What happens when a monster is getting ready to do the rain dance and it is not neccesary to do so, and even detrimental to area crops? For those Trickster-dominant monsters, we have the "Don't Dance" Rain Non-Maker Monster. History books have stubbornly ignored their importance in the survival of tribes and their painstakingly nurtured crops.
From my monster pages around April in the mid 1990's. I just named this one Easterman, not only because today is Easter, but because he brings to mind the Easter Island statues. I went bike riding today with my wife in the neighborhood I grew up in and there was a replica about 2 ft. tall of one of those statues in someone's front garden. I will sell this pen and magic marker drawing for $195. I can't tell you why I was compelled to draw some 100 monsters in April in the 1990's.
My drawing "Here" made the International Show. It already won a "Best in Show" Merit Award (Three were awarded) last Spring in the Madison National in Madison Georgia, juried by Sylvie Fortin of ART PAPERS. I explore passionately the relationship between the fragility of the surface - paper, and the harshness of the drawing tool - a pen. The bliss expressed here is a result of a strong devotion to the medium. There is a geometry of the corrugated paper from the rips that contrasts with the seemingly raw "rush through the fields." Paradoxically, I "destroy" the very surface, including the linework, I was creating. Held together by a keen sense of timing, rather a sense of urgency, this is representative of the fast-paced times we are moving through.
Now that my laptop has been stolen and my camera, I will have to go through a lot more trouble to access my pictures to post on this blog. No, I didn't back up everything. I'll have to manually search for material that is boxed up in the "art" room. But some things like saved emails are gone for good. Years ago, around 1990, a similar thing happened, when a friend's trailer I had stored art in was vandalized. One day after work at the factory, I walked through the overgrown grass and towards the tree where the trailer was. Leading up tp the trailer were balled up pieces of paper. My heart dropped when upon closer examination, they proved to be my drawings. This discovery was a hint of things to come - a trailer where my works where scattered everywhere, varnish and paint splashed here and there, and the windows busted out on all sides of the trailer. Perhaps, the most disturbing finding was a few early drawings of human forms imprisioned by box-like framen - they were found stuffed in the bottom of the trailers non-working toilet. I tried my best to salvage them, but it appeared useless. I never found out who did it.
Those little seconds-long installations on a dream begun over twenty years ago is beginning to bear fruit. The rocky steps from the mill, where the call was heard to the opening exhibition of an international show, I knew if I kept with it, didn't give up, I would have a voice, that is directly related to its beginning, that like a seed, unfolds into a strong expression of itself. However simple it is to the human eye, it has a rich tapestry of archetypal patterns. "The world is your oyster," I say in each of these drawings.
The notification call came December 22 - that I was selected for final judging, meaning I'm in the show at least. I should like to frame the work to express a bit of my thoughts on my medium. Something to this effect - "Paper is not a surface, it is my dance partner..."
From the dust-filled, noise-filled, factory floor, where dreams were broken and life beyond this black hole was hardly imagined, emerged my drawing style. A small gesture - mounting a flip-top drawing board next to my machine on the line, sealed my path. My original drawing board was torn down once by management, but weeks afterwards I mounted this less conspicuous flip-top version. Pictured here is a very abbreviated summation of the series that emerged. I will show how hieroglyphic, figurative, and abstract fragments eventually came to completeness in my continued unfolding path towards achieving a voice, a language in the visual arts. I will expand upon it for world-wide exhibitions. Mark my words.
Conceptual works offer food for the thinker. And to a passionate artist, it offers a bit of a counter weight to his/her usual mode of expression. For this proposal to Gillette, I took a piece of aluminum, resembling a chunk off the production line of a number of razors and cut a diamond shape out of it, pointing the upper half towards the sky, revealing a split-level design of the background architectual wall.
Using art to promote a sense of healing and historical commemoration as in the case of the Eradication of Smallpox Monument is the most fulfilling experience. I can put my mind and soul to its best use in concocting a design that addresses symbolism as well as aesthetics and a sense of majesty. I had to work the evening of the submission deadline, but after stopping to get gas and rushing through traffic with my working scale model and my pictures of it, I made it home in time to write the proposal and download the jpegs.
In my piece, I have humanized 4 Bifurcated Needles, the technological heroes of the eradication fight of smallpox. With joined arms raised in a victory stance, these 4 figurative, stylistic needles stick straight into Mother Earth, healing the Earth itself. The concentric rings within the 4 figures representing the 4 "corners" of the Earth, represent the various stages of the disease Mandala-style, from the red initial bumps on to the darkened scab in the center, which I propose to be lifted at the ceremony to reveal a pockmark on the Earth. The rings are composed of beads in the working model, and will be offered as souvenir amulets at the ceremony, to raise money and awareness. For the actual monument, colored rocks from 4 "corners" of the Earth will be utilized. It is an Earth sculpture to symbolize the breadth of the scourge. The raised arms symbolize the wave of life (as on a hospital screen), as well as victory. I've given a spiritual tone to this monument that blends the science, the Earth, and humanity.
"Lunch with a Curator" II is my submission to the 2008 Blank Canvass Benefit at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. The event is by invitation and helps support education & art programming at the center. Last year I did an oil painting for the same event. This year, I created a mixed media piece, complete with fork, brush, plate, clay sculpted into a "ship coming in," as the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey logo is expanded to have an artist with cap joined with a curator wearing a crown. I accented the regal moment as something very special and transcendental, fantasy-like. The piece asks - Can a meeting with a curator lead to something? Can an artist be catapulted out of his financial misery by a single win in a juried art show? It also says something about believing in the power of art. Visualize it and concretize it to actualize it. Believe in the power of art.
I was notified via email that my proposal for the Ella Lyman Cabot grant was rejected. Here in Mass. where I won the Outstanding Drawing Prize in 2007 when the Director of Harvard selected my "Dock with Rope." If ever I needed a grant, it is now. Struggling to make ends meet, I can't afford my little supplies. Thank goodness, shipping for my work for the National Drawing Show, only cost $7.
From thought to image on paper to a fabrication 3-dimensionally out of hard materials. That is the basic steps of this dance of drawing into sculpture. But, time has already become an element of my drawing, before the 3-D elements were considered. So, the process did not flow in a traditional pattern of 2-D to 3-D, to the 4th dimension of time. So, how do I interpret the time element into the heavy mass-laden, sculpture? I have to model it like anything else 3-D.
The other thought is about juried art shows. Should winners be chosen at all? I mean, yes, we could all use a boost to our resume, but should the glory stop at being chosen to be in the show? Does a ribbon encourage a collector to part with his money? Does the selection of a few winners create discouragement in the many others whose work didn't win? I've won cash awards when I could barely afford shipping to the show, so it helped me greatly. Grants can have the same effect. It appears that winning anything may have similar feelings to those that didn't...even stories of someone finding something that others didn't. A career, a wallet, a voice.
Letter to the Editor - "Artistic legacy"
14
Oct 08
8:06 AMCongratulations on Norfolk's unanimous vote for a mandatory set-aside program for public art. Being the first city in Hampton Roads to have such a program sets in stone Norfolk's visionary leadership. Mayor Fraim's undying efforts to push the art initiative echo an artist's own perseverance. Ten years ago, I experienced first-hand the mayor's support for the arts. Having won the grand prize for the First Night Norfolk poster and button design contest, I requested a photo op with the mayor. Despite his busy schedule, he made time for a local artist.
Art goes a long way in making a city more attractive. It also allows artists a chance to add civic pride to their passion. Florence, Italy, is still reaping the benefits of the public art ventures that the Medici family established back in the 15th century.
Larry Samuel Estes
Norfolk
My drawing "Hey Whitney" continues its course, as it will soon make its way to the National Drawing Show at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA. Academy Art Museum curator, Brian Young, says it appears to extend drawing. But words can't do it the justice that seeing it will. Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park, is this year's juror for the show.
A sense of mission underscores all these drawings that I submit to shows. I want to be the best I can be in expressing this flow, this dynamic poetic flow. But it is also a battle there, to keep this dream alive. And so, this pen is likened to a sword, and the quest is little different than Achilles' quest. He flowed with his instrument. He had a mission. He was fearless. My problematic "tendon" is by metaphor, the many distractions that try to tire me, and pull me from my ongoing mission. But that's what we carry a shield for. A shield of Focus, Skill, and Determination.
"Hey Whitney" itself was a drawing done in response to a rejection in the International Show at Summit in 2007. The juror was from the Whitney, from the department of Drawings. That drawing won recently in the Madison National Show in GA, juried by Sylvie Fortin of ART PAPERS. And it will continue shining.
