... constantly working out the details...

... constantly working out the details...

Monday, June 19, 2006

This weekend we were lucky enough to be joined by sculptor Jon Isherwood from the east coast. While his slides and comments were quite impressive, he seemed to have little to no faith in my generation as a force to be reckonded with socially, politically, or even in the world of art. Which at first might seem offensive to those of you who happen to fall into that lovely 18-30 ish demographic, But the fact of the matter is that he is kind of right. Remember when 2004 was supposed to be the year that the young voters finnaly gave a shit enough to pull themselves away from Comedy central long enough to vote against the man so many of them had sworn off? What happened? No one did, The ideals that isherwood held so strongly of one person changing the world or uniting people in the name of hope has been replaced by a bleak, gray cloud of despair... or is it simply reality? And now adays we can see it.

Jon asked me if i thought that one person can change the world.

"no" i answered, "absolutely not"
"thats awful" he replied

And its true, the most any one person has ever done to change the world is rally a group of people up and create a new faction of thought (a mob). Even that is rarely seen as a sweeping change. Can you name for me one thing that has radically changend in this country in the last 200 years because of grassroots activism?

CIvil rights, womens sufferage, vietnam, the whole no nukes thing, environmentalism, all of these things have been given to the public as a booby prize to subdue radical change. Things improve, sure, but does anybody ever get what they want, do things ever really change? I think the answer is no, not enough.

Take war and peace for example. In the last century, Evil in america hs had many faces. It went from hitler to stalin to communism, and now to terrrorism. (which i will say is a brilliant idea for the bushes, declaring war on inatimate objects and sensations ie. drugs, and terror)

We as americans need a great evil. We need something to fear, because without that there would be no defense budget, no defense contracts, and no war. people would lose a lot of money. ( not the average taxpayer, you my friend are giving your money to the cause) Nothing has changed as a result of this. we have been at war either actually or theoretically with some kind of great evil boogeyman for the last 100 years. Nothing has changed except for boogeyman and the generals.

so maybe that is it, perhaps there is no effort on our part because there have never been results from anyone elses efforts. I think that subcinciously people have realized that even in this great democracy thier voice carries little weight, and as a result they have decided to keep thier mouths shut.

tune in later for the first of my profiles on the other artists at Franconia.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

This Is the story of seven sculptors, picked to live in a house...

The story of Franconia Sculpture Park Where I am spending the next few weeks. The park is run by a sculptor named John Hock, just north of the twin cities in Minnesota. The work is good and the beer flows like, well, beer. There are other sculptors here, from all over the country and even the world, (I don't want to start name dropping yet) and it is good to work with people who are excited about sculpture. I am working here as an intern, along with 6 others (some part time, some full time) and the job is rewarding and enjoyable so far, as I was told it would be by the people who put me up to it, Vince Donarski and Ben Lock, two other talented sculptors from Minnesota and New York respectively.

Any way the park runs like a mix between a studio, gallery and hippie farm commune. (SP?) We cook and clean as a unit, kind of like summer camp. There was a panel dialogue last night with work from two talented sculptors, Mike Mcgillis from Michigan, and Michael Bigger, who taught at MCAD. The evening went smoothly and I can say that the company was as pleasant as the work.

No photos yet, but with any luck they will be posted soon. I hope to get some of the park to document some of my favorite pieces here.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

The Hirshhorn Is not a beach, and I don't like the carnival

I find myself in the courtyard of the hirshhorn museum, in a 40's era farmerjohn bathing suit sunbathing with a group of performance artists. Smithsonian security is telling us that what we are doing is against the code, ( what code, was never indicated) Eventually we were asked to leave. It seems odd that an art museum would turn away art, (not really) but we left, and I realized that I am not dedicated to art enough to go to jail for someone else's art.

It was reassuring that the public took interest in the project, and as my first trip into the world of performance art, it was silly, but worth it in the end. I do wish that someone had told me more about the concept, I found it hard to understand a performance I was in, and didn't understand. I hope that my performance was not hurt by misconception.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

the winds they are a changin

Today i saw a band on television that I used to listen to. like five years ago, maybe more, this band was a fairly decent hardcore band, in the same line that the misfits were, kind of gloomy, lots of black and songs about death, but they were good, not too image centered of a group, certaintly not my favorite, but one that I chose to spin once in a while while i was working as a DJ at a college radio station. Either way, it is the same story we have all heard, band makes good albums, band gets picked up by a major label, band gets very wealthy, band stops focusing on music, starts focusing on image and using thier new found credit line to exagerate things in music videos and high end production sound on albums... the new "trust punkers" for the next generation.

I am aware that every day that passes i grow a little older and less cool, and i think more and more popular music sounds like garbage, but i have always thought that popular music sounded terrible. Why is that? And more importantly why do decent artists decay so quickly with airplay? Perhaps it is the manner in which mass media programs the day to force us to hear the same 200 or so songs in movies tv commercials radio ringtones whatever, perhaps artists just get bored and start churning out albums to fulfill a contract to thier new major league bosses, whatever the case, it makes me sad to know also that a 30 something year old man in white makeup is trying to explain highschool heartbreak to 14 year old kids in white makeup.

In the end none of this matters, this is going to happen for the rest of my life.