CASHBACK and Venus Retrograde

When I was a girl, I was undecided if I should go to art school, or study music, as I had played the piano since the age of 4.

I was ambitious, and my sole dream was to be a fashion designer. I had been writing to Schools of Design, Fashion Design, colleges and universities from the 7th grade!

I have never had any other life goal other than to be an artist. I never wanted marriage, kids, real estate, 'stuff'. I wanted to make art.

My beloved Mother, always the practical person, urged me to go to nursing school. She reasoned that I could always find employment in the health care field.

Horrified and balking, I sought the counsel of my equally-beloved, engineer, opera-devotee Father.

Here was my Father's reply: "Study and create art, as this world needs more beauty".

As I progressed in school, going on to graduate school, eventually teaching at the University level, making my way on the exhibition circuit, showing and selling my work, I was very happy and focused.

Circumstances in my life drastically changed, and I eventually became employed in a more "practical" field.

It is not easy to be self-supporting as an artist!

So, I went off to work in a completely different direction than I had ever envisioned.

I few weeks ago, just as Venus went retrograde, I watched an indie film entitled "Cashback".  I did not know what to expect, but the film delighted me with its subtle message that is communicated in a very unpretentious, but excellent  manner.

The film focuses on a young artist named Ben, who is suffering insomnia from a recent break up with his girlfriend.

Ben, who learned to appreciate beauty at a tender age, develops a technique to 'freeze time' in a way as to 'capture beauty'.

I want to illuminate that the young artist's appreciation of the beauty in this world lifted my spirits.

There is so much in this material world that feels painful to me, especially these days.

I regularly restrict the news that I watch or hear, avoid unpleasant entanglements, any ensuing drama, and generally force myself to avoid many human beings for periods of time.

I cope with the suffering and pain in life by sleeping, making art and soap, enjoying my animals, watching the birds at my feeder and tending my gardens.

I find these pastimes to be peaceful, and as close to the natural world as I can get in my urban setting.

The most enjoyable times of my life (and work) have been spent in solitude and silence.

Therefore, "Cashback" held a special lesson for me:  There is considerable beauty in the world.

Is it possible to reconcile an "overly sensitive" nature with the pain of this world by focusing on prolonging the beauty that is in everything natural?

Wish me luck.

I will probably do just fine until I have to drive the car.....and someone crosses my path.
In Love, Truth and So Much Beauty.....

7 Signs You're An Empath

7 Signs You're An Empath

So... is there a "Plan"?

Most of my adult life has been weighted in anxiety. I am a worrier....need I say more?

In retrospect, my childhood was gloriously filled with wonder, magic, make believe, the ability to see angels, spirits and a profound understanding of the reality of fairy tales. I had an unshakable sense of security which resulted in loads of self confidence and an odd reservation around other humans.

These days, I hear and read the phrase "All is as it should be", which gives me pause. 

Many times, it is only in looking back that I understand the aforementioned phrase.

Tonight, as is my custom, I routinely went outside to look after the dogs. 

The weather was cool and pleasant. 

The air was still.

I looked up and saw a crystal-clear sky with a few bright stars.

For a brief moment, I was transported back to the days of my childhood. I wondered why the stars were not falling from their celestial spots, or why I was able to stand upright on this constantly spinning rock called earth.

Why?

In that instant, I fully understood that all is indeed in Divine Order.

....and it was comforting! 

It was as comforting as I felt when my much-beloved parents were alive.

That flash was transformational.....and I have no idea why it happened or what triggered it.

But for a split second, I truly and deeply knew that "All is as it should be".

In Love, Truth and Beauty......

From Whence Doth the Creative Spark Ignite?

How do you like the title to this post? A bit of mirth to start my pondering words about an extremely complicated question:  What ignites the creative spark?

Over my lifetime, I have puzzled over this question. Oh, and 'what is the meaning of life' and 'what is my purpose' and 'what is death'? You know, the small stuff.

I have heard many answers to "what ignites the creative spark"  from 'the creative drive being likened to giving birth' to 'creative people must create', or, rather, it is an inherent trait that cannot be nurtured, presented, gifted, or taken away - it simply is.

Let us not forget that "necessity if the mother of invention". 

Another popular answer to the query - and one that cannot be denied categorically - is that creative people are often at their most prolific when moving through one of life's inevitable dark events.

Do misery and suffering spark creativity?

So many well-known artists have had dreadful, hideous lives strewn with hardship.

Perhaps enduring hardship promotes artistic expression of the soul's anguish that cannot be expressed in other ways?

I will probably never know the answer to my question, although I am certain that whatever gives rise to creativity is of infinite complexity, varying from individual to individual.

It is here in my musing that I am reminded of Eva Hesse, one of my personal favorites artists of-all-time and a woman that I admire beyond the words on this page.

After emigrating from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands and then New York, Eva Hesse studied at Cooper Union and Pratt Institute, eventually earning a BFA in painting from Yale School of Art and Architecture under Josef Albers. The year was 1959.

Soon thereafter, Eva Hesse started a small revolution by recycling materials and evolving the two dimensional painting canvas into a three dimensional sculpture. 

Eva Hesse ca 1959 (Stehen Korbet)

My well-worn book, Eva Hesse by Lucy Lippard, is inscribed with the date of July, 1978. I purchased it at a Soho bookstore during a summer spent in NY.  It is one of the few books that I still keep on my shelf.

Many art historians like to refer to Eva Hesse in terms of her hardships. I like to refer to Eva Hesse in terms of her strength, perseverance and accomplishments.

Born in 1936, Eva escaped Nazi Germany, watched her parents divorce, struggled with depression and a failed marriage, the suicide of her mother, the death of her father and her subsequent loss of life in 1970 due to a brain tumor.

Is it in spite of Eva's pain that she thrived in the male-dominated art world, becoming one of the torchbearers of Post Minimalism? Or, did her star rise because of her personal hardships?

Having been fortunate enough to see several of her works and posthumous exhibits, I can verify that Eva's work is spectacular. There is a light in her fiberglass pieces that positively emanates from within and without, dancing through the sculpture, becoming part of the whole.

Right After (1969)

Eva Hesse is famous for her use of materials that are intrinsically worthless - recycled electrical wire and masonite. Alchemy at its finest! 

One of my favorite pieces is entitled Hang Up (1966). Witty and charming, the piece is primarily composed of  acrylic on cord, cloth, wood, steel.

Hang Up (1966)

Later, Eva's trademark media became latex, plastic, fiberglass. These materials disintegrate over time ... and there is poetry and metaphor  in that process.

Repetition Nineteen III (1968)

I remember a comment about Lippard's Eva Hesse made by a painter friend many years ago - "Every woman in the grad program at art school had that book".

One of the dirty little secrets of the art world, in my opinion, is that it is one of the last bastions of male dominance.

In the real world, racial discrimination is at least talked about. This gives hope that the world is taking a step towards resolution.

Alas, in the art world, gender bias seems to still be the modus operandi....which simply leaves me more in awe of Eva Hesse and her numerous accomplishments.

What constellations came together that allowed the world to behold (even for a short time) such talent, beauty and grace?

In Love, Truth and Beauty .....

for more information on Eva Hesse, please visit evahesse.com and thejewishmuseumofart.org.
a search of "Eva Hesse" will yield additional images of work 
Images herein are reproduced from the Estate of Eva Hesse
Thank you 

Still Life, Moving Pictures and Hannah Wilke

I have not posted on this blog for an extended period of time.

Several persons near and dear to me have passed and my creative process has a peculiar ebb and flow. I write my words in earnest and after much consideration.

These words have become my primary "high" art form these days.  I take the written word very seriously.

I have been having vivid and quite lucid dreams. I dreamed (re-lived, actually) some years of my youth when I was brave, courageous, optimistic - and anything and everything was possible.

I was happy, intoxicated with all that "could be" in this life time.
I so yearn for the attitude of my youth, that I unashamedly lived with a certain reckless, fearless and carefree abandon.

Alas, many of the key players of my youth are deceased now...and my life took turns that I never could imagine in my glory days.

I do not not know if I can achieve that fearless mindset again in this life. Absurd in a way, as rationally, the longer you live, the more fearless you should become.  In my case (and, I suspect in many others), it is the opposite.

The more I know, the longer I live, the more fearful I grow.

I endeavor to change this...and live in the moment - but time seems to move faster now....

What to do? 

Wait for the "next life"?

Most people concentrate their energies on their family. This is right and just. 

But, is this a distraction from one's own life and death? Or a continuation of life after death in a sense? A way to trick the mind into delusions of such immortality? 

Being childless (by choice), I live a "still life". The moving pictures belong to other people. I am the  constant observer, a voyeur of sorts....parts of me have been 'stilled' due to the pain of loss, grief, (perceived) abandonment, being alone. Emotional scars that go unseen to others, but are personally felt, nonetheless.

I have been thinking about Hannah Wilke, an artist that I so admired, and her absolutely astonishing work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Wilke

I still remember the first time I saw Hannah Wilke's "Scars"... a photo of her nude torso covered with wads of chewing gum. An ode to the very real fact that we all experience pain and suffering in this life. We bear it internally. Hannah reminds us that internal (emotional) scars are every bit as real as the external (physical ) scar we show to the world from surgery, a bloody brush with a thorny rose bush, a cut, grief, a broken heart, loss, pain, hurt.

Hannah Wilke objectived her own body in her work.  Her "Scars" evolved into a series entitled "Scarification". This was early conceptual work at its best!
After she was diagnosed with cancer, Hannah exposed all of the physical effects of her chemotherapy before her premature death.

Hannah Wilke was a beautiful, courageous, brave, strong woman. When facing her eventual mortality, she exposed herself to a world-wide audience - scars and all.

In Love, Truth, Beauty....

Images courtesy of Artnet and Wikipedia

Tribute to Jane Blaffer Owen

Dear Reader,

I am greatly saddened to report that Jane Blaffer Owen died a few weeks ago. 

So many influential people in my life have died recently that I simply have not felt moved to write a decent or worthy post.

I hope you understand that I cannot describe many personal details about Mrs. Owen at this time. I hope that in time, I will be able to put into words how I knew her, and recount a little of what she accomplished in her very BIG, wondrous life. 

She was the real deal. The stuff legends are made of ... a visionary who actually realized those visions.

I am posting one of her many obituaries herein. The following article originated in The Houston Chronicle. They have hit some of the highlights of her extraordinary life.

I will always remember the vision of Mrs. Owen driving a horse drawn carriage around New Harmony when I was living in that area. Her long blond hair, untamed by her sun hat, flowing.

She was a visionary, a treasure, and her absence will be conspicuous.....and felt by many of the people she so freely inspired.

The Houston Chronicle

June 26, 2010 

Jane Blaffer Owen's memorial service will be in Houston next month, where she grew up in eccentric splendor as an heiress to both the Humble and Texaco oil fortunes. Surely there will be talk of the good things that she supported in this city, many of them at the University of Houston.

But her greatest effect, everyone will agree, wasn't on Houston at all, but on a place that could be considered the anti-Houston: New Harmony, Ind. — a tiny, historic, spiritual town.

Owen met New Harmony in 1941, during her honeymoon. The hometown of her husband, K.D. Owen, it was the site of two - two! - long-gone utopias.

Harmonie was founded in 1814 by the Harmonists, a celibate religious group that emphasized hard work and sound building. Ten years later, convinced the world was ending, they sold their town to a pair of secular idealists who hoped to found a new "Community of Equality." Rechristened New Harmony, the town was to be a progressive gathering of scientists and intellectuals, and so idealistic that it banned the use of money. It lasted three years.

By 1941, New Harmony was a bedraggled little town, but its history resonated with the idealistic, spiritual Owen. She poured her considerable fortune and energy into the place, shoring up its lovely old Victorian buildings and adding works by cutting-edge architects Richard Meier and Philip Johnson. The town took on a Marfa-like vibe, based on spirituality instead of art. It became a place for seekers.

And it came back to life. The American Planning Association praised New Harmony as a "cultural town," resisting the homogenization of America. The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded Owen its highest honor.

Late in her life, in an interview with the Houston Oral History Project, she described New Harmony in relation to hectic, fast-changing Houston. She invoked Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces": In myths across the world, Campbell argued, heroes go on quests and return with gifts - "boons" - for their fellow man. "I felt that if I had any boons for Houston," Owen said, "I would have to bring them from that little town."

The most obvious of those boons is still being installed. In 1963 Owen commissioned visionary architect Frederick Kiesler to design a meditation grotto for New Harmony. Its centerpiece was to look like a giant shell - a no-right-angles design so far ahead of its time that it was deemed unbuildable. But in 2008, with Owen's support, a class of UH architecture students used 3-D design software and digital fabrication to do what once could not be done. Their interpretation of Kiesler's design now sits next to UH's architecture building, awaiting benches and a garden.

"It is going to be an oasis for the busy students at UH," Owen said with satisfaction. A meditative, spiritual place, a piece of New Harmony in Houston, it will be her last boon to our city. And we are grateful.

This post is dedicated to Jane Owen, Patron Saint on Earth to so many mortals.

Mrs. Owen, as I called her, was a force that helped shape my life in more ways than I can list here.

I have no idea what would have become of me without Mrs. Owen's hand in my life.

In Love, Truth, Beauty and Loss....

Amazing Vedic Astrology

Here is a very interesting blog to follow

http://myindian-vedicastrology.blogspot.com/

And this is the website...

http://indian-vedicastrology.com/wordpress/

In Truth, Love and Beauty....