcanvas site wouldn't open for me, so I went back to the other one. Last
time I was there, the only painting in the gallery was "Brian's Walleye"? (I
think, from memory). Today it was "Snowy Creek Grouse" (or something like
that).
In the interest of improving your work, my suggestion would be that you move
beyond local color. Like, for instance, as I recall Brian's trousers were blue.
Completely blue. Light and dark were illustrated by light and dark shades of
blue.
But if you look at it in a different way, even blue trousers give off lots of
yellows, greens and reds. If you incorporate the other colors, which are
actually there, the final product would be infinitely more rich and complex.
I'd also pay closer attention to your edges. There are no clean edges in
nature. Wherever two colors or two plains meet, there will be a third color or
vibration. Not acknowledging that will also flatten the work, as if you cut out
the bird (or whatever) from a different page and glued it on the background.
Life aint like that.
Sticking to local color and sharp edges flattens out your work and makes it
look more like illustrations than paintings.
Tim Folzenlogen
Lauri Levanto
My dictionary - an awful one, but the only in hands -
translates sublime as noble-minded elevated. Close to
a religious or panteistic feeling a nature painter
like larry must feel in front of the subject.
I do understand if the HeavyMetal generation
is not capable of *any feelings* in the absence
of extreme physical stimuli -pain,sex, fear, dope.
Is this, however, the only relevant aspect of the sublime?
It is an interesting one in the context of much of
recent art, however. At the same time this narrow
interpretation - both the modern and the Victorian romantic -
seems to exclude f.ex minimalism.
Alison gave a vivid description of her strong experience at
Lucio Fontana exhibition. Was that a sublime experience
in her meaning of the term?
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila wrote:
<snip>
> Take the easy way out, Larry, if you're interested. Brown University has some
> terrific web pages up on the subject of "The Sublime" under "The Victorian
> Web" section -- here:
>
> http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/sublime/sublimeov.html
<big snip>
So nature, as it was conceived, was terrifying (or could
> be). Good material for the psychoanalyst's couch.
>
> Erik
>
> Larry Seiler wrote:
>
> > > Thanks for you reply, Larry. I think we will have to agree to disagree
> > > on what we interpret as the *sublime*.
> >
> > well...it certainly is interesting to see different ideas on the subject.
> > For that I have no regret in the dialog.
> >
<snip again>
> > Larry
Alison A Raimes
<lauri....@nokia.com> writes
>Alison gave a vivid description of her strong experience at
>Lucio Fontana exhibition. Was that a sublime experience
>in her meaning of the term?
>
>- lauri
No.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Larry Seiler
thanks Tim for the suggestions.
Not sure why things aren't opening for you. Do you have an older system?
The WetCanvas site is not mine, but my page on their larger host site.
I just tried it...and indeed it opened. Unfortunate its not working for
you. Sorry...
Also...my web site brings up a random image of mine each time visited on
the home page. I have about 40 images on the site in total. There is a
gallery page accessed on the left side of the home page which brings up a
java applelet, but perhaps your system doesn't support that.
For the last three years I've been painting oil landscapes on location
referred to as "plein airs". I'm eventually having my site reconstructed
to take out the illustrations portfolio, consolidate the wildlife and
nature images together, and have a separate plein air section.
I paint with an El Greco easel...and painting directly from life
spontaneously opens up this color and edges as you refer to. I've been
very happy with progress in that direction. In fact...I've been painting
about 60-70% of the oils with a palette knife, finishing with smaller
brushes to suggest detail.
I would supply scanned in attached jpegs for anyone interested in asking!
Can you open such from email Tim? take care....
Larry Seiler
artist's site- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
WetCanvas Artists page- (shorter and quicker loading)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.html
Larry Seiler
> In the interest of improving your work, my suggestion would be that you
move
> beyond local color. Like, for instance, as I recall Brian's trousers were
blue.
> Completely blue. Light and dark were illustrated by light and dark shades
of
> blue.
Hhhmmm...unfortunately the colors must not have transferred, because I use
plenty of opposite colors and warm and cold color temperatures to create
with. Just as I use reflecting surrounding color to bounce off of moist
areas such as flesh on the face, etc;
Just must not have come through. Good suggestions though!
I really don't just use light or dark values of a single color, I
constantly intermix warm and cool variations, complements, etc;
peace,
Larry
Ponderable
>>I would supply scanned in attached jpegs for anyone interested in asking!
>>Can you open such from email Tim? take care....
If my December show does well, I'll be getting a new computer.
Right now, it's about 50/50 that I can get a page to open, and only rarely do
the buttons on the page work. I don't have a lot of luck with files attached
to email. Even written files. If I get them opened at all, they usually look
like they are written in Greek.
Tim
Nikolaus Maack
>Morals have to do with harming people. Giving them what they want in
>this case is harmless and it makes them happy. Its not ripping anyone
>off.
If I made some "abstract" art that took me five minutes and didn't
feel right or meaningful to me, I'd feel like I was ripping myself
off. And if I'm ripping myself off when I make the art, then I'm also
ripping off the person I'm selling the art too.
But that's me. If someone else wants to make something abstract for a
buyer, because that's what the buyer wants, I have no problem with it.
The strange thing is, I only feel that way about paintings. When it
comes to my writing, I stoop to feed others what they desire all the
time. While I aspire to write Great Things, I have written porn of
various sorts. It pays well. I've also written button slogans for a
couple of companies. Is this degrading my talents? I don't think so,
but others might see it that way.
"How can you prostitute yourself like that?"
"By writing a wank piece. It was fun."
Nik
---
Postcard-sized portraits -- $20.
You find the face, I pick the paint. See:
mdeli
>As I am sure you are aware, in the modern art world it's more
>important to have a clever explanation as to why your art is
>significant, than to have good art.
Translation:If you have no skill at your craft you have to make it on
bullshit.
>The way around all bullshit is to trust your own intuinition and
>taste. Look at the red canvas and see if it does anything for you.
>If it doesn't, walk away. Magically, the entire issue is resolved.
>If your socially powerful neighbor says you should be collecting
>abstracts, and you don't like abstracts, politely tell your neighbor
>to go and fuck himself.
No, if someone wants bullshit why not provide it for him? You should
realize that people prefer bullshit. Why not capitalize on the fact?
Indeed it usually pays to do fine artwork as the competition among the
bullshit sales force is fierce.
Perhaps the Emperor's tailors took their paycheck elsewhere and made
some good clothes.
>If you don't appreciate the red canvas, for example, it's the
>art student's opinion that the painting has failed to communicate with
>you -- not because the work is shit -- but because you are an
>uneducated moron.
The work isn't shit. Its crap. It takes skill to paint a piece of
shit.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page, and
Erik A. Mattila
Larry Seiler wrote:
> --
> > Take the easy way out, Larry, if you're interested.
>
> Erik...
> Hahaha.....if you mean lacking the spine to argue for argument's sake as
> an easy way out? Nah...I see no real merit in it. I do sense that there
> must be varying positions on it based to some degree upon experience which
> would be like people speaking different languages arguing though they not
> understand each other.
>
No, actually I mean't that it was easier to click on a URL than to get dressed
and go to a library or bookstore. What I'm finding is that the www is slowly
becoming more useful in terms of substantive information, but still far short
of a good library. I hope the trend continues, since there are no decent
libraries near where I live.
But what's wrong with argument? Isn't that what is suppose to happen in a
newsgroup?
Eirk
Erik A. Mattila
remembering the painting of his that really fascinated me. It was a landscape
portraying "Land's End," as I recall. Also, unlike much of the "Sublime" we are
used to seeing in works of art, there was no indication of a human presence to
establish scale. The viewpoint was from the top of a hill, looking down a
hogsback towards the rocks of Land's End in the distance at the top of the
painting. Although the slope from the viewpoint to the subject was not steep at
all, the viewer (me) did get a very exaggerated sense of vertigo -- falling into
the picture space. But since the ambient lighting of the painting was diffuse, as
on an overcast day, the problem of creating the believability of the picture space
would be hard to solve by modeling with values. So Turner modeled with hue and
chroma, rather than value. I would imagine that this is the only effective way to
represent diffuse light, come to think of it.
I agree with your assessment of Larry's work, but there is something to consider.
Wildlife art has an interesting pedigree if you look at it's art history (which
goes back to the Medieval era, at least in European painting). In Italian
painting, especially Venitian, you can identify the exact source of specific
representations of various animals in a Uccello, for example. Since Northern
Italy was ideologically tied to the old tradition of Chivalraic Code (do to the
local politics) artists had access to the old books of wildlife art (and I've
completely forgotten what these books ard called, but were favorites in the
collections of Italian nobles). These books were page after page of very
wonderful drawings of deer, rabbits, bears and what have, and often artists such
as Uccello traced the images and used them in their paintings (Clip Art, yes?).
Some of Uccello's animals can be traced back to the specific manuscript that he
copied them from. From that point, there was a departure of wildlife art from the
mainstream of painting, and it has subsequently manifested as a subspecies of art
in many historical periods, such as the 19th century Sporting Art, or the
bilogical illustrations of Audoban & Co. in the U.S.
The point is that within this tradition that quality of 'illustration' is a
desired feature, as it reflects the development of wildlife art as it's own
genre. And there's a great discourse among wildlife artists, collectors and
historians about antomical accuracy, whether the subject was copied, the degree of
study that was made by the artist etc. This is where I lost interest in this
genre myself, since to me 'duckicity' can be achieved with a smear of paint as
well as a heavily studied and rendered model. But the smear of paint would never
qualify as Wildlife art in the first place. In my view Wildlife art occupys some
sort of middle ground beteen 'painting' and 'scientific illustration.'
One the other hand Larry has said that he's moving on from wildlife art to
landscape painting. In this sense he might do well to consider some of the things
you have said.
Erik
Ponderable wrote:
> >Hhmmm...well Mani...seeing that I'm of that camp, and also an art
> >teacher...please give me an indepth critique of my work, and how it fails
> >in the "craft". I will be very VERY interested in having you give me a
> >lesson that might help me improve. I want to improve. I hope my next
> >painting will be my best. That has always been my desire.
>
> Can more than Mani play this game?
>
> Your Wetcanvas site wouldn't open for me, so I went back to the other one. Last
> time I was there, the only painting in the gallery was "Brian's Walleye"? (I
> think, from memory). Today it was "Snowy Creek Grouse" (or something like
> that).
>
> In the interest of improving your work, my suggestion would be that you move
> beyond local color. Like, for instance, as I recall Brian's trousers were blue.
> Completely blue. Light and dark were illustrated by light and dark shades of
> blue.
>
Erik A. Mattila
software.
Are you considering an iMac? It's a terrific deal, all things considered --
especially if you'd rather be painting than trying to make your computer work.
Uh Oh, do I hear the Windoz community rumbling?
Erik
Ponderable
>Wildlife art has an interesting pedigree if you look at it's art history
Yo Erik. You being an intellectual and all, I have a question.
I've been told that there is no posessive form of the word "it" or that, in any
case, you would spell it as "its" and that "it's" is only used as an
abreviation for "it is".
If you read my little book, I used "it's" as posessive once or twice.
Tell me you are not wrong Erik and that I was right.
Make my day.
>In my view Wildlife art occupys some
>sort of middle ground beteen 'painting' and 'scientific illustration.'
Some times someone says something that you think but never thought of in words.
Yeah. This is true. I see Larry's paintings, and many paintings of that nature,
as a separate category.
Perhaps you would indeed see such kind of paintings in a museum in Denver or
something, but you'd never see them in a contemporary exhibition at MOMA, The
Whitney or The Met.
Audoban yes, but then only as historical artifacts, and even so I think you
might find more of them in The Natural History Museum.
Tim Folzenlogen
Larry Seiler
--
Larry Seiler
artist's site- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
WetCanvas Artists page- (shorter and quicker loading)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.html
ACT ministry home page-
http://netministries.org/see/charmin.exe/CM00117
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
Erik A. Mattila <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote in article
<383B2A36...@tomatoweb.com>...
> No, actually I mean't that it was easier to click on a URL than to get
dressed
> and go to a library or bookstore.
yup...
> But what's wrong with argument? Isn't that what is suppose to happen in
a
> newsgroup?
well...as leads to communication, advancement of understanding, yes. But
these do not necessarily require or lead to feed the ego. When the purpose
of arguing is simply to feed the ego...then what's the point other than
doing each other a disservice?
Larry
Erik A. Mattila
Ponderable wrote:
> >Wildlife art has an interesting pedigree if you look at it's art history
>
> Yo Erik. You being an intellectual and all, I have a question.
>
> I've been told that there is no posessive form of the word "it" or that, in any
> case, you would spell it as "its" and that "it's" is only used as an
> abreviation for "it is".
>
> If you read my little book, I used "it's" as posessive once or twice.
>
> Tell me you are not wrong Erik and that I was right.
>
> Make my day.
Is that a 'heads I win, tails you lose' proposition? Mine was a typo, it should
be "its'" but you may be right, that too may be incorrect. But "it's" is "it is"
so were both wrong on that score. I hope I've made at least half you're day.
Also, I have a sneaking suspsicion that I've mispelled "Audoban." It just doesn't
look right. ("correct"? We all know that a word can't look, right or otherwise.)
> >In my view Wildlife art occupys some
> >sort of middle ground beteen 'painting' and 'scientific illustration.'
>
> Some times someone says something that you think but never thought of in words.
>
> Yeah. This is true. I see Larry's paintings, and many paintings of that nature,
> as a separate category.
>
> Perhaps you would indeed see such kind of paintings in a museum in Denver or
> something, but you'd never see them in a contemporary exhibition at MOMA, The
> Whitney or The Met.
>
> Audoban yes, but then only as historical artifacts, and even so I think you
> might find more of them in The Natural History Museum.
I have an acquaintance who is a marine painter, Hans Skaalgarde. He actually set
out to sea as a young man from Norway, on a square rigger. He's been very
successful, some of his paintings selling for 60 grand or so. But is is a very
specialized market. He and his wife had a gallery in Carmel for a number of
years, and their clientele was carefully cultivated from the military Brass at
Fort Ord, for the most part. But then the base was shut down by the Feds, and he
really suffered a set-back. That combination of time and circumstances simply
vanished, and he's kind of 'out on a limb' and not doing that great now. So it
turns out that sailors had to remember the name and location of every line on the
ship as part of their apprenticeship, and they could do their work by feel in the
pitch black night. Hans always like to brag about this, and the fact that such
training is the only way that a painter can accurately render the rigging of a
clipper ship.
Erik
>
>
> Tim Folzenlogen
>
>
Larry Seiler
to
> landscape painting. In this sense he might do well to consider some of
the things
> you have said.
>
> Erik
Well...my method with wildlife was more as a tonalist. In that sense,
critiquing work sometimes must take some direction of focus or intent of
the artist in mind to see if the aims of that style were realized.
Tonalists of course are more concerned with values...but even there...I
used more color than most tonalists, reflecting blue of sky on the back of
fur...etc;
My landscapes are more concerned with that of light and color, yet not a
total abandonment of value, as well as seeking to master the suggestion of
detail with brush and knife.
My wildlife images often involved 200-300 hours of work, and in-studio.
My on-location plein air oils are done quickly to capture the effects of
the light. They go more for the jugular, using intensity of color..bold
brushwork, depending upon the viewer's eye to sense detail, etc., paintings
in what are completed on average less than 2-3 hours, but the spirit of it
captured in about 20 minutes.
I have been doing these for about three years now, but only have scanned-in
images to attach for viewing until my site gets modified. I'd be glad to
show any of those for the asking.
My gest was for the purpose however of some response from Mani whom is
suggesting that anyone discussing the sublime must be lacking in
skill/craft. A lame comment similar to those blinded by hate, racism and
prejudice. A generalization having no basis of merit other than revealing
their own spiteful prejudices.
Larry
Larry Seiler
> opinions I never said I saw anything wrong with your artwork or
> criticized any failing in your craftsmanship or believe you are a
> phoney.
I appreciate your clarification. I would ask that you consider how you
phrase some of your comments which tend to generalize, insuate, and
unnecessarily offend. It is possible then...whether you like the comments,
agree with them or not that one can have some degree of skill AND discuss
that which concerns them about the "sublime." You seem most often to
project having a chip on your shoulders, and being on the attack. Sorry if
I misunderstood you, but I would encourage you to go back and read your
post and see how it could be taken as "all-inclusive."
peace,
Larry
Erik A. Mattila
Larry Seiler wrote:
But that's really a judgement call, Larry (he said...arguing!) Also a
tactic. One can always say "oh, you're just feeding your ego!" That more or
less trivializes the debate, and it is a good way to squirm out of a
conundrum. How do you make the distinction? How do you know the person you
are saying that to is simply making an argument. I could say "Larry, you are
only painting to 'feed your ego' and back it up with a pretty good argument.
Heehehe. My next question is: "What's wrong with feeding your ego?"
Forever the provocatuer,
Erik
Ponderable
I have a Mac IIsi. It's just old. Lacking in memory. Senility is setting in.
It can't run the current AOL systems because the Mac versions all require that
it be a power Mac.
I'll definitly get another Mac though. Hopefully the G4 thing.
Tim
Marilyn
Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> Larry Seiler wrote:
>
Ego Feeding:
Do you remember the scene in the Spike Lee film, "Jungle Fever?"
The black architect fighting for a partnership walks around the office
pointing out the framed projects on the wall, saying
"Mine, mine, mine!"
One of the partners retorts
"Ego, ego, ego"
It's like a kind of mantra, everytime one uses the first person,
there's an echo of "Ego!"
I think Ariane nailed it when she named a certain kind of debate
"mind sport" or "brain sport"
Marilyn
But then I am "brain-washed by book reading" according to Alison.
Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> Larry Seiler wrote:
>
> > --
> > > Take the easy way out, Larry, if you're interested.
> >
> > Erik...
> > Hahaha.....if you mean lacking the spine to argue for argument's sake as
> > an easy way out? Nah...I see no real merit in it. I do sense that there
> > must be varying positions on it based to some degree upon experience which
> > would be like people speaking different languages arguing though they not
> > understand each other.
> >
>
> No, actually I mean't that it was easier to click on a URL than to get dressed
> and go to a library or bookstore. What I'm finding is that the www is slowly
> becoming more useful in terms of substantive information, but still far short
> of a good library. I hope the trend continues, since there are no decent
> libraries near where I live.
>
> But what's wrong with argument? Isn't that what is suppose to happen in a
> newsgroup?
>
> Eirk
Alison A Raimes
>I can get almost any book in the country through free inter-library loans.
>But then I am "brain-washed by book reading" according to Alison.
I suggest that Marilyn finds the post from which she has quoted the
above as being something I said - it will, of course, be a fruitless
exercise. In my experience of her, she is a master at mis-quoting, next
to her obsession with correcting grammatical errors here on the
newsgroup - which apparently is vastly more important to her than
offering anything in the way of information or debate.
Marilyn
Check for yourself, it was in one of your fuck-off posts.
Marilyn
Erik A. Mattila
export to hotile nations. You may not be able to get one into NYC (yuk, yuk, yuk)
Anyway, Me too. I'm just waiting for the 500 mhrz model and... I'll be watching
DVDs all the time.
Erik
mdeli
Maack) wrote:
>hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>>No, if someone wants bullshit why not provide it for him? You should
>>realize that people prefer bullshit. Why not capitalize on the fact?
>
>Morals. Ethics. Being a good human being. A sense of decency. A
>sense of right and wrong. The desire not to rip off other people.
Morals have to do with harming people. Giving them what they want in
this case is harmless and it makes them happy. Its not ripping anyone
off.
If I can use my skill to out bullshit the bullshitters I see nothing
wrong in doing it. I've sold big schmiers and abstract baloney on
occasion. I assume they made the purchaser happy.
>
>The desire to make good art appreciated and bad art ignored. A
>respect for real art.
Fine artwork doesn't need respect, bullshit theories, or mystical .
worship. Neither does bad art.
>
>A turd hanging on the wall means a lack of space for something of real
>significance.
Come off it. There's always more wall space.
>>Perhaps the Emperor's tailors took their paycheck elsewhere and made
>>some good clothes.
>
>I doubt it. Once you start making see-through clothing, it's hard to
>go back to the pins and needles of the real thing.
It isn't. An artist who knows his craft can create what he wants. An
occasional big schmier doesn't hurt anything. The more incompetent
artists produced by art schools, the more work for those who know
their craft.
The small amount of phonies who won the Modern Academic Art lottery
make tubs of money. It makes all the losers who try to live on purely
abstract money, very interesting.
It pays to be rich.
mdeli
>> Its the sort of baloney that art teachers encourage students to
>> discuss while failing to teach them the craft they do not know.
>
>> Lets face it, after all the blow bags here
><snip>
Note; I never said that there are no good teachers and I always
advised students how to find them.
>
>Hhmmm...well Mani...seeing that I'm of that camp, and also an art
>teacher...please give me an indepth critique of my work, and how it fails
>in the "craft".
It doesn't. In spite of my critique of some of your messages and
opinions I never said I saw anything wrong with your artwork or
criticized any failing in your craftsmanship or believe you are a
phoney.
snip
>Thanks in advance for what it will mean to my future development. Perhaps
>you might direct me to several of your paintings to provide example that
>will increase my understanding in how better to advance my craftmanship.
>
Your craftsmanship is your problem. I have no suggestions.
mdeli
wrote:
>My gest was for the purpose however of some response from Mani whom is
>suggesting that anyone discussing the sublime must be lacking in
>skill/craft.
You discussed the sublime. I never thought your work lacked skill and
craft. Your trouble is that you don't read carefully and then you
usually go of using two hundred word where ten would suffice.
> A lame comment similar to those blinded by hate, racism and
>prejudice. A generalization having no basis of merit other than revealing
>their own spiteful prejudices.
That's a rather lame conclusion Larry.
mdeli
I wrote:
>> It doesn't. In spite of my critique of some of your messages and
>> opinions I never said I saw anything wrong with your artwork or
>> criticized any failing in your craftsmanship or believe you are a
>> phoney.
>
>phrase some of your comments which tend to generalize, insuate, and
>unnecessarily offend.
I believe some people should be offended.
>It is possible then...whether you like the comments,
>agree with them or not that one can have some degree of skill AND discuss
>that which concerns them about the "sublime." You seem most often to
>project having a chip on your shoulders, and being on the attack. Sorry if
>I misunderstood you, but I would encourage you to go back and read your
>post and see how it could be taken as "all-inclusive."
>peace,
If my comments don't conform to what provincial mid-American prudes
expect, they can kill-file my messages. The art world is full of
actions, images and statements that ruffle puritan feathers. Get used
to it. This is the internet not a religious institution.
mdeli
Maack) wrote:
>hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>>Morals have to do with harming people. Giving them what they want in
>>this case is harmless and it makes them happy. Its not ripping anyone
>>off.
>
>If I made some "abstract" art that took me five minutes and didn't
>feel right or meaningful to me, I'd feel like I was ripping myself
>off. And if I'm ripping myself off when I make the art, then I'm also
>ripping off the person I'm selling the art too.
Each to his own. I always preferred to sell any artwork someone wants
to buy.
>
>But that's me. If someone else wants to make something abstract for a
>buyer, because that's what the buyer wants, I have no problem with it.
>
>The strange thing is, I only feel that way about paintings. When it
>comes to my writing, I stoop to feed others what they desire all the
>time. While I aspire to write Great Things, I have written porn of
>various sorts. It pays well. I've also written button slogans for a
>couple of companies. Is this degrading my talents? I don't think so,
>but others might see it that way.
>
>"How can you prostitute yourself like that?"
>
>"By writing a wank piece. It was fun."
>
Well, think of how much fun it is to sell a big schmier to a richie
who claims to have that rare sensitivity which enables him to
distinguish the one schmier that's art from those millions of very
similar but worthless schmiers.
The pimps who run some of our best Galleries have to hunt for these
suckers every day while you might achieve this feat in a short moment
and also get highly realistic money for your efforts.
It pays to be rich.
Mani DeLi
Larry Seiler
> expect, they can kill-file my messages. The art world is full of
> actions, images and statements that ruffle puritan feathers. Get used
> to it. This is the internet not a religious institution.
>
> ...no skill no art
So...you see the Internet as an opportunity to develop a new type of human
being....a communicating being that needn't be so "human?" That is, where
respect, congeniality and dignity come together. Am I free then to assume
that you would credit the religious with having such traits? If so...guess
I could "get used to it." Downright comfy in fact.
peace,
Larry
Larry Seiler
>
> Mani DeLi
Well...whether one agrees with your position on skill versus modernism or
not, it appears often that your position would receive more consideration
if it didn't seem to even the casual thread surfer that you enjoy a bit of
berating and abrasiveness to extremes.
That I had been discussing at some length in a number of threads the
sublime when your generalization about such "blow bags" lacking skill
appeared shortly thereafter was easy enough to draw conclusions from. Lame
or otherwise, you might be a bit more cautious on what conclusions might be
drawn from your posts.
take care Mani...
Larry
Ponderable
>being....a communicating being that needn't be so "human?" That is, where
>respect, congeniality and dignity come together. Am I free then to assume
>that you would credit the religious with having such traits? If so...guess
>I could "get used to it." Downright comfy in fact.
>peace,
>Larry
Yo Mani. Where you from? Where do you live?
I know Larry lives out in the middle of America someplace. I love his words. He
kinda reminds me of Garrison Keilor's "Prarie Home Companion" and how he is
always talking about people from Minnesota.
I'm originally from Cincinnati. Larry would probably like it there. It's very
clean and green. The people are real nice.
For the last 20 years or so I've lived in NYC. I love NYC because here, nobody
pretends. Everybody pretty much says exactly what they are thinking.
(WARNING TO LARRYS: "NYC is where the future goes to rehearse." (Ed Koch said
that once and I'm forever jealous.))
When I go back to Cincinnati it's kind of like downshifting from 4th to 1st.
Everybody is so smiley and nice I want to smack the shit out of them. I feel
like throwing them up against a wall and screaming "TELL ME THE TRUTH
MOTHERFUCKER!!"
But that's just me.
Mani don't bother me at all. Here, he'd just be another guy on the block.
The world needs characters to give it color.
Tim Folzenlogen
Nikolaus Maack
>I feel
>like throwing them up against a wall and screaming "TELL ME THE TRUTH
>MOTHERFUCKER!!"
I feel like doing this every day. I live in Ottawa. We suck, in
Ottawa.
Something else I feel like doing every day -- setting my brain on
autopilot and just saying whatever it is I'm feeling without thinking
too much about whether what I say will wound the person or not. And
sometimes the person that will get wounded by the words is me.
What's interesting is how, when I do this, I'll often get material
that I otherwise would never hear from myself. New ideas come pouring
out. I shouldn't be too surprised. Freud made his patients speak
without censoring themselves, a verbal stream of consciousness, in an
attempt to get at their true feelings and experiences.
>But that's just me.
No, not just you.
Erik A. Mattila
Francisco wondering about what would happen if he just stopped. So he
did. He sat down on the sidewalk and just sort ot tuned everything out.
The pedestrians just stepped around him, and not much happened, until
about an hour and a half the proprietor of the store he was sitting by
came out and said something like "get the hell out of here, you bum, your
disturbing my customers!" Clifford didn't respond, but just sat there
with his beatiffic smile. In about three hours the cops came and tried
to reason with him, advising him to move on, but he wouldn't respond.
About 45 minutes of this, the cops scratching their heads, they called in
a medical team and we was strapped into a gurney and hauled off to a
hospital for observation. All this time he still was in his 'stopped'
mode. They took blood tests, hair folicule tests (which undoubetedly
betrayed his meth habit) but he wasn't 'under the influence' so... he
spent the night in the emergency wing, and next morning he was strapped
into a gurney and moved to psychiatric clinic for that kind of
observation. He kept it up for three or four days. Finally, he was
visited by a bonifide pyschiatrist - or rather the staff strapped him in
a straight jacket, then into a wheel chair and wheeled him ito the
psychiatrist's office. For about a half hour he sat there while the
psychiatrist hummed and hawed over the case paperwork, drank some coffee,
looked at his watch, leaned over and shinned a little flash light in
Clifford's eye, sat back in his chair and said,"Well, what's going on
here?"
Clifford said "I was walking down Market Street and I started to think
about what would happen if I just stopped. So I decided to see for
myself." The psychiatrist said "No shit, you actually did it?" They
went on to talk about it for the next three hours, the psychiatrist
grilling him on ever detail of the experience, the reactions of the
people involved, the social philosophy of the whole episode. After the
talk, the psychiatrist smiled, shook his head, and said "Far out!" and
proceeded to release Clifford from the hospital.
Moral of the story? Your guess is as good as mine.
Erik
Nikolaus Maack
>Several years ago a friend of mine was walking down Market Street in San
>Francisco wondering about what would happen if he just stopped.
That's a GREAT story. Thanks for sharing it.
myfan...@my-deja.com
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
> The mass of verbal diarrhea about the "sublime " that passed through
> this thread is about as informative as last years racing sheet.
Yes the great Vegitative state... Massive tranquil...
>
> Its the sort of baloney that art teachers encourage students to
> discuss while failing to teach them the craft they do not know.
There is nothing to discuss or understand...
>
> Lets face it, after all the blow bags here name dropped their favorite
> philosophers and went off their usual convoluted ramble etc., the
> "sublime etc." simply adds up to a way of saying "I like it, I feel
> awe."
>
> But if the failures here left it that, they would be stuck with not
> knowing what to do with all that extra time to paint.
>
> Mani DeLi
> ...no skill no art
>
> Check out my web page, A Skeptical View of Modern Art and
> my book, comments, work at:.
> http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Larry Seiler
feel
> like throwing them up against a wall and screaming "TELL ME THE TRUTH
<smiling>
my brother lives in New York. Guess as you describe it, I wouldn't have
the stomach for it. Too much the spirit of immanence and personalism.
I would rather think to have you come and paint along side a stream's
waterfalls with me, where such antics might delight red squirrels. I find
"truth" more settling, affirming, and the madness you describe as that
which suggests a people whom are unsure of their sense of meaning in the
world as concerns themselves. Such recklessness with the awareness of time
ticking on.
Perhaps our patience is not a measure of our lack of interest in "truth"
but having come to terms with it.
Sounds like an interesting place this, New York. Like looking through
glass at a zoo or something. Such would no doubt make the next trip to
paint along a quiet view that much more appreciable.
peace....
Larry
Larry Seiler
challenged
> to think in new ways. You see it all here and it is in your face every
day.
> Every kind of person from every kind of culture. What you call reckless,
I see
> as a heroic attempt at being responsible.
that's cool...
I liked the way you phrased this.
This heroic attempt is more a reaction to pluralism, and the disappearance
of any sense of the absolute in the face of diversity.
> You remind me of a Japanese friend of mine who was proud of the fact that
in
> Japan there is no racial problem.
My son is an artist and musician in Chicago. I go visit from time to time.
I enjoy visiting the galleries, the art institute, etc., but..I'm glad
when its time to leave. Crack deals outside the building he lives. A
liquor store next door with prostitutes next to that. Middle school
children working their way around stumbling drunks the next morning to
school the other side of where he lives. The hustle of the streets. The
L-Train.
I know many like that kind of lifestyle. I respect that. To those that
live it everyday, that is their reality. I don't sense "life" in it. I
see a calculated risk response to circumstance and mayhem. An organized
confusion. Some thrive on that.
I have to laugh. A large group of kids from the inner city came to spend a
week at a wooded lake camp in northern Wisconsin. The first couple day's
end, they congregated around the one and only light post at night.
Frightened of what lay beyond in the woods....and doing the only thing they
were familiar with doing. Hangin' out.
By the week's end, they had grown to love it. The swimming...hiking,
interaction with the wilderness.
> It's coming Larry. Slowly but surely. Just because you have thus far
managed
> to isolate yourself from world realities is not a viable answer for the
future
> of humankind.
Hhhmmm...well...I grew up in a town of 200,000....which is peanuts by your
standards no doubt.
My father was a police officer, which made that town seem much larger. He
was stabbed in the shoulder one night. Picked pieces of a boy up with his
dog hit by a train. Shootings...etc; I saw more than many young men see.
Perhaps it was these realities you speak of that helped my eventual
acceptance of living where I am now.
I also was in the navy during the end of Nam, though not in Nam....a
Vietnam Era veteran. Was even given this great tour by Uncle Sam to have
and see an adventure. I saw the effects of the war...suicides aboard ship
among guys sent to try and get their heads together before going
state-side.
I have pursued to live where I do not as it suits my painting and life's
preferences, but I'm not sure I've totally isolated myself. Not sure
really what it is I'm missing. I close my eyes...I can see the uptown
clubs...hear the voices all giddy out for the evening.
I even play blues music...and am in a band. A solo CD coming out next
summer, so you'd think I'd love Chicago. <smile>
> But good for you. I'm glad you are happy. Perhaps, one day, I myself will
> retire to the proverbial cabin in the woods.
Well...I'm teaching art here, and it suits me. I wouldn't want you to do
it if it did not suit you. I'm a bit sad though that somehow we poor
isolated ones ought by some moral impetus make a way by all means to accept
that it is only reasonable for people living in the "real world" to have
and freely project attitude with a proclivity to rudeness and demand. We
after hearing one is from NYC, ought to bow and make ready for the
acceptable and reasonable barrage of crassness. *shrug* don't think so.
> But for now, I'm hooked on the challenge of the city.
All of life...and all the world is a reality my friend, and a challenge.
peace to you...
Larry
Larry Seiler
artist's site- http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
WetCanvas Artists page- (shorter and quicker loading)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.html
Kay
NYC is an exciting place, but you can make art anywhere. Just take trips to
show. There is an exodus of NYC artists who have "made it" to Vermont,
Galisteo, NM, Santa Fe, NM, etc. I have friends in NYC who tell me that
while access to people, places and things re: art is geographically closer,
time and space (in which to produce art) is less easily obtained.
Everything's a trade-off, isn't it. BTW, liked your recollections of the
urban landscape which made me remember the first penis I ever saw... I was
playing tag or some kid game and drunks used to use the gangway to urinate.
Gee, I really miss that ;-)
Kay
Larry Seiler wrote in message
<01bf39b8$fb755680$a868...@lseiler.execpc.com>...
:> If people in NYC are unsure, it's because they are constantly being
:
Ponderable
>>isolated ones ought by some moral impetus make a way by all means to accept
>>that it is only reasonable for people living in the "real world" to have
>>and freely project attitude with a proclivity to rudeness and demand.
Say what?
(Let's see you diagram that, ahem, sentence.)
>>We
>>after hearing one is from NYC, ought to bow and make ready for the
>>acceptable and reasonable barrage of crassness.
Not at all.
We, being New Yorkers, don't really give a shit what you do. I mean, it's not
going to affect us a whole hell of a lot one way or another.
Tim
Larry Seiler
not
> going to affect us a whole hell of a lot one way or another.
>
> Tim
...and the problem with us "urbanites"...is, somehow we feel obligated to
still care. Guess I like that. I can live with myself that way. I know
you won't care Tim...but, I hope things go well for you! Blessings and
peace...Oh...and I do appreciate your taking time to chat with me.
Larry
Erik A. Mattila
> >>I'm a bit sad though that somehow we poor
> >>isolated ones ought by some moral impetus make a way by all means to accept
> >>that it is only reasonable for people living in the "real world" to have
> >>and freely project attitude with a proclivity to rudeness and demand.
>
> Say what?
>
> (Let's see you diagram that, ahem, sentence.)
>
> >>We
> >>after hearing one is from NYC, ought to bow and make ready for the
> >>acceptable and reasonable barrage of crassness.
>
> Not at all.
>
> We, being New Yorkers, don't really give a shit what you do. I mean, it's not
> going to affect us a whole hell of a lot one way or another.
>
> Tim
C'mon, Tim, I've known plenty of sensitive NewYorkers. Well, come to think of
it, it may go like this. I met an Industrial Designer who figured (back in the
Fifties) that the best place to move his family was New Zeland to be safe from
nuclear fallout. So he did, securing a post at an Aukland University. He said
he hated it there for the year he spent there. He thought the New Zealanders
were as interesting as the sheep they raised, and the wind blew almost every day
and drove him batty. He said that this surprised him, because part of the
reason he moved there was all the vital, interesting and likeable New Zealanders
he had met all around the world. He finally realized that these had left New
Zealand that he did -- too much wind and sheep. So maybe there is a refugee
class of New Yorkers who are sensitive souls?
Another friend of mine was locked up in prison at a young age on an
indeterminate sentence (which has now been outlawed in California). For nearly
15 years he resisted the prison system's strategy to 'break him,' hanging on to
whatever shreds of self respect and pride he had about himself. The pressure
was constant and brutal. For example, he was locked up in 'jail' (solitary
confinement) for eighteen months. He just worked out every day and night - a
thousand push-up, a thousand jumping jacks, and so on. One, after a year in
lock-up, he was on number 875 jumping jack, totally naked and drenched in sweat,
when the cell door opened and the prison pyschologist was standing there, just
looking at him. After a minute or so, the psychologist said "Well have you out
of here shortly" and walked out. Six months later he was released from 'jail',
after thinking about his release for 180 days. Anyway, he eventually realized
that he was never going to make it out the way he was responding to the threat.
So he began to pretend like his spirit was broken, and developed the infamous "I
don't give a shit" mentality which allows for survival in that system. And it
worked, he was parolled shortly after.
I'm wondering if surviving New York comes off like that.
Erik
Ponderable
>still care.
Send money.
>I know
>you won't care Tim...
I assume you, like me, are writing in jest.
On the more sincere side, I like chatting witrh you also.
>Larry
Tim
Ponderable
Well, Regis Philbin lives in New York.
>I met an Industrial Designer who.... (snip)
>Another friend of mine was locked up in prison at a young age......
You know Erik, you know a hell of a lot of interesting people.
>So he began to pretend like his spirit was broken, and developed the infamous
"I
>don't give a shit" mentality which allows for survival in that system. And it
>worked, he was parolled shortly after.
>I'm wondering if surviving New York comes off like that.
But this guy, your friend, he wanted out. Right?
We New Yorkers need the concrete beneath our feet like a baby desires its
mother's breast.
But again, seriously speaking, I find New Yorkers to be people who generally
care a lot. It's just that they are looking for real solutions as opposed to
glossing things over.
(Now I know. Larry is going to write that New Yorkers see everyone in Middle
America as being phony, which isn't the case. I'm generalizing here.)
My experience is mostly based on having lived for an extended period of time in
both Cincinnati and New York City (and then having traveled to many other
places in America which I found to be more like Cincinnati and less like New
York City.)
Cincinnatians are always nice and cordial, but that doesn't mean that they like
you. You can't find out what they really think because they wont tell you.
They'll stab you in the back, talk about you when you aren't there, sabotage
your efforts...but they will never own up to their true sentiments. Outwardly,
to your face, they are nothing but pleasant.
New Yorkers will just tell you the truth. They generally be themselves. They
appreciate others being the same. So you got all these cultures and races and
beliefs banging heads every day, but because they are all being up front and
true to themselves, real mutual understanding and respect comes about.
Personally, I think honesty and sincerity is as good as respect gets. Being
diplomatic and kind (but insincere) just takes longer.
I think NYC, by and large, is way ahead of all the other cites and countries
when it comes to race/cutural relations. It's dealing with it head-on as a
whole whereas, in most other places, the various distinctions are mostly
separated.
>Erik
Tim
Erik A. Mattila
>
> >I'm wondering if surviving New York comes off like that.
>
> But this guy, your friend, he wanted out. Right?
Yes, he wanted out, but I think the "I don't give a shit" philosophy is a way of
dealing with the day to day trauma of prison life.
> We New Yorkers need the concrete beneath our feet like a baby desires its
> mother's breast.
I spent the bulk of my life in either LA or San Francisco up to about age twenty
five. When I relocated to rural California it was difficult for several years, so
there was a period when the country would drive me batty and I had to get a dose
of city life. This went on for five years or so. Towards the end of my city
adventures, however, I began to get a sense of compression in the city (San
Francisco). A real sense of lack of space, the closeness and intimacy of others
(like hearing your neighbors having a good roll in the hay throught the walls) and
all that. It eventually became intolerable. But for me, the straw that broke th
camel's back was when I was arrested and robbed by the police, and when I
complained, thrown in jail. To make matters worse, I had a pretty air-tight case
for a lawsuit (the offending cops were pretty stupid about covering their tracks)
but my lawyer explained the risk that I was taking in suing the SFPD, and gave me
a bunch of examples like having dope planted on you, having your wheels fall off
your automobile, or simply being blown away. So I thought "What do you do if you
can't call the cops on the cops?" So I simply returned to the wilderness.
But I like the best of both years, and given the choice, I like rural areas close
to the city. That's what bugs me about my current exile in the desert. San Diego
is two and a half hours away, Yuma (not much of a city) is two hours away. Palm
Springs is about an hour and a half. But Cresencia and I are tied down to caring
for her Mom, and we can seldom even get to a movie. So as beautiful as the desert
is, my life style is a bit of a exile.
The other thing is that I am crippled, and I need a cane to walk short distances.
So I've considered living in San Francisco, but the simple problem of parking is a
monumental obstacle. The only way I could function there would be if I was wealthy
enough to pay a lot of cab fare. Wierd, huh? You would never think that parking
would be such a big issue. But I didn't complete my Master's degree for just that
reason. On my last quarter, the administration decided to close down the campus
core area to all auto traffic, and they didn't have alternatives in place. So the
one class I needed to complete the program was simply unaccessable. What followed
was six months of haggling, which got me no where, since programatically the
University could not acknowledge that anything was wrong, since this would weaken
their legal position if the matter went to court. During this period the tuition
skyrocketed from 600 bucks a quarter to almost 1500 bucks, and I had simply ran
out of money and had to go to work to exist. Parking places.
Erik
Ponderable
>The other thing is that I am crippled, and I need a cane to walk short
distances.
>So I've considered living in San Francisco, but the simple problem of parking
is a
>monumental obstacle.
Which is another reason I love NYC.
Everything is close by and mass transit is cheap and efficient. Most people who
live here don't have cars, and that's a huge savings to consider when speaking
of the expense of living here.
I'm 47 and have never owned a car. Wouldn't take one if someone gave it to me.
I like to rent them for trips. That way you always have a new car.
Tim
Erik A. Mattila
Erik (cough, cough)
John Haber
>I'm 47 and have never owned a car. Wouldn't take one if someone gave it to me.
>I like to rent them for trips. That way you always have a new car.
As a lifelong (almost) New Yorker, I know exactly the feeling. It's
funny that it makes me associate a city with openness, just as Erik
and others associate it with the very antithesis of their valued open
spaces. I walk out my building's front door, and nothing's stopping
me from going for miles. I can find trees or water or something
monumental in the distance (or even art) and stare off into the
distance just on impulse.
I actually feel claustrophobic outside of cities, unless I'm in a
national park or someplace else I can hike. Otherwise, for me it's
just as if they took a city block (or worse, a shopping mall), divided
it into pieces, and separated them with clones of the Major Deegan
Expressway. It's again the opposite of the common feelings about
America, but when I've traveled, I felt more that personal sense of
open space in England (the Cotswolds on a trip over a year ago) then
in the American west.
Maybe it's that love of both closeness and openness that makes me like
landscapes (especially Monet, Cezanne, and the Hudson River School),
but still life less often and best when it leaps out and demands to
grab you, like early Caravaggio or Cubism.
John
John Haber
jha...@haberarts.com
http://www.haberarts.com/
Ponderable
What neighborhood do you live in? I live up by the George Washington Bridge,
172nd Street.
You with a gallery in the city?
Tim
Ponderable
You live in NYC? I'm still new enough here that I get the names, attitudes and
information mixed up.
I have an opening next Thursday night (Dec 9th) at MB Modern (41 East 57th, at
Madison, 8th floor). Please come and introduce yourself. I'd like to meet you.
Tim
Ponderable
It came up "invalid" on my decrepit machine.
Now why the hell is my writing tiny?
I'm getting a complex. My machine don't love me no mo.
Tim
Ponderable
Um, when I wrote this message, the print came out real tiny. But when I read it
after sending it in, the print is normal size, as I'm sure it is for everyone,
should you be wondering why I wrote the above.
That's why.
Tim
Erik A. Mattila
another five grand for all the peripherals you've every wanted, you
could be shitting in tall cotton and farting through silk!
Erik
Ponderable wrote:
> >http://www.haberarts.com/
>
> It came up "invalid" on my decrepit machine.
>
> Now why the hell is my writing tiny?
>
Erik A. Mattila
(especially if you love NY as much as you claim). Maybe not your cup-O-tea, but
your eyes will thank you. I've only seen repros, so I would like to hear about
what they look like in life. I'm going to post some of his images on the web
soon, so people here can see what they look like.
Erik
Ponderable
Tim
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>As a lifelong (almost) New Yorker, I know exactly the feeling. It's
>funny that it makes me associate a city with openness, just as Erik
>and others associate it with the very antithesis of their valued open
>spaces. I walk out my building's front door, and nothing's stopping
>me from going for miles. I can find trees or water or something
>monumental in the distance (or even art) and stare off into the
>distance just on impulse.
>
>I actually feel claustrophobic outside of cities, unless I'm in a
>national park or someplace else I can hike. Otherwise, for me it's
>just as if they took a city block (or worse, a shopping mall), divided
>it into pieces, and separated them with clones of the Major Deegan
>Expressway. It's again the opposite of the common feelings about
>America, but when I've traveled, I felt more that personal sense of
>open space in England (the Cotswolds on a trip over a year ago) then
>in the American west.
Its funny, John, but when I got back from visiting you in New York I
suddenly realised how *open* London is. I drove along the Thames from
Chelsea to Battersea and into Parliament Square, then up Whitehall and
into Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery in all its glory, and the
entire time I was looking at the light streaming across the buildings
and remembering how dark and cold I found New York to be.
You must go further North on your next visit to England - get up to
Northumberland where I went to school - my Mum will put you up for a few
days <big grin>. Walk along Hadrians Wall and then into Kielder Forest
... you can take Ubi with you, he's a forest hound at heart even though
he was born a city boy. Now you got me missing the country !
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
John Haber
> I was looking at the light streaming across the buildings
>and remembering how dark and cold I found New York to be.
Oh, I've always been like that. :) Seriously, I know there's
something in one's responses to things that goes beyond actual
sunshine. After all, we had it almost nonestop here, with pretty days
and late evenings, and London's famous for dark weather. But the ways
in which two places and their light are beautiful differ. (Actually,
that's something wonderful about great landscape art, that it knows
particulars like that.) Now you've got me missing England again, not
that it took much.
j
Larry Seiler
of course!
> On the more sincere side, I like chatting witrh you also.
take care.....
Larry