South Writ Large

One of the proudest projects I've completed lately was "Future Conditional", commissioned by the wonderful online magazine South Writ Large and its wonderful editor Kathryn Doss. 

Below is my artist's statement about this project and below that is my response to the magazine's biography prompt: name 10 things you can't live without. Below all that is a link to the project on South Writ Large's website.

FUTURE CONDITIONAL

Lynching. Lynching. It means an extrajudicial murder, usually carried out by a mob, usually to bring what that mob thinks of as “justice.” Usually, but not exclusively, the method of lynching is hanging. Usually, historically, there were other means used as well: beating, shooting, evisceration. Usually, traditionally, it was perpetrated by mobs of white Americans, white Southern Americans against Black Americans: including women and children, but men mostly; it didn’t seem to matter. In California, mobs lynched Chinese-Americans, white Americans were lynched, Mexicans, Jews, Italians, Native Americans too. The list goes on. As Bobby Kennedy said, “A mob asks no questions.”

As Abraham Lincoln said, “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.” And yet, mob law persists, perpetrated by racists or bigots or zealots in the name of religion or politics, fundamentalism or conservatism or fascism or xenophobia or just plain hatred, and encouraged by clerics and cult leaders and police chiefs and even by the president of the United States. According to an investigative article in the Guardian, between 1885 and 1915, an estimated 2,812 black men were lynched.1

From 1920 to 1938, in front of the NAACP headquarters in New York, a banner was hung on days when its message was literally true; its message was: “A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY.” It’s not clear how many times the banner appeared, but Wikipedia reports that it was flown “73 times in the period for lynchings in the state of Georgia alone.”2

Flag, announcing lynching, flown from the window of the NAACP headquarters on 69 Fifth Ave., New York City. Library of Congress.

Rodney King asked: “Can’t we all get along?” Eric Garner and countless others provided a grisly answer to King’s question with their final words: “I can’t breathe.” It’s a tragic call and response that has always undercut America’s claim of “liberty and justice for all.” Over and over and over again.

Sadly, lynching is as American as apple pie. Or peach pie. Or pecan pie. What a horrible legacy for a country to have. For MY country to have. We’ve always grappled with our baser instincts, our instincts for revenge and intolerance and vigilantism, but at some points during my life, it seemed maybe things would get better. Right now, late 2020, I’m a little hopeful even. Maybe it’s just my nature, maybe it’s the enduring power of the #BLM movement. Maybe it’s some strange feeling that, post-Trump, the pendulum of hatred can and will swing back into the realm of love and acceptance. Not all the way, mind you (my expectations are not that insanely hopeful), but, you know, just a little bit. And maybe even a little bit more later on.

Still, that hasn’t happened yet, and lynchings are still happening. Cutting lives short in the name of some perverse notion of justice or even in the name of law and order. Each life cut short had potential attached to it, the potential for a human to become something, to help others, to change the course of history or to simply make someone smile. Each lynching erased all such potential.

* * * * * *

That’s what this project, “Future Conditional,” is about, in a nutshell: imagining the lives that might have been led if they hadn’t been cut short. Each lynching erased the potential these lives had and, in these few “historical” marker mock-ups, I both create and commemorate what might have been. I’ve been making art in this vein for over a decade, subverting the format of the historical marker to highlight some of America’s most pressing political and social issues. To see my work in this vein, click here.3

* * * * * *

A procedural note: I made up each name. Pulled from thin air, or something I read long ago or wherever. Any similarities to persons living or dead is pure coincidence. I made up, obviously, their future lives, as bakers or lawyers or fathers or what-have-you. I tried not to make them all remarkable, and, in fact, for me, the most moving ones are the most ordinary. I made up their ages, too; the only part of each piece that is factual is the reason that they were attacked. So many lynchings were perpetrated for so many petty reasons. It’s almost as if there were a blood thirst amongst the populace and a switch that turned it on with the slightest touch. I chose a victim mix of Black and white and unspecified (though most of the unspecified were, in my head, Black, as the majority of lynching victims were), a mix of male and female, various ages, and though the places are not mentioned, the murders I highlighted happened in Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

I did all the inventing for a number of reasons. There are plenty of historically accurate listings of lynchings that can be found with a simple Google search. I easily could have used actual names and actual details of lives cut short, but those people have actual living relatives somewhere and I did not want to co-opt their family history for my own art project. Also, my hope was that making them more fictional would make them more universal. Because, sadly, this kind of violence is universal.

Lastly, the dates on the markers range from 1965 to 2020. I reasoned that actual historical markers are put up anywhere from a few years after the event they mark to a few decades after. I used 1965 as the earliest date because it was the year of the Selma to Montgomery marches and the infamous “Bloody Sunday” attack on Civil Rights marchers, led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams. I used 2020 in order to reference the Coronavirus and to signal that lynchings continue to this present day.

A personal note: This stuff is so very horrible. Researching these atrocities is emotionally trying, crying is common. It shakes a soul to know what humans can do to each other. It shakes a white man’s soul to know what other white men have done and continue to do to Black men and to others and even to each other. It shakes a parent’s soul, a sibling’s soul, a son’s soul, to imagine the abrupt loss of life and the sad tragic impact it would have had on loved ones. It shakes an American’s soul to know that all this hatred made manifest is not just our past, it’s also our present.

Now is the time for all of us to be, not just not a racist, but to be actively engaged in becoming an anti-racist, in the hope that racism and its horrible manifestations are not a part of our future, too. (Click here to watch Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, talk a little bit about this pro-active stance.)

A little note for the grammarians in the bunch. “Would have been,” as used in some of these imagined “historical” markers is the “perfect continuous conditional tense.” Still, I liked “Future Conditional” as the title, as it both invites the consideration of verb tense names and sums up the focus of this project.

 

1 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/27/lynching-naacp-photographs-waco-texas-campaign

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_man_was_lynched_yesterday_flag

3 https://currenthistoricalmarkers.blogspot.com/

South Writ Large artist's bio:

Norm Magnusson

Raised in Cincinnati and educated at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Norm Magnusson lived in Atlanta before moving to New York to work in advertising, which he eventually left to pursue a career as an artist. He has shown in galleries and museums in New York and New Zealand, London, Normandy, Paris, and all over the United States. He is in private and museum collections, including MoMA, the Museum of the City of New York, and the New-York Historical Society and has been reviewed everywhere from the New York Times to the Washington Post to the Utne Reader, Sculpture magazine, TrendHunter.com, and other national and international magazines, websites, and blogs.

As a curator, Norm has brought together exhibitions such as “FU,” which examined and illustrated U.S. fair use laws as they pertain to visual artists; “The Museum of Controversial Art,” which re-created some of the most controversial art through the ages; “Beautiful nonsense,” an exhibition of absurd objects and art; “abc@WFG,” a survey of text-based art, and “Abstract Evocative” a show of abstract painting and sculpture at WAAM in Woodstock.

As an educator, he’s taught art to underprivileged kids in New York City and overprivileged kids in Woodstock, New York. He cofounded FISHtheMOUSEmedia, a developer of educational apps for iOS, where his “Animal alphabet” app was honored with a prestigious Gold award from the Parents’ Choice Foundation. Norm serves on the board of  directors of CultureConnect and GoodJTDeeds and is the father of three wonderful kids, all of whom are especially talented at seeing the world around them with appreciative eyes and a grateful heart. That’s totally his proudest accomplishment.

Ten Things I Can’t Do Without

1. My kids. My life was perfect; and then my kids came into it and, somehow, it got even better. They are so inspiring and trying and fun. Like most parents, I think, I love hanging out with them more than anything in the world.
2. My friends. I’m 60. Single. Wake up every morning all alone and work most every day all alone. I love seeing or being in touch with my friends; for lunch or dinner or coffee or tea or kayaking or tennis or cocktails, for talking things through or listening while they do the same, for their patience and guidance and steadfastness. I love them so. They know who I am; they’ve seen me at my best and at my worst and yet somehow, they still like me anyway. What’s better than that? Also: they’re all hilarious.
3. Opportunities for creative expression. Like this list. Like the opportunities that are available to me just by dint of being an American.
4. My various communities. Friends and acquaintances, friends from high school or college who are politely politically opposed to my liberal goals. Even those people who are aggressively opposed to all that. Amazing people on various boards I work on, co-volunteers, folks in my tennis world, the people at my local supermarkets and liquor stores, and the toll booth person at the bridge. Parents of my kids’ friends, artist friends and that whole community. I love knowing them all and being known by them in return. Many are super inspiring, many are super kind, and almost all of them have a smile in their heart.
5. Tennis. I love playing this game so much.
6. The Hudson Valley. Been here for 16 years. It’s really so gorgeous and inspiring.
7. My tools. My watercolors, my computer, my pots and pans and pie tins and 8” round cake pans, my smart phone, my car, my bed and pillow and kitchen table. Tools for how I live my life.
8. A place to use those tools.
9. My health. Duh.
10. Gratitude. I’ve found, the older I get, that my attitude of gratitude really truly enriches my life. It becomes pervasive, and feeds more gratitude, and that, in turn, fuels joy and contentment and perspective and compassion and a whole raft of other things that make life better. I was born a white male in America, I spend my life making art, I have wonderful kids and friends and food and shelter and health. I’ve been asked to come up with a list of “things I can’t do without,” and as it turns out, it’s really a list of the things I’m most grateful for. What a treat to spend this extra time taking stock. Thanks for asking.

https://southwritlarge.com/articles/portfolio-future-conditional/

Art appreciation in Putnam County

Well, not long ago, I was asked to juror a member show at the Putnam Arts Council. Maybe a couple hundred artists who had entered their work into this annual exhibition. So much fun getting to see such a wide range of art and creativity and soooo hard to judge. I mean, who the fuck am I to judge this stuff?!? But they were paying me a few shekels to do it and I can always use a few shekels, being an artist myself. So, I dropped the humility and self-doubt, stepped up and narrowed down. From 200 or so pieces to 5 or 6. And a grand prize winner. Which was a cat portrait that I just kinda loved. After I got home from this happy day of judging, they asked me to write something about the judging. And so I did. And I liked it. So here it is:

 It’s the best job in the world and the worst job in the world at the same time. Pushing my personal whims and tastes through a room full of beautiful art made by inspired artists. What goes, what stays? What are my feelings today? Am I in an abstract mood or a representational mood, did I just have a bad experience with a squirrel or get in a tiff with a photographer? Are my emotions a little bit close to the surface because I didn’t have any breakfast and the coffee was weak and my blood sugar is low? 

There are so many factors that affect any person’s feelings at any given point in time and I beg you all to forgive me for the state of my artistic tastes as I walked through this room a handful of times the other day trying to decide what art I was especially liking at that particular point in time.

 

Take (artist’s name here, please) who painted this cat. Seriously, it’s a pet portrait and I’m mostly not crazy about pet portraits, but this one is different. Something about it grabbed me the first second I saw it and wouldn’t let go. I can’t tell you where its power comes from but i also can not deny that it has a power over me that made it my favorite piece in this show.

 

Or this artist’s book entitled “(please insert title here)” by (artist’s name here, please). So beautiful an idea and so delightfully executed. The drawings are unique and ownable by this artist and the story they tell is so fun to move through.

 

There are so very many pieces I loved in this show . . .  this spare yet engaging figure drawing by (artist’s name here, please), this really remarkably rendered squirrel entitled “(please insert title here)” by the ridiculously talented (artist’s name here, please) or this fantastic bird painting by (artist’s name here, please), which, though not a style I am especially drawn to, is so beautifully painted that the talent alone made me keep coming back to it again and again.

 

Finally, there’s this portrait of a woman. It’s a little bit reminiscent of Balthus, whose figures each tell a story and evoke interpretation in much the same way as the Mona Lisa. Who is this woman? What are the clues the artist has given us as to her identity? What is she looking at? Thinking about? It’s a wonderful painting and as I sit at my desk back home, I’m not so sure that it wasn’t my favorite of the show but hours earlier, it was not. 

 

So here we are: the ever changing whims of art appreciation. It’s one of the most wonderful things in the world to experience a piece of art differently upon different viewings or listenings or tastings or whatever. It’s why art can give us so much joy on a daily basis and it’s why choosing which art should be in an awards show and which art should not is the worst & best job ever.

 

I hope everybody keeps making their art and want to thank you all for sharing it with the Putnam Arts Council where I was so lucky enough to see it.

Big ideas - You don't know the whole story

In first grade, my kid Daisy went to a nice private school in NYC's West Village. It was so lovely. Expensive, but lovely. There were a lot of very wealthy people who sent their kids to that school and the Steuben's (Names have been changed here just for kicks.) were some of them. She was a little mousey and sweet and, I think worked full time as a mom to their kids, and he was the son of one of the richest men in the world and, I think, worked in the family business. He had his own driver take him everywhere in a huge black Suburban and, well, ok, even if that seemed a little bit much, I guess that's what rich people do, so, whatever. Now, I'd spoken to him (let's call him Robert) some (we each had a kid in the same class) at school events, fundraisers and whatnot and he always seemed friendly enough in those situations, but in a daily, casual situation, it was completely different. And it was irksome.

He and I would pass each other a few times a week in the narrow hallway as we were walking our kids to class or leaving afterward. And I would always give him a nod, a little smile and upward shake of the head as if to say "hey! There you are! We know each other! Hello!!" and he would just ignore me. Over and over and over again. So I started doing a more exaggerated nod and a bigger smile and probably even engaged my eyebrows in the silent salutation. I'm sure I eventually looked like an aggressive clown in my attempts to get this chauffeur driven douchebag to return my greeting. But he never did. And I started to see him as a dick.

One evening, in the midst of all this, me and the missus were out for cocktails with John and Olga and we were dishing on the school and the other parents and whatnot and the subject of the Steubens came up. And how nice they are and how they're so supportive of the school and whatnot, and I shared my dissent: that he's a douchey snob who can't even engage in the common courtesy of returning a hallway hello. I shared my story of ever-escalating nods and smiles and eyebrows and getting ZERO in return from this Robert guy. I shared my opinion that he was NOT a nice guy at all but was, rather, in fact, kind of a jerk. Everyone appeared surprised to hear this, including my missus who, when I'd finished my mini-rant, turned and matter-of-factly said to me:

"You know he's legally blind, right?"

I did not.

"Yeah, he even has a driver, 'cause he can't really see."

Yeah. Huh. No, I did not know that. Any of that. And I was kinda shocked. And maybe a bit embarrassed. But I got this story out of it, anyway. A great story. Illustrating that, ever-so-often, you just don't know the whole story. One doesn't know the whole story. OK: I don't know the whole story. Which is actually a great place to be, 'cause if you're there, then it's possible that you might just learn something. Or at least, get schooled.

Worthy

 

Well, it's been a good year for my art, getting a little steam, especially for the 'historical' marker sculptures, and the other day I got this email:

Hi Norm,

My name is Helen, I work with an educational organisation called Creativity & Change based in Crawford Art College in Cork, Ireland. We run a post-graduate course, as well as lots of other training and events exploring art's place in addressing social and global justice issues. It's a really great alternative and forward-thinking programme that I think is pretty important and unique.

I am writing to you because we are creating a publication that shares the insights of certain changemakers and socially engaged creative practitioners on how art and imagination are best placed to support our futures in this mad world. I love your work and think it would be amazing if you were interested in adding your voice to our book. It could be as simple as submitting a few images and words, or something you had previously written that you feel is a fit. We have some interesting submissions from some great contributors already, including the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins.

You can see all the information here:

https://www.creativityandchange.ie/invitation/

Thanks for reading, hope to hear from you,

Best wishes,

Helen

on behalf of the Creativity & Change team

 So I clicked on the site, where there were further instructions and it seemed they were looking for writing, from socially engaged artists, about how this is a good moment for art in our societies. A topic I'd been thinking about ever since late March, when the pandemic first hit and I did this: https://samiamchef.blogspot.com/ and then the "Pandemic Heroes" sculpture below. So I wrote a piece for her journal and sent it in and now I wanna post it here. So I won't lose it, I guess, since, realisticaly, I doubt anyone reads this blog except me!! Here's the essay:

WORTHY 

When the pandemic hit, I found my worth. 

 Despite having dedicated thirty or so years of my life to creating art that sought to engage its viewers aesthetically or intellectually or even emotionally; despite having spent decades creating “art of social conscience” and writing, repeatedly, that I hoped it “might help people think about some of today’s most pressing issues from a different point of view”, I had historically and chronically undervalued the role of art in the world, including the role of my art. For me, making art had always felt more like self-indulgence and less like anything approaching public service.  

* * * 

 In the early days of March and April 2020, we were all being told to stay home and shelter in place , but, for many, that was not an option. Those people: cops and firemen, doctors and postmen, garbage men, grocery workers, nurses, farm laborers, and other “essential workers”, kept going to work, either by choice or by mandate. They kept working on behalf of all of us who still needed to eat and still needed to be kept safe and healthy. They truly seemed to be the everyday heroes of this difficult time in uncharted territory and I wanted to celebrate their dedication by creating a new piece in my ongoing “On This Site Stood” series (in which I subvert the format of historical markers in order to add the weight of historical importance to contemporary political and social issues). 

“Pandemic Heroes” 

 The actual sculpture (above) is cast aluminum and acrylic paint and stands 96” high by 36” across by 4” deep. But prior to becoming an actual sculpture, it was a Photoshop mockup and a postcard. 

* * * 

 One day, I took some of these postcards with me to the supermarket to share with the workers there. After my checkout person finished ringing up my purchases, I pulled the card out of my pocket and gave it to her. 

 She looked confused, at first, that I would be handing her something. A postcard. Then she looked again and seemed to recognize that it was one of the familiar blue and yellow historical markers that are all around us here in New York state. Then she read it. And I could see in her eyes when she understood, intellectually, what was written on it, and when, a moment later, she had a deeper, emotional response. Her eyes glittered and softened toward tears and then got wide and excited and she asked if she could keep it and ran off calling to her friend, a few registers down: “Hey Johnnie!! Look at this!” 

 And then I softened. And I softened all the way back to the car and softened into tears and I felt, maybe for the first time ever, how important art could be to people. And how important art could be RIGHT NOW as we navigated this new world in which we were all living . . . 

 - To help us process the way it seemed things were going to be for the foreseeable future, 

 - To deal with the attendant loss of the innocent living that so many of us had probably taken for granted right up until then, 

 - To provide a humorous or aesthetically rich diversion from all that newly necessary processing that we had to do, and/or . . . 

- To create a sense of community at a time of division and danger. It was an amazing moment for me to feel so clearly the actual utility of art (including my art!) in our lives and in our society. 

 * * * 

 But there was another strange feeling that came along in that moment as I sat in the car. And I only bring it up here because I think it may resonate with other artists who might be reading. Mixed in with the pride of that moment was the overwhelming feeling that I was not worthy. A strange thing to feel but there it was; and one of the ways I’ve looked at it and think I’ve made sense of it over the subsequent months is this: 

 My art can accomplish things that I can’t. 

 Or: my art is better than I am, more worthy than I am. I know that doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, it’s MY art, after all; I made it, I brought it out of my head and heart and into the world. But even though something inside of me won’t allow me to take all the credit for it, I feel like it would be weird to not take at least some of the credit. And so I do . . . 

 Here’s my attempt: I make art. And I see now that art in general and my art specifically can really, truly help someone smile or be proud or feel other things and maybe just maybe, can help them to “think about some of today’s most pressing issues from a different point of view”. And if that’s worth anything at all then certainly I must be too. Right? 

 * * * 

 words and images by Norm Magnusson 

(more examples from my “On This Site Stood” series are below.) 

“Unarmed Black Men” 

 “Tim Rands” 

 “Roger T.” 

 “Black Americans” 

 “Education Department”

It was chilly this morning and I put on a jacket I hadn't worn since spring....

...in the pocket was a whole bunch of stuff. At the bottom of it was $150 I'd forgotten about or given up for lost. It brought to mind this poem, which comes to mind often.... 

"I’ve Always Had Problems With Money"

Charles Bukowski

I've always had trouble with money
This one place I worked, everybody ate hot dogs and potato chips in the company cafeteria, for three days before payday
I wanted steaks
I even went to the manager of the cafeteria and demanded that he serve steaks, he refused
I'd forget payday, I'd had a high rate of absenteeism
And payday would arrive and everybody would start talking about it
"Payday?" I'd say, "Hell is this payday? I forgot to pick up my last check"
"Stop the bullsh*t man"
"No no I mean it!" I'd jump up and go down to payroll and sure enough there'd be a check and I'd come back and show it to them
"Jesus Chris I forgot all about it!"
For some reason they'd get angry
Then the payroll clerk would come around
I'd have two checks "Jesus," I'd say, "Two checks?" and they were angry
Some of them were working two jobs
The worst day it was raining very hard
I didn't have a rain coat so I put on a very old coat I hadn't worn for months
And I walked in a little late while they were working
I looked in the coat for some cigarettes and found a five dollar bill in the side pocket
"Hey look," I said, "I just found a five dollar bill I didn't know I had, that's funny"
"Hey man, knock off that sh*t"
"No, no I'm serious really, I remember wearing this coat when I get drunk in the bars. I've been rolled too often I've got this fear, I take money out of my wallet and hide it all over me"
"Sit down and go to work"
I reached into an inside pocket, "Hey look, here's a twenty! God there's a twenty I never knew I had I'm rich!"
"You're not funny, son of a b*t*h"
"Hey, my god, here's another twenty! Too much, too too much. I knew I didn't spend all that money that night, I thought I'd been rolled again"
I kept searching the coat
"Hey here's a ten and here's a fiver! My God!"
"Listen, I'm telling you to sit down and shut up"
"My god I'm rich I don't even need this job!"
"Man, sit down"
I found another ten after I sat down, but I didn't say anything
I could feel waves of hatred and I was confused
They believe I plotted the whole thing, just to make them feel bad
I didn't want to, people who live on hot dogs and potato chips for three days before payday, feel bad enough

Chef I Am. From April 2020. My first pandemic project

One 'chapter' a day for the month of April, 2020. Retelling the classic kids book
from the point of view of a new character: the curmudgeonly chef.

Follow along every day on twitter, facebook or instagram!
@NormMagnusson

(Click on any image to view it bigger.)

day 1

day 2

day 3

day 4

day 5



day 6



the "House Rules"



day 7



day 8



day 9



day 10



day 11



day 12

day 13

day 14




day 15

day 16

day 17

day 18

day 19

day 20 (on April 20, 2020)

day 21

day 22

(the Yelp review)

day 23

day 24

day 25

day 26

day 27

day 28

day 29

day 30

86 Chef I Am

A poem

Storm

You hear the rain coming, passing over treetops. 

And maybe you can imagine the precious little noises, nearly imperceptible, 

made by the abrupt dissolution of individual raindrops 

as they crash against bright green leaves,

but what you hear is all of them all together: 

innumerable moments creating a chorus celebrating life’s only certain song.

Big ideas - pizza

I love this story so much, and like lots of these 'big ideas' it pops up as being appropriately illustrative from time to time and in various situations. Here it is. My mom told me this:

A woman walks into a pizzeria and orders a large pie with three toppings on it. Then she grabs a seat and waits for it to cook. When it comes out of the oven, the pizza guy asks her how to cut it: "6 slices or 8?". "Oh", she exclaims, "Six! I could never eat 8 whole slices!"

Big ideas - Getting it wrong

Just heard this on WAMC, our local public radio station, during an interview with Amitava Kumar, (English professor at Bard College) who I saw live, interviewing Jenny Offill last month at Murray's in Tivoli. I love this thought, which he paraphrased and credited to Philip Roth; here it is straight from the source:

“You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. ... The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.”

Philip Roth

Maybe I love this quotation because if reinforces this thought I always tell my kids: Being right is no fun; being wrong is where all the action is, 'cause that's where there's an opportunity for learning. But maybe I'm wrong about THAT?!! One thing for certain: the older I get the more I know that I don't know. It's such a sweet liberation.

primary season

I don’t want an old white man for president. I don’t want a young Hispanic woman. Or a middle aged black woman or a gay man or a rich man or a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a business person or a veteran or a transgender or a queer or any other label you can think of, whether they’ve been historically oppressed or historically under- or over-represented or born into privilege or born into hardship. I could not possibly care less what material the spoon that they were born with in their mouth was made of. Nor do I give even one tiny rat’s ass about their age or religion or the color of their hair or what their voice sounds like or whether they roll in a chair or walk with a limp or run in boots or brogues or high heels or whatever. I don’t need someone who dresses well or smells good or has eyes that are not too far apart and perfectly white teeth. And I sure as shit do not need someone who is like me in any of those unimportant ways. Not. One. Bit. Because the adjectives attached to us rarely define our character and the failure to know that fact brings about a whole raft of ugliness and prejudice and missed opportunities.

I want someone with integrity, a long history of integrity. Someone who tells the truth. Someone who has taken the circumstances of their life and forged them into fortitude and perseverance and dedication to the goal of helping all Americans, not just some small segment of Americans. Someone who doesn’t have their finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, someone who has the strength of their opinions and always has. Someone who can’t be bought and so will never be called upon to sell out my interests to their patrons – many of whom are happy to engage in the most harmful forms of corporate socialism and corporate welfare and for whom the bottom line is almost always more important than the common good. Over-enfranchised string pullers who feel that their fair share of rewards should always be up near the infinite and that their fair share of sacrifice should always be down toward zero.

I want someone who reaches out to their fellow Americans and fellow politicians of any affiliation, someone who builds bridges, not someone who burns them everywhere they go. Someone who is of this country, of our people and for our people yet also knows that we are just one country amongst many – on one particular side of an imaginary and ultimately meaningless demarcation that should never allow us to feel separate from those on the other side of it – other humans living behind their own imaginary lines whose troubles or triumphs we can not even begin to imagine, much less know how to solve. I want someone who understands that we are all here together, breathing the same air and needing the same water, no matter what side of those arbitrary lines we live on or were born on and who, as the saying goes, only ever looks down on others in order to extend a hand to help them up.

I want someone who cares deeply about our environment, not just as a place where trophies can be collected but as a place where life can be sustained. The only place we know of where life can be sustained. And so they fight tirelessly to protect it. All of it.

I want someone who doesn’t engage in fear-mongering and doesn’t idolize dictators or seek to emulate the kind of totalitarian regimes that my father and other American soldiers like him went to war to fight against. Someone who cherishes and respects our constitution and the ideals behind it, not someone who thinks they’re above it. Someone who doesn’t think they are the only one with solutions. A collaborator, a compromiser, someone who is dedicated to finding the best answers to the most important questions, not some wrong-headed buffoon who thinks they have them all already. Somebody with an effortless facility for saying “I never thought of that” or “I was wrong” or “Tell me more, please.” I want somebody who understands the power of curiosity and humility and is dedicated to learning and improving - for themselves and for the entirety of the people they will be elected to represent. 

I want the best listener ever. One who listens deeply and patiently with an open mind and an open heart. Someone who is sensitive enough to shed a tear at the horrors that people or nature or happenstance inflict upon humanity and someone who is strong enough to fight against those horrors and to fight for the weak, the disenfranchised, the tired, the poor, the oppressed and the “wretched refuse of your teeming shore”, even when that shore is not our shore. I want a president who is long on compassion and short on arrogance.

I want a spiritual president: a seeker; not a zealot or a false prophet who would weaponize one faith or another to “appeal to the base” or to appear pious or to appear to be taking the moral high ground when, in actuality, they are only in it for their own personal glory. I want a visionary, who can lead us all toward “a more perfect union” for all, not someone who leads us toward civil war by actively, destructively pitting one American against another. Someone who works to overcome racism and ageism and sexism and every other –ism that leaves most out while only including the few.

I want a woman or a man of some race, some color, some creed and some sexual orientation or gender identification who is tall or short or fat or thin or young or old but who is deeply and genuinely dedicated to representing my interests, the interests of my fellow American citizens, and the interests of all of our fellow frail humans living here together on this beautiful fragile planet.

That’s what I want.

big ideas post - oxygen mask

Today my friend Kwellin called me up, she was feeling as if she should be doing more, helping more people (her job as a social worker is all about helping people who suffer from mental illness - no comments please about why she's friends with me....). She needs a lot of down time, as many people do, and fills some of that time with idle entertainment, books, magazines, Netflix, etc. and sometimes she feels guilty about it. But she needs downtime and I always liken this kind of self-care to those announcements they make on airplanes that . . . well, here:

You can't help others if you're not taking care of yourself first. Really. Self-care is not a luxury; it's essential and if you're looking for a brief indulgent creative interlude, check out this in-flight safety video from Virgin Airlines: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zo2c0!!

Less is more*

For years and years, I would quote the great Taoist philosopher Lao Tse, saying "to define is to limit." (And I can't lie: there's a certain agreeable satisfaction to ocasionally whipping out a germane arcane quotation from an ancient eastern holy man.) To define is to limit. It's a notion that almost every thoughtful writer or visual artist (at least those who are engaged in the creation/communication of metaphor) must consider in the course of their practice . . . how much do I give away versus how much should I not. And exactly how much credit should I give the viewer/reader? For me, early on, I gave my hypothetical reader a name: "the thoughtful viewer" and my paintings were made with this person in mind . . . mildly educated, not too daft, but elementally curious about things -- puzzles, how shit works, metaphors, etc. That's my viewer, akin to Seymour Glass' "fat lady" but, perhaps, a little more on the ball. Anyway, it turns out that it wasn't Lao Tse at all; it was Oscar Wilde who gave us that quotation that I'd misattributed for so many years and which popped into my head this morning in the bath when I was reading a water-logged New Yorker and found this:

from The New Yorker, Dec. 10, 2018, article by Joan Acocella:

"The book artist Edward Gorey, when asked about his tastes in literature, would sometimes mention his mixed feelings about Thomas Mann: “I dutifully read ‘The Magic Mountain’ and felt as if I had t.b. for a year afterward.” As for Henry James: “Those endless sentences. I always pick up Henry James and I think, Oooh! This is wonderful! And then I will hear a little sound. And it’s the plug being pulled. . . . And the whole thing is going down the drain like the bathwater.” Why? Because, Gorey said, James (like Mann) explained too much: “I’m beginning to feel that if you create something, you’re killing a lot of other things. And the way I write, since I do leave out most of the connections, and very little is pinned down, I feel that I am doing a minimum of damage to other possibilities that might arise in a reader’s mind.” He thought that he might have adopted this way of working from Chinese and Japanese art, to which he was devoted, and which are famous for acts of brevity. Many Gorey books are little more than thirty pages long: a series of illustrations, one per page, accompanied, at the lower margin or on the facing page, by maybe two or three lines of text, sometimes verse, sometimes prose."


I love the way he puts it. The fresh spin (for me): "if you create something, you’re killing a lot of other things". It's a new way of thinking about this thought that I've been thinking about  since I began my career as an artist. It's even the subject(ish) of the funism manifesto, (click there to read) which is entitled "clarity versus poetry".

A related thought comes up in John Guare's wonderful "Six degrees of separation", when one of the main characters, Flan, an art dealer, says this:

 Flan Kittredge : This is what I dreamt. I didn't dream, so much as realize this. I feel so close to the paintings. I'm not just selling, like, pieces of meat. I remembered why I loved paintings in the first place, what got me into this. I thought... dreamt... remembered... how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He paints and paints, works on a canvas for months, and then, one day, he loses it. Loses the structure, loses the sense of it. You lose the painting. I remembered asking my kids' second-grade teacher: 'Why are all your students geniuses? Look at the first grade - blotches of green and black. The third grade - camouflage. But your grade, the second grade, Matisses, every one. You've made my child a Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade. What is your secret?' 'I don't have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them.' 'I dreamt of colour. I dreamt of our son's pink shirt. I dreamt of pinks and yellows. And the new Van Gogh the Museum of Modern Art got. And the Irises that sold for $53.5 million. And, wishing a Van Gogh was mine, I looked at my English hand-lasted shoes, and thought of Van Gogh's tragic shoes, and remembered me as I was-a painter losing a painting.'

I could go on and on and on about this, but, you know, that would take all the poetry out of it. Which is my natural propensity: to over-explain, to repeat to the point of redundancy. To go on. Needlessly.  My natural propensity and, quite possibly, the enemy of art. Did I already say that?


*In some cases, sure, like this one. In so many other cases, that overused phrase is just bullshit at a minimum and, at the extreme . . .  manipulative pablum meant to sway the masses into being happy with their underfunded attempts at emotional/financial/intellectual sufficiency. (But don't get me started on the sad state of this self-destructing late-stage capitalist experiment of ours.)