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Studio: 2017-Canary-The Odyssey of the siren

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"Democracy": Study for ceramic floor mosaic, Casein on paper  19' x 9'

$5,000 study - $85,00 delivery and installation of ceramic work

OPENING THE STUDIO AFTER 15-YEAR ABSENCE :  Reentering a studio artist mindset, created both reservation and anticipation.
Reservation- in that the "art scene" was 15 years down the road from my last creative focus.  Both mind and body needed a renewed and disciplined creative reset.
 Anticipation-Looking back to the beginning of my need to find a creative outlet for who I was, I remembered journaling my interpretation of existence which was that, from the human point of view, it consists of three basic visual components (people, places, things). I had been collecting interesting things over the years and since I had already explored place and people in previous studio efforts, it was time to focus on things. The things collected had interesting form/function/signifier identity as well as a potential for simulacra manipulation. It felt natural for this first studio challenge to be focused on the subject of "things". I had also decided to revisit my deconstruction past and challenge art's prime Tennent of form follows function and approach the studio working exploring the idea that function follows form to see what would happen in the creative process. Things (various forms) that had been stored for years were brought out and placed around the studio as a way of getting their visual presence into the creative space and into my stream of consciousness so that a function could be created for each thing/form. It is important to note that all of the "things" collected were related to a personal experience carrying significant personal meaning. 
 
Things that were placed in the studio were:
1. Old heavily used leather work gloves as a signifier of working class man. (I had worn out through hard labor and saved over the years).
2. Rusted tin cans as a signifier of the past (recovered from a Union Valley abandon homestead).
3. Alder tree bark as a signifier of that which protects (recovered from our property).
4. A burnt out part of an orchard ladder a signifier of ascension (used to build the studio).
5. An old American flag from the WWII as a signifier of a common unity (found in the basement of Son's  first house).
6. A beat up marching band color guard fake rifle as a signifier of a simulacrum for aggression (found in an attic).
7. Ancient Church bingo set as a signifier of random chance (recovered from a closed church).
8. An old fashion water heater tank as a signifier of early modern comfort (recovered from a Union Valley abandon homestead). 
9. Cardboard box full of used pencils and erasers as a signifier of communication (saved from working in a county youth detention facility).
10. Sleeping eye mask as a signifier of intention (found in a hotel room).
11. A 1920's truck 4 piece motor hood as a signifier of protection (recovered from a Union Valley abandon homestead near an abandon saw mill).
12. Sledge hammer head and heavily used wedges as a signifier of the consequences of human labor (worn out from processing fire wood at home).
13. 25 lbs. of anthracite coal a signifier of the revolution (purchased from Amazon) 
14. A rotting 60's soccer ball a signifier of human play (found in the back yard of a store in Mytilene Greece).
15. Ceramic tiles as signifiers of repetitive units (laying around the shop from previous project).
16. Shot Gun casings as a signifier of aggression (donated by a friend and land partner from a previous work).

While the studio was getting set up in 2016 , America was becoming focused on the newly elected President Donald Trump. As his approach to leadership began to unfold, his processes and decisions were quickly being questioned. Concern was beginning to surface in the media over the way his administration seemed to be operating on the fringe moving in and outside the rule of law. It was alleged that Trump had broken campaign laws in order to be elected by eliciting the assistance of foreign powers. While completing the preparations in the studio, PBS filled the studio with conversations over potential misdeeds of the Trump administration. I listened to accusations  coming from both sides while preparing the studio. The "things" around the studio and the media news began to meld and collide within my stream of creative consciousness. Studio time and  energy swerved and began to focus on American political disorder that was to evolve into social conflict at the end of the Trump presidency.
 
Ideas about putting function to form gathered momentum through the summer of 2017. Confrontations between President Trump, the democratic party, and the media was becoming a daily joust in the media that concentrated its reporting on every facet of the Trump administration and spreading into the congress and the separation of powers set out in the Constitution. Trump accused the democrats of being on a witch hunt and calling out journalists as enemies of the state for reporting "fake news" even though they were presenting factual events being gleaned from his administration. The media accused Trump of lying to the people and abusing his powers as President. Trump called the media "a national threat to democracy". The Democrats in congress began to press for investigations looking for truth. Republicans pushed back using the "witch hunt" defense. Political confrontation escalated to the point that lines were drawn and both sides were in attack mode claiming each other of lying to the public. I found this turmoil fascinating and my creative process was colliding with reality on a daily basis.

Before 2016, I was interested in exploring human communication beginning with the premise that all human communication could be understood as a streaming dialectic between truth and lie. The premise was that any communication uttered had a 50% chance to be the truth and a 50% chance to be a lie. It seemed to make sense that both forms could be equally weighed as both served an outcome. If valid, then the notion that communication as truth should be challenged since it is only half of the probability. But, it would threaten the institution of law and order since truth is at its foundation.  This thought process continued through the summer of 2017 while considering the "things" for creative potential. It was late August when the media exploded with non-stop analysis and criticism of the Trump administration's activities. Creating a collision with my thesis of a balanced dialectic and  morphing it into an investigation of how the lie was becoming an overpowering form of communication and opening the possibility that  truth had become a mute concept. By January 2017, alarmed by watching our democracy weakened from a constant stream of disingenuous attacks from the Trump camp and their intense rebuke of anyone who disagreed with their narrative, the studio was ready for a function follows form process that focused on this national conflict.

I had volunteered to teach art to refugees in Greece for three months starting in January 2017. It was to be a safe place to journal, formalize studio ground rules and work out ideas in my journal. While volunteering on the Island of Lesvos, there was a museum that had restored ancient ceramic floor mosaics from both Greek and Roman eras. The use of symbiology in them, as both aesthetic and social instruction, caught my attention.  I also took time to explore preserved artifacts of early Athenian democracy. Both were influential in journaling through those cold months. The Greek economy was struggling and many Greeks had to make sacrifices.  The house I rented a room in was a good example. Having limited income for meeting expenses, the owner couldn't afford heating. The months from Jan. through to March were bitterly cold. It was a miracle I thought to bring my down sleeping bag. As a result, I would spend most free time at a pub or coffee shop thinking, journaling, and meeting with new found friends, or huddled inside my sleeping bag waiting for mornings to come so I could go to the heated office of the NGO where I volunteered.  

Throughout the stay in Greece, the communication dialectic worked its way through nightly journaling. Being alone and without social responsibilities, I was completely free to think and scratch out ideas. One night at a favorite pub, I got into a discussion with the owner Apostoli, who was curious about my constant journaling. During the conversation on dialectics, he remarked that the journal seemed to be focused on the lying side of the dialectic and that my thinking might be one sided. Going home that night, I realized that my Greek friend was right. The journal was not a balanced dialectic weighing the yin and yang of communication. It lead to the realization that the social fabric in America was out of balance and trending dangerously toward chaos. It seemed to be succeeding.
 
This was the turning point for how I looked at the "things" in the studio after returning from Greece in April 2017. I resolved to explore the use of lies as the "function" of the things waiting in the studio and my task was to assign a visual expression for each "thing" that would highlight real-time events of the Trumpian narrative. The first work started was "Democracy Mosaic". The experience in Greece influenced the idea to explore a tiled ceramic floor mosaic form to function as a representation of  American democracy by using color, and shape symbolically. I researched symbiology in "The Secret Language of Symbols" A visual key to symbols and their meanings: David Fontana  to resource how symbolism has been used in the past. From notes taken, I began to create a symbolic representation of democracy in the form of a classic floor mosaic. The outer boundary of red and blue rectangles represented the coming together of two equal perfect squares and the two main parties. Inside that boundary is a second layer of equilateral triangles representing male/female with holy heaven and earth referents, as well as the three branches of a balanced government. Inside the triangular border are found 50 squares made up of 50 small rectangles representing the union of individual states. There are, as part of the union, 5 blank squares that represent the unknown future. The corner stones of the mosaic are four black squares comprised of nine smaller black squares. They represent the supreme court and the nine justices. Etched upon each black corner is a labyrinth representing the difficult journey needed to find "the way" to truth.
 While completing "Mosaic", Democrat investigations of the Trump leadership exposed deepening threats to our democracy. Liberal elements within congress were finding that President Trump's exercise of his office was manipulating the rule of law with disregard for the checks and balances of our Constitution. It was during the Mueller investigations May 2017-March 2019 that the title for the whole body of works became," Canary". The idea was that our 45th leader was "THE" canary in the coal mine whos singing instead of being a warning about  an unsafe environment, was having an opposite effect. Unfortunately as the canary kept singing, much of the nation was becoming mesmerized by the hypnotic singing  via MAGA rallies. This body of work is about a canary, who's nonstop singing, has created a siren's song and a significant portion of the nation failed to head the dangers of a siren as noted in the 12th book of the "Odyssey". We failed in our duties to protect the Union. We had on mast to tie ourselves to for protection. This body followed the trail of the "Siren" as he blazed a destructive path though the Constitution picking up important pieces along that path.







 






 This series began as a philosophical thought process in the late 70's and as time passed the curiosity over its meaning kept evolving and developing. It wasn't until the 80's after earning a MFA at City University in NYC that I had time to read more and explore some of the important thinking that was going on around the English speaking community of thinkers. While keeping a working studio on the Bowery, My reading collided into an argument between two intellectual camps known and the French School and the Yale School. They were involved in a deep argument over what each felt was the rudimentary sign of intelligent humanity. The French School claimed that it had to be LOGOS/the word since without it humanity couldn't communicate and cooperated effectively to survive. The Yale school claimed that the essential sign of intelligent humanity was PHONOS/the sound because sound and listening precluded language. 
The supporting argument of the French School made these claims. 1. LOGOS had its initial beginning as a scratch. The scratch referred to  a mark made on a surface. Their argument stated that the "scratch", in its nascent form was created by creatures on the surface of their environments as a way of getting from one beneficial place to the next. As time went on, and more scratches/trails were created around the various lands, it became clear that one had to learn the scratch/trails as a form of survival. Knowing which scratch led to drinking water and which led to the saber tooth den was a process that had to be learned. As such, the beginnings of human coordination was used as a tool for community. On the other hand, the Yale School countered with an equally valid proposition. They claimed that PHONOS was the beginning of human community because survival on any type of terrain in the beginning depended on human's ability to listen to the sounds of the environment and be able to distinguish what each sound ment and how to respond. Thus, each kind of sound carried a message that needed to be correctly responded to. According to the Yale School, It was through the process learning the sounds of the land, humanity developed an vocabulary that evolved into speaking. Therefore PHONOS was the beginning of us all.
This argument had a huge impact on how I looked at existence and I put a great deal of thought into it as well as struggled with the notion over quite a few cold beers. The question I had was, how does that effect me and my creative process or does it have any relevance? As a romantic, I felt the need to connect with a cause or "raison d'être". I chose LOGOS. As crazy as it sounds, I connected with the word scratch. As an artist or any artist that has claimed to be so, can easily identify "the scratch" as an essential and almost primal act of making art. To lay charcoal to paper and feel it interacting with the tooth of the paper with the intent of visually saying something to others feels like early humanity creating scratches in the earth that say, "This way to the swim hole and that way to the berry bushes. Just like my scratches on canvas intend to tell a story, those trails also told stories to those who took the time to read them. 
In this series I am interested in the idea that LOGOS transcends the written word because it is also a visual phenomena. Because a word, when printed, has both meaning and can be seen it has a dual purpose. This investigation is curious about adding a third possibility as a visual. I am asking my creative process to see if I can take simple words and create a visual plane that can be read as a word with specific meaning, use the word repetitively in such a way that its interactions cause intense design dynamics that render it for its visual appearance, and finally the words chosen, being void of sentence structure, actually tell a story for the viewer. 



  

MAGAZINE TITLE

Gnome Sequence:  series 2022

Portrait

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Acrylic on canvas 20" x 36"

AGAZINE TITLE

This was a work that was tied to the Democracy Project and was a transition away from a focus on the social chaos of American social disorder. While working out ideas for the base of the installation "Archeology of the Top 10%" I became fascinated with the visual power the word grid and its visual chaos. As the work on "Portrait" progressed, the word chaos worked its way into the composition and eventually overtook all other considerations that I had been thinking about. The work "MAGA Ghost Flag" began the "Democracy Project" series and it turned out that a flag ended the series. In the new sereies, the core creative element was how to focus on words, It became essential that the choice of words was crucial. The first three words chosen were: USA, Pledge (as in "I pledge allegiance"), and People (as in "We The People"). When the January 6th assault on the White House occurred and the investigation/testimony of Capitol Hill officers was broadcast, the words of officer Michael Fanone "Get his gun, and Kill him with his own gun" were blended into the composition. It expressed the intense contrast between a timeless ideal and the in the moment reality of American society. 

TRUTH #1

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Black impasto acrylic paint on upstretched cotton canvas, 56"x 26", 2023

Having transitioned away from the "Democracy Project", one word stuck with me and I decided to make an image using the word "Truth" in three different font sizes to create a visual texture with the interplay of the fonts competing for visual space. Once all of the lettering had been penciled onto the canvas, I began to understand where all of the visual chaos was coming from. There were two factors at play. First was the negative space behind all of the lettering and second factor were in the class of letters fighting for visual space. Because each font size was applied to the canvas in grid form there was uniformity to the font size. But when other fonts were applied in similar grid form a form of visual chaos appeared on the picture plane. The chaos appeared all over the canvas creating a kind of temporal confusion of the brain when looking at the work. That part of the brain that deals with visual interpretation was working overtime trying to make sense of the chaos. As cognitive beings, we aren't necessarily aware of that process as it is connected to the "fight or flight". Since there is no threat, the brain doesn't activate the limbic system. It might even be a pleasant experience for the brain to be in that state. I began to call these places in the image  where the letters fight for visual space "micro conflicts" and there were thousands of these places where the letters of one font partially obscured the letters of a different font  as the brain tries to order and "read" the words. 

   Evaldi

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Acrylic on canvas32" x 44" 2021-22

While completing "Truth", I was intrigued by the texture that was coming from all of the chaos and decided to make that more physical than visual. Relying upon works that were completed while working in my studio in Manhattan, I decided to use some of the texture techniques used then. As I was preparing the canvass, an incident happened in a small community in Texas called Evalde where a confused and angry young man senselessly entered an elementary school with a gun and killed 21 innocent children and adults. As the news played out over the next few days, it became clear that those individuals responsible for keeping the school grounds safe had massive failures in procedures which brought the citizens of Evalde Texas to go into the streets and protest. Their cry for justice to the politicians rushing to the scene to deliver their condolances, the news media fludding the community, the law enforcement officials, and the school administration was "Sorry Is Not Enough". Having to experience this kind of tragedy over and over in communities throughout the nation, I decided to tell this story using those words. I also decided to use only white paint as in White Wash of the pain.  

 Fence

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 Fence 30" x 37" 2022-23

While completing "Evalde", I began to think of other ways of looking at texture and text. The previous two works were in monochrome and I wanted to combine white and black paint to see how they would work. I also wanted to choose words that were broad and universal in their reading for meaning and settled on (you - me) (us - them) words as being open ended for meaning as well as relating to how difficult it is in today's world culture in managing pluralism in the masses. Additionally, I was curious about challenging a conventional technique of starting with the background and working forward. My question was, "what would happen if I started the with foreground and worked backward and approached this work with that process in mind. As I had worked all the way back to the field behind the words, I had reached the moment where a decision had to be made about what to do with it. The first thought was to paint it black and began to paint behind the letters starting at the top working my way through them to the bottom of the canvas. It was a slow and painstaking process that took a great deal of time. After about 3 days of filling in the background, I had completed just about the top half of the work with a slight diagonal running down to the right. I stopped painting and looked at the black diagonal for 3 or more days. Something was telling me to look at the canvas. Finally, I began to see two interesting possibilities in the work. One was that the black background began to look like the Silhouette of a mountain scape. The second was that the words began to appear as though it was a chain link fence. I went with that thought and began to make the changes that would bring out those possibilities. I accentuated the words and their diagonals to subtly suggest a fence and I made the mountain scape much more craggy. I was seeing  this work was an allegory for the possibility of a changing world order based upon multiethnic diversity being held back by their inability to understand and tolerate diversity from redefining the landscape 

More

More

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 More 47" x 59" 2023-24

As the background was being worked out on "Fence", a new canvas was being prepared. I was curious to see how would words and micro conflicts work at a larger scale? Would larger lettering actually have the same chaotic visual energy or would it have a different energy? Second was the continued interest in the idea that the purpose of words is having meaning and by extension, printed words as have visual authority to the reader and I wanted to expand on that. While going through the canvas prep process there was a horrific human crisis going on in the world. First was the invasion of Russia into the Ukraine and the second was the Israeli leadership laying siege on Palestine. It seemed that as each week pressed on, the atrocities in both confrontations became more and more tragic. After giving a great deal of thought to these events, it was decided to focus this canvas on these human crises.
To address the Russian situation I chose two words,  "Убийство", meaning to kill and the word, "Отбраковывать", meaning to cull. In my mind Putin's war goals were two fold. One was to take over Ukraine and make it Russian by using lethal force and the second was to empty his prisons, gather up Russian rabble, send them into the front lines and cull his population of deadbeats.
In choosing two works to represent what many around the world could identify as being an accurate appraisal of Israeli goals I chose the Yiddish words, "ויסמעקן", meaning to eradicate and the second word, "פאַרניכטן", meaning to exterminate. I also included the word "Kill". All of the words were individually arranged into grids with diagonal offsets and font sizes across the canvas. Then the offsets were treated with additional rhythm structures achieving additional visual chaos push pull in the picture plane. I was looking for a different visual chaos as the previous works done so far and to explore if different language structured words worked as micro conflicts and their ability to be read for meaning.

3 Degrees 

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Acrylic paint and charcoal on upstretched cotton canvas, 74"x 60", 2024

3-Degrees ( rectangle detail)

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While applying the fine tuning to "More", there was a flurry of emotionally cruel discussions happening in the media that seemed to be focused on the fact that America was being "invaded" by immigrant murders and rapists. Surrounding this issue was a handful of other issues like government spending, inappropriate  public education, and individual lifestyles. I decided to use this aggressive dialogue as subject matter for the next investigation. I also wanted to explore the lettering font even larger to see how it worked. Another goal was to present the layering of words in a different way by adding another repetitive element. While sizing and mounting the canvas, and getting ready to apply the rabbit skin glue and gesso I was curious about the standard process one goes through in order to prepare to apply an image which is to stretch the canvas, apply the glue, and then gesso the surface enough to get the kind of smoothness wanted the imaging process. I took a different route/process just to see if it would effect the final image. Therefore I began with the raw canvas and applied the pencil drawing of all the lettering first. Then the clear synthetic barrier was applied over the drawing. Then each individual area (background, lettering) gesso was applied which turned out to be a very laborious and slow process. 

    In applying the drawing, there were two technical goals. First was to take the  font grids and apply them in a 3 degree angle. The first grid to the left, and the second  grid 3 degrees to the right with the third grid being horizontal. The words chosen to be incorporated into the work were (Hate, Angry, Tolerance, Knowledge). In working out the design aspects, the story being told became the influence on how everything would be arranged. From years of teaching high school students with learning behavioral challenges, I had developed a philosophy that the humanity of any culture has to acknowledge that everyone has within them the capacity to be angry and be hateful. Through  generations, cultures pass on civility as being the social standard. The strength of a culture depends on how well everyone keeps hate and anger compartmentalized and controlled through having the ability to show tolerance over the those external forces that are not understood. The way  tolerance is sustained is through the passing on of core knowledge that prepares individuals to function with stern compassion for the good of the culture.
    As I arranged the words to be used supporting the notion suggesting something has gone terribly wrong with keeping hate and anger in check and it was making its way to the surface to alter the stability of the culture, I began to work out the positive/negative space dynamics. It was decided to put the word grid "hate" and "angry" into a 3:1 height/width rectangle to separate it from the other two words. Before working the canvas, I was thinking, "convention says that I start with a finished gessoed canvas, apply the drawing, and apply paint starting at the background and paint my way forward as an established process. Curiously I asked what would happen if I began  the front image and worked my way to the back image which I decided to do. First was to gesso the lettering on "Knowledge" in flat black gesso. Before that I took charcoal stick and traced over the words hate and angry inside the rectangles thinking they would be painted later. When I got to the  Tolerance grid there was a pause. While standing back to asses the how it was going visually, I began to like the idea that the raw canvas added an additional visual element to the work. I left the Tolerance grid bare and painted the background in black gesso. After completing that stage of the work, I began to see things in the canvass that stood out and needed to be resolved. First issue was that I have areas of blank canvass that hadn't been gessoed. There was the rectangle grid with the hate/angry grid inside it. I decided to paint the backgrounds of the rectangles in white gesso but thought it would be interesting to leave the charcoal lettering of the hate/angry grid alone.  By this time the idea of raw canvas being an integral element in the composition was a good decision. I felt it enhanced the overall visual and it would give viewers something to consider when looking up close at the work as part of the visual experience.
    With that stage completed, it was time to attend to how I could go beyond the micro conflicts and create texture to the work. It was decided to use the three states of paint (flat, satin, gloss) to see if manipulated, would create an kind of subtle texture that would be visually interesting. I also used layers of clear gloss acrylic in places to amplify the contrast. This took a great deal of effort and a number of layers were needed to reach a point that looked right. As this process was painstakingly being layered on, the presidential campaign was going full blast in the media and the dialogue coming from many sides was reaching extreme levels of vitriol and hate and accusation. I began to think that my original idea of compartmentalized antisocial behavior was beginning to break through civil rational idea exchange to the point that it was controlling the tone of social narrative pitting neighbor against neighbor. As a result I decided to take three of rectangles and pull them out of the background and physically extend them in space in front of the canvas as being symbolic of what was happening to the American story in real-time. The title for this artwork comes from a concept that was acquired as an education administrator. A presenter, at a training I attended, was introducing the idea how little changes can create massive change using the analogy that it only takes 1 degree Fahrenheit to convert hot water to the boiling point steam and how it relates to maintaining a positive learning environment. In this work, as each grid is tilted 3 degrees to the left and right, their actions tend to visually cancel each other and each grid looks horizontal. They balance each other out; but if something upsets that balance, like three small elements that are intended to challenge the balance, what will happen? That is the story of "3 Degrees".
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