Babyface is a blessing and a bit of a curse. Indeed the whole idea of good looking people having a leg up in the workplace. When I first taught at the art college I was 24 years old and looking much younger than that, my sense of things was my destiny was with the students, since the core faculty was rather older. I was used for photo ops to make the school look younger more of the times, at the time I didn't realize the degree to which advertising and promotion occupied the minds of the administrators. And to some extent I didn't care I was able to do my work and I was becoming interested in the job albeit as a form of enlightenment, that is to say to bring some light into the darkness of academic fine arts experiences. In some ways I used the teaching paradigm to investigate the visual arts and historical arts and to integrate philosophical ideas and ideas from physical reality, poetry, music with a subset about opera. Indeed I was trying to open up the whole oyster of what to teach what to look into which an especially deep look at contemporary visual arts. Which in the early 1970's were extraordinary for intensity and radicality.
Jpg - portrait of myself from MCAD Catalogue 1970/ Those times were more political than now because of the war in Vietnam and the race riots and the general sense of calamity that you could smell in the air. I was interested in these images designed for children, drawn in pen and ink for inexpensive reproduction. Aside from the general interest in images at the time of pop art in my experience images bring baggage with them (and not just art history) no images open door to ideas and concepts that transend images and mediate them as signs and symbols and signifiers. The mixture of words and images was an earmark of early modern art.And the art of these times also seems to partake of this buffet of words and images . For many years I worked on these large collages all vertical on the same BFK Rives paper I paint my portraits on, they have rarely been exhibited but some people love the raw natures of those collages. Sort of thinking out loud art. These collages led me to the portraits over series of years and works. Some of the earlier portraits have more collage and textures more experimental effects . Like other things I've made these older works have some nasty karma too, fraught with betrayal anger indeed work could be out right violent. But then it's only a movie, it's like a sub-set show me your picture files and I'll show you mine. Art School for me was like a very long movie and not a good movie. Just a passing along of the art schtick. And may Josef Beuys be with you. I met some wonderful people at MCAD made many friends there. I felt like an outsider the art then in the TC was tepid at best, very academic . The Walker was frosty to everyone. Brrrrrr. I was still corresponding with Peter Saul my first solo show here at Minneapolis Institute of Arts really pleased Peter he thought I was on my way. But it was his way ultimately the world needs only one Peter Saul. Which was good for me because he really torqued my view for several years in the 1970's til madness took my T-Bird away. / What I know about madness is it has a stigma. My fine arts professor is at the madhouse but will return to mcad in the fall to teach critical color studies. /
The other Jpeg. is a photo of an installation of my artworks at CoExhibitions/Speedboat Revival Show/party 2012
This is the second part of - A thousand Years and no new punctuation.- Anyway the world is so mixed up these days. Like in the day you knew the enemy was Nixon or LBJ now the gridlock is hurting everybody. One thing I found out later in my illness was the impact of bi-polar brain disorders on relationships and friendships. Often it's very difficult to get along with anyone much less a lover. But the focus I saw in my art in the mid 1980's was very dark and scary. I was seeing my madness drive away love. And my comrades always absent on the bridge. You sort of learn to find a level. I feel more in balance now than in many years. That is even with the gout, which I think is unbearable at times. But better than I felt on the last blog . I was thinking DIY pegleg last week. / I remember the summer I was at MacDowel Colony I arrived on the 4th of July. When I turned on my radio in the barn studio it was Prince's When Doves Cry a slice of TC classique!