Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Text
Here's an article that ran (with edits) in the F-Press on June 28, 2007.
So maybe it's because I'm listening to sad music and it's raining while I write this. Or, maybe it's because someone I've always admired at a distance, through some of my closest friends, passed away this week at 27 years old, after a long struggle with lukemia.
But whatever the reasons, this week I'm wondering about whether art really has any meaning at all.
It's a rhetorical question, of course, because if art had no meaning, we humans wouldn't have been making it since the beginning of time.
No--we make art, and think about it, and hang it on walls, because it moves us somehow. It teaches us something, makes us feel like things will be okay, or like things are every bit as awful (and beautiful) as they really seem to be.
So all of these thoughts were with me in different ways when I biked over to the Winnipeg Art Gallery this week, to look at a show of works from their vast historical collection.
The oldest paintings, European works from six hundred years ago, are almost entirely paintings from Christian history--works showing Jesus and the saints.
Behind that, though, as the keen observer will realize, artists of every age manage to convey pathos, anger, debauchery, sexiness, and deep spiritual doubt into works that, on the surface at least, were only about religion.
In works by 15th century Dutch artist Cranach the Elder, or an unknown German artist's painting The Martyrdom of St. Catherine, tiny details hint at larger narratives. The positioning of a hand, the direction of the eye, or a recognized art symbol like a flower, or a peach, helps tell a story that's about more than just Jesus and the saints.
Move forward four hundred years in time, to when the Impressionists cast a long shadow over art.
Almost every work in the exhibit from this era bears their stamp to some degree, from Dorothea Sharpe's 1902 work In the Orchard, celebrating the nobility of daily labour, or Bernard de Hoog's charming, romantic scene The Proposal.
Again, as with the earlier religious paintings, these artists work within what at first seem to be narrow borders, but still manage to depict the whole range of human emotions.
Shortly after this time, in the 1920's, a Winnipeg artist named L.L. Fitzgerald spent some time in New York City, and was influenced by the Post-Impressionist art of the day.
Back home in Winnipeg, shortly before joining the legendary Group of Seven, Fitzgerald created Potato Patch, Snowflake, a painted scene from his grandparents' farm in southwestern Manitoba.
Like others, Fitzgerald shows the nobility of daily work, but with a whole scheme of colours, ideas and designs that artists before his time would never have thought of.
He, too, though, was a product of his time--better than many artists, perhaps, but still influenced by trends, ideas, and demands of his day.
And just like artists since the beginning of time, he was using the art forms of his day to work through these same ideas that we've all wrestled with.
For Fitzgerald, it meant that he stopped painting these types of landscapes not long after this work was created. Instead, he embarked on a two-decade experiment with abstract art, trying to find the divine through nature and paint, trying to answer these same questions.
He once said: "The idea is not to simply reproduce things (in paintings), but to start with their centre, their spiritual core, and to build the image outward from there."
Where the spiritual core of paintings might be, or the spiritual core of life, for that matter, can sometimes be a bit of mystery. And yet my late friend understood it better than most: "I' m begging you--think about your funeral every day," he once said in an email. "In some ways, it's all that really matters."
His funeral, however he may have imagined it, is tonight.
And so that, of course, has something to do with all of these musings about centuries of art, and why they might possibly matter. But that's me--you might see this show completely differently, depending on where you're at right now.
So maybe that's why art always has and always will matter to us--it speaks to us across these perceived differences of time and culture, tells the same basic stories, asks the same basic questions.
Good art (and bad art, too) provides us with some kind of record, something that says we were here once, and that we lived and tried to understand some things about the workings of the world. And for reasons that we still don't really get, all of that seems to matter a great deal.
So maybe it's because I'm listening to sad music and it's raining while I write this. Or, maybe it's because someone I've always admired at a distance, through some of my closest friends, passed away this week at 27 years old, after a long struggle with lukemia.
But whatever the reasons, this week I'm wondering about whether art really has any meaning at all.
It's a rhetorical question, of course, because if art had no meaning, we humans wouldn't have been making it since the beginning of time.
No--we make art, and think about it, and hang it on walls, because it moves us somehow. It teaches us something, makes us feel like things will be okay, or like things are every bit as awful (and beautiful) as they really seem to be.
So all of these thoughts were with me in different ways when I biked over to the Winnipeg Art Gallery this week, to look at a show of works from their vast historical collection.
The oldest paintings, European works from six hundred years ago, are almost entirely paintings from Christian history--works showing Jesus and the saints.
Behind that, though, as the keen observer will realize, artists of every age manage to convey pathos, anger, debauchery, sexiness, and deep spiritual doubt into works that, on the surface at least, were only about religion.
In works by 15th century Dutch artist Cranach the Elder, or an unknown German artist's painting The Martyrdom of St. Catherine, tiny details hint at larger narratives. The positioning of a hand, the direction of the eye, or a recognized art symbol like a flower, or a peach, helps tell a story that's about more than just Jesus and the saints.
Move forward four hundred years in time, to when the Impressionists cast a long shadow over art.
Almost every work in the exhibit from this era bears their stamp to some degree, from Dorothea Sharpe's 1902 work In the Orchard, celebrating the nobility of daily labour, or Bernard de Hoog's charming, romantic scene The Proposal.
Again, as with the earlier religious paintings, these artists work within what at first seem to be narrow borders, but still manage to depict the whole range of human emotions.
Shortly after this time, in the 1920's, a Winnipeg artist named L.L. Fitzgerald spent some time in New York City, and was influenced by the Post-Impressionist art of the day.
Back home in Winnipeg, shortly before joining the legendary Group of Seven, Fitzgerald created Potato Patch, Snowflake, a painted scene from his grandparents' farm in southwestern Manitoba.
Like others, Fitzgerald shows the nobility of daily work, but with a whole scheme of colours, ideas and designs that artists before his time would never have thought of.
He, too, though, was a product of his time--better than many artists, perhaps, but still influenced by trends, ideas, and demands of his day.
And just like artists since the beginning of time, he was using the art forms of his day to work through these same ideas that we've all wrestled with.
For Fitzgerald, it meant that he stopped painting these types of landscapes not long after this work was created. Instead, he embarked on a two-decade experiment with abstract art, trying to find the divine through nature and paint, trying to answer these same questions.
He once said: "The idea is not to simply reproduce things (in paintings), but to start with their centre, their spiritual core, and to build the image outward from there."
Where the spiritual core of paintings might be, or the spiritual core of life, for that matter, can sometimes be a bit of mystery. And yet my late friend understood it better than most: "I' m begging you--think about your funeral every day," he once said in an email. "In some ways, it's all that really matters."
His funeral, however he may have imagined it, is tonight.
And so that, of course, has something to do with all of these musings about centuries of art, and why they might possibly matter. But that's me--you might see this show completely differently, depending on where you're at right now.
So maybe that's why art always has and always will matter to us--it speaks to us across these perceived differences of time and culture, tells the same basic stories, asks the same basic questions.
Good art (and bad art, too) provides us with some kind of record, something that says we were here once, and that we lived and tried to understand some things about the workings of the world. And for reasons that we still don't really get, all of that seems to matter a great deal.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Saturday, December 06, 2008
aspiration
you already are what you are
and you are not they
however close however far
and the words that poison
and the touch that stabs
are immaterial
and what they are after
does not really matter
if you do not aspire to be
and just are
you already are
even if you can't see it
so you just have to do
and it will be
and you are not they
however close however far
and the words that poison
and the touch that stabs
are immaterial
and what they are after
does not really matter
if you do not aspire to be
and just are
you already are
even if you can't see it
so you just have to do
and it will be
Friday, December 05, 2008
translation...
hey-- wait. listen.
it's not that i'm following you, or that i'm nothing but an old hippie.
no, no, no. not at all.
well, ok, a little, and both.
krikey! a new poem? a bit? the both?
my back (untranslatable-- the name of a popular drag bar) is better. and you? you're the best.
but what's "kiff"? i saw that in a text message in a film called "paris" with juliette binoche.
d'oh.
but the rest of it--life, saloon, and all the other stuff--it's (or they are) too serious.
yes.
too serious.
sincerely, your good friend,
etc etc etc.
it's not that i'm following you, or that i'm nothing but an old hippie.
no, no, no. not at all.
well, ok, a little, and both.
krikey! a new poem? a bit? the both?
my back (untranslatable-- the name of a popular drag bar) is better. and you? you're the best.
but what's "kiff"? i saw that in a text message in a film called "paris" with juliette binoche.
d'oh.
but the rest of it--life, saloon, and all the other stuff--it's (or they are) too serious.
yes.
too serious.
sincerely, your good friend,
etc etc etc.
stuff and other things to know, part 2 (chapter 86): A letter from St. Concordie to Ste. Amilie-du-Abitibi
hey-- attend. entendre.
c'est pas que je te suivre, ou que je suis rien qu'un vieux hippie.
non non non. pas de tout.
well, ok, en peu, les duex.
criss! une nouvelle poeme? en peu? les duex?
mon dos (ma-do?) est mieux. et toi? t'es la meilleur.
mais c'est quoi "kiff"? j'ai vu ça dans les textos, dans un film qui s'apelle "paris" avec juliette binoche.
aie.
et la reste--la vie, et saloon, et tous les autre choses--c'est (ou ils sont) trop grave.
oui.
trop grave.
sincerement, ton vrai ami,
st. concordie-de-maisonneuve.
c'est pas que je te suivre, ou que je suis rien qu'un vieux hippie.
non non non. pas de tout.
well, ok, en peu, les duex.
criss! une nouvelle poeme? en peu? les duex?
mon dos (ma-do?) est mieux. et toi? t'es la meilleur.
mais c'est quoi "kiff"? j'ai vu ça dans les textos, dans un film qui s'apelle "paris" avec juliette binoche.
aie.
et la reste--la vie, et saloon, et tous les autre choses--c'est (ou ils sont) trop grave.
oui.
trop grave.
sincerement, ton vrai ami,
st. concordie-de-maisonneuve.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
a poem for my grandfather
asleep you taste
the cloves on your tongue
asleep you dream
the books are ignited
asleep you dream
the ideas are fading
asleep you stir
the sheep are bleating
asleep
he is on the floor
quietly, the men come
the door of no use
you knew he would
leave out the window.
the cloves on your tongue
asleep you dream
the books are ignited
asleep you dream
the ideas are fading
asleep you stir
the sheep are bleating
asleep
he is on the floor
quietly, the men come
the door of no use
you knew he would
leave out the window.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Vive la nostalgie!
These two are my absolute favourite, I remember them to this day... it's a shame, but the second one doesn't seem to be available in full-length on youtube - so in it's place, here's the obligatory Manitoba vignette:
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