A Fine Line American Supper

Two print publications came into my life today — Fine Line Magazine and American Supper by D. R. Baker.

Both are jaw-droppingly great.

American Supper is a book of poetry that is really fresh. The author, Deron Baker, happens to be a poet/artist living in Algoma, which makes it that much sweeter for me. He stopped by the gallery today and dropped a few copies off — we have a mixed media piece of his in the current Salon 100 show.

Let’s just say that I was blown away when I started reading his poetry. The copy he gave me smelled slightly of smoke as I turned the pages. Fitting for poetry that has been described as “apocalyptic” and “a quest for the sacred in the everyday world”. I agree with the back cover — the imagination does find refuge here. I was painting pictures in my head the whole time. Sublime.

Another interesting (and more professional) review of American Supper.

Excerpt from Dead Town

I took an evening
stroll through a little
Place called Dead
Town, like
Walking through a tinted photo.
Everyone stood still,
stiffened by fear.
Fraudulent phobia
and pink lemonade.
Everyone here is a
statue,
Preserved for
posterity, calcified,
Marking the exact
moment of their
death.

We are working with Baker right now to set up a poetry reading/book signing at the gallery. It will probably be during the February Algoma Art Wave.

We have a few copies available at the gallery or you can get one online.

NOW, a few words about the new Fine Line Magazine, created by Milwaukee artists/curators Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber.

cohesive, succinct, penetrating

It’s refreshing in many ways. No advertising, first of all. Mostly images, with quotes from some of my favorite poets and authors scattered throughout.
New art. Good art.

image credit/more images from the mag

According to their website, Fine Line Magazine aims to encourage the viewer to develop their own understanding of and relationship to the ideas presented.
I say mission accomplished and get your hands on this issue right now.

You can buy the first issue, Welcome Home, here

There is just something about print that I really connect with.
Print will never die.

And this I believe: John Steinbeck

Brittany Peterson, Yellow, Blown Glass

I am currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck and the following passage really spoke to me. It’s long but worth the read. This meshes with everything I feel about myself, my individuality, my freedom, art, and how important handmade craft, design, and products are to our lives.

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then–the glory–so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men. I don’t know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man. A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing are all born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against? Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of the man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

Good Mail Day!

Some of my mail art has been published in this great book by Pod Post! You can find Good Mail Day here on Amazon.

Make sure to check out the Pod Post website where you can find some awesome info, pics, and even mail art merit badges!! For more info about the book project, check out the blog!!

I’m so happy to be part of this publication–how fun!!

Artists of Influence: Matt Shlian

Click here for more info
And make sure to check out the rest of his website and artwork!

Matt will be exhibiting at The Eclipse Gallery this fall in 50 Artists, 50 States, 50 Mediums representing Michigan and the Paper medium.

P.S. I still need a few artists for that show–click here for more info.

literature of influence: the bell jar

the bell jar by sylvia plath is one of those books to read again and again. here’s one of my favorite passages:

I spent a lot of time having imaginary conversations with Buddy Willard. He was a couple of years older than I was and very scientific, so he could always prove things. When I was with him I had to work to keep my head above water. These conversations I had in my mind usually repeated the beginnings of conversations I’d really had with Buddy, only they finished with me answering him back quite sharply, instead of just sitting around and saying, “I guess so.”

Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?”

“No, what?” I would say.

“A piece of dust.”

Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.”

And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.

Illustration/Books: Life Atlas

I found this book for $1.00 at a Library sale! It’s a Life Atlas from the ’70s. I love the illustrations!

you can view more images on my Flickr.

Books: Concrete Hermit

I am drooling over these books

This artist’s book features details of McGinness’ paintings converted to coarse halftones and printed in 4 fluorescent inks: orange, yellow, pink, and green. SIGNED and numbered by the artist in an edition of 2000

“These original drawings are the closest one gets to the original ideas. Whilst inevitably flawed, there is an honesty to them, a directness of thought and execution.” – James Jarvis. Superb collection of black and white drawings, a must for any fan of Jarvis’ characters.

E Pluribus Venom collects a large body of work produced by Shepard Fairey and presented at the Jonathan Levine gallery during his massive exhibition in the summer of 2007. Serving as more than just an exhibition catalog, this book expounds upon themes presented in the show. The title “E Pluribus Venom” which translates “Out of many, poison” is derived from “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one) an early motto adopted by the U.S. Government which appears on U.S. currency. The artist’s thesis is that many becoming one, or a loss of power and influence of the individual in favor of homogeny is a symptom of a society in decline.
E Pluribus Venom is comprised of artworks designed to question the symbols and methods of the American machine and American dream and also celebrate those who oppose blind nationalism and war. Some of Fairey’s works use currency motifs or a Norman Rockwell aesthetic to employ the graphic language of the subjects they critique. Other works use a blend of Art Nouveau, hippie, and revolutionary propaganda styles to celebrate subjects advocating peace.

You can find these and many other interesting publications at Concrete Hermit’s website (look around for art, clothing, toys, and accessories as well!

An Awesome Book

A Must See. (Especially if you have kids like me)

Also, if anyone finds out if you can buy this, I would appreciate it. I’m not sure if it’s published. If not, it should be.