I found this on Blog Nosh Magazine, from You Tube. Enjoy!
Hint: Turn off the radio on the left so it won't interfere with the audio here.
October 18, 2008
October 05, 2008
Gawker Gold Mine of Young Artists
The lovely, brown, teacher tornado, mochamomma (currently in Blog Respite), pointed me in the direction of Gawker where I found, among other things, a small gold mine of art. To wit:
Tabitha Bianca Brown says,
"Art does not need to be deep. If I like a subject, I paint it. If I like a color, I use it." I do not know if this is a self portrait but I was very drawn to both the subject and the colors. There is a nice review of her work on Precious Style. Here is a work by Corey Corcoran. This is what he has to say about his style: "Found photographs usually provide the springboard for my work. I collect discarded strangers' albums, snapshots from my family's archive, and historic photographs from my hometown. Typically, these photographs are seemingly innocuous pictures of past holidays and milestones. Through painting and drawing, I attempt to unearth additional or varied meaning."
Visit his web site. He's a prolific and impressive young man.
Other Gawker Artists can be found on the Gawker website.
October 04, 2008
Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult
I have read several of Jodi Picoult's books, my favorite still being My Sister's Keeper. In Keeping Faith, Picoult has tackled a subject of monumental proportions and placed it in the framework of one American family struggling with issues of love, betrayal, and loss.
I found Keeping Faith to be a compelling story addressing deep issues of belief. Not only belief in the spiritual or religious sense, but belief in the sense of a mother's faith in the visions of her daughter.
Faith White is a seven year old Jewish child of an interfaith marriage who has never been formally exposed to religious teachings or doctrine, begins to hear voices, develop stigmata and to see God in the form of a woman.
The marriage of her parents has been grievously shattered by her father's infidelity. Her mother, Mariah, has a history of serious depression. During these episodes, Mariah has withdrawn emotionally from her daughter, in part because she believes that she is not a good mother. And, in the manner of the self involved, she believes that her daughter does not connect with her.
When Faith's grandmother dies, a miracle occurs. It looks as though Faith's touch has resurrected grandma an hour into her clinical death.
Ian Fletcher is a sort of cross between Jerry Springer and a tent revival preacher. A cynic of epic proportions and a rabidly anti-religious campaigner, he earns his living by traveling the country and the world debunking religious myth on television.
He insinuates himself into the lives of Faith and her family with the motive of getting the real story behind Faith's visions of God. But after meeting both Faith and Mariah, his unshakeable belief in the absence of God is shaken to the core.
The ending left me vaguely unsatisfied. I found myself with seious doubts regarding the reality of Faith's vision. And yet, it is those same doubts upon which faith is based. Perhaps this is part of the genius of Jodi Picoult. Where are the answers, damn it? The answers lie only within the individual human heart.
Perhaps the largest, and most important miracle, is Mariah's discovery that motherhood is not a state of being but a journey together through the vagaries of life.
Picoult's delicately wrought language and her depth of understanding of the flawed human spirit more than make up for any flaws in the story.
September 28, 2008
Hannah's Dream
I admit it freely. I am a sucker for animals. But I have not been big on fiction that features animals since childhood. I almost passed this by.
Browsing in the Denver airport last weekend, with extra time on my hands, I kept returning to this book by Diane Hammond. I suppose it was the picture of the tiny child whispering into the elephant's ear that first caught my eye and continued to draw me back to the shelf.
Hannah's Dream is the sweet and tender story of an Asian elephant, born in Burma, orphaned and partially blinded at a young age, rescued by a kind mahout, and placed with an eccentric American woman by the name of Max L. Biedelman.
Max has long gone to that happy safari trail in the sky, along with her lifelong partner Effie. Samson Brown, a simple man who has known tragedy aplenty in his life, has been her keeper for 41 years.
Sam continues to dream all these years that he is an elephant wandering with other elephants in an elephants paradise. In reality, both he and Hannah suffer from bad feet and a need for something that neither can give to the other. His wife Corrine, who loves Hannah equally well, is the only other human who knows Sam's dream and worries at how the dream tortures him.
Hannah needs respite and elephant companionship. Sam needs rest and a chance to lay down his life burden of sorrow and loss.
A most unlikey cast of characters enter their lives at the Bladenham Zoo where Hannah resides, a broken down, sad and outdated facility. What Hannah and Sam do not know is that this odd contingent holds the key to Hannah's rescue.
I fell in love with each and every character, from Truman Levy, the zoo director of operations and his young son Winfred, their pig Miles, to Neva Wilson the tough, emotionally protected zoo keeper, and her landlord Johnson Johnson who bakes cookies, builds a cat tunnel from his house to Neva's converted garage, and paints the inside of his toilet and sink in beautiful psychedelic colors.
Even the "evil" Harriet Saul won my heart in the end, a lonely woman awkwardly reaching for love and acceptance who finds her calling in recreating herself as the colorful Max L. Biedelman in an effort to revitalize the zoo.
Hannah is the center of this zoo revitalization and the drama that surrounds the efforts to find Hannah a new home drew me right into the maelstrom, breathless to see this story to the end.
This was the sort of book that left me moved and satisfied; a gem to turn over and over in my mind for some time to come.
September 07, 2008
View on Canadian Art
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution
Vancouver Art Gallery
October 4, 2008 - January 11, 2009
I found this nifty group while surfing the net this weekend. VoCA (View on Canadian Art) promotes Canadian artists. This upcoming Vancouver show will feature feminist artists. Among the featured artists will be Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago.
Judy is part of my small world problem. She is the cousin of an old friend, a 60's New York born and bred red diaper baby who had an interesting relationship with the weathermen.
I remember M. telling me "I have this crazy cousin who changed her name to Judy Chicago. She's an awesome artist." What did I know?
September 03, 2008
Jeaneen Carlino
This is a poster from the recent show in Santa Monica by vibrant young LA artist Jeaneen Carlino. Her works are bold, colorful, and thought provoking. I see great things in her future.
September 01, 2008
My Dad
This is my dad and his sister and brother, Janie and Hal, probably taken late in 1935.
They came from a fractured family. Janie never had children. Dad and Hal divorced, creating fractured families of their own. Dad died in 1984 of lung disease. Jane and Hal both died of AIDS.
Hal was gay and spent his last 20 years or so with his male partner. Jane's death would have been unexpected unless you knew that her husband had died of AIDS a few years earlier. My guess is that he was bisexual but no one would ever confirm that for me. The claim was that he contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion in the 80's after a car accident in Detroit.
It does no good to speculate. They are no longer here. As a young child, they were the stars in my universe.
