Losing Something and Moving On

Will etching

Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.  On 20 December 1973, the Wall Street Journal quoted Sayre as: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

It has been a tough four months in which I have lived in limbo.    My part-time job was turned into a full-time position around March.  I applied for it.  And it has taken the powers that be four months to tell me the results of their search.  I do not do limbo very well.

For the past twelve years I have worked part-time within an institution, but full-time within the context in which I worked, which was teaching printmaking and art.  I set up a printmaking program within a new school, made it mine, let it evolve into conforming with and enhancing the parameters of the department within which it existed, and loved every moment in which I saw kids fall in love with making art, and surprisingly enough because not everybody likes it, making prints.  Today, that thing I gave so much of myself to create was taken away form me.  I did not get the position.

It has been hard on me because it is not as if I was applying anonymously for an anonymous job.  I could have more easily handled that.  It has been a tough four months because, not only was I applying for my job, I was doing the job while applying for it.  Granted, the scope of the full-time position is much greater than that of my part-time job; but because I had been with the institution from its inception, when part-time jobs functioned differently, I knew what was involved in the position and was looking forward to the challenge of working full-time.

Long ago, I had chosen to teach part-time because I thought that in doing so, I would have time to continue making art while earning some money.  I was indeed able to make some art over these years; but even when it is part-time, teaching is full-time.  It is all-consuming, especially teaching at the level I was doing it.  I have missed being totally immersed in my art work, but I have loved the teaching.

I can’t begin to describe how painful it has been to have something which I felt was so integrally part of who I am wrenched away from me.  To use a cliché, it’s as if a piece of my gut has been ripped off. 

Apparently (or so I was told), I am a great teacher of printmaking, as exemplified by the work that follows and by the awards my kids were always getting, and by the marketplace: strangers asked to buy their prints.  Also, apparently, I am a great teacher of art; for although I was paid to teach printmaking, I've always refused to only teach the mechanics of the thing without having the kids investigate the meaning and context of art by giving them extra work which they did willingly.  I always thought that was part of the mandate of the program.  And, apparently once more, I am a great artist.  It seems that what I am lacking is what it takes to be a good citizen of the Governor School for the Arts and no longer much Humanities.  And after two years (1/16/13), I can safely say that I proudly agree with that assessment, I really was the wrong person for that job though as Lou Reed says, “Don’t believe anything your hear and half of what you see.”  Maybe that comes with the territory of wanting to be an artist and seeing through the bullshit, and in my case, voicing it. 

I will miss the teaching, it comes naturally to me; but I will finally have enough time to seriously investigate pictorial ideas in the studio again, and that too is like breathing.  The last time I investigated ideas intensely in the studio was years ago when I was as fully unemployed as I am once again.  This hurts right now, but it is a good thing.  Here’s to new beginnings...

What follows is a tiny tiny fraction of student prints I have collected over the years- I love looking at them.  I chose these because they were readily available in my computer: 

Zeke etching

Sydney etching

Sydney etching

Sydney etching

Josh linocut

Marie linocut

Seth linocut

Emma etching

Emma etching

Madeline etching

Morna Etching

Laura lithograph

Lisa lithograph

Celie reduction linocut

Eliza reduction linocut

Whitney reduction linocut

Ross etching

Sophia etching

Laura lithograph

of late I am interested in fragments

and everything looks like art

Summer of My Discontent...

Driving back from the pool I heard the news on the radio that we were releasing oil from our strategic reserves... Out loud I said to the radio, "Now, whose boneheaded idea is that?!"

Oil prices have been going down on their own, so why now?!  The reporter read some unintelligible sentence about Lybian oil not making it to market due to the civil war over there...  It still made no sense...  Why now?  Prices are down... But how could I forget, political season is now open and Obama is campaigning.  That seems to give him the right to make all the boneheaded moves he can possibly come up with; and man, is he ever adept at that.

It really upsets me at a deep level when politicians touch the reserves for no good reason other than an ostensible political gain.  That stockpile exists to be used in the case of some catastrophic event; and nothing mildly catastrophic is going on.  Of course, given the state of the economy, Obama is looking at a possible loss of the presidency, so to him, that does constitute a catastrophe of such magnitude that, hey, he feels a need to release some emergency oil.

I know it is stupid on my part to want to hold on to some kind of value system.  To me, this move of his devalues reality itself (as if the word even has the possibility of meaning in this day and age, especially when politics is concerned).  But "reality" aside, this new boneheaded selfish move of his only serves to continue wrecking the markets, something he seems to have a great affinity for.

It's gonna be a long year...

Making a Print

I spent the past week doing this 27 times...

 

...it has been wonderful!

A month of contradictions

Ah yeah, election time again: I love the smell of bullshit in the morning.

...so Obama is up in our neighboring state of North Carolina campaigning and trying to convince the gullible that his policies have been good for the production of jobs in this most jobless and weak economic recovery... 

...But at the same time, his own NLRB is fighting to prevent the creation of jobs in South Carolina because it is a non-union state--- 

How does this jive?

Benign Afternoon

I love summer!

music review: Zeca Baleiro

A few blogs back I embedded the song Bienal by Zeca Baleiro onto my blog.  I then translated its lyrics because I think they are hilarious. 

I first heard the song on one of two CD’s by Baleiro that I had just bought from Amazon.  I had no idea who he was until I bought the things.  And I probably bought them because the Amazon Computer, in it’s infinite wisdom, and based on a profile it developed of me using previous purchases, “suggested” that I might like to spend more money at its virtual store purchasing them.  The computer was right.  But computers are demanding, and that was not the end of our interaction.

It’s funny how this internet business works, some computer or another is always asking me for my opinion.  And of course, after it suggested that I might like the music of Zeca Baleiro, and after I bought a couple of albums from it, the Amazon Computer sent me one more email asking me to rate my musical experience.  I obliged.  And because I care about what I wrote, of course I am sticking it here in my blog about much of nothing:

  

Disclaimer: Not sure if this review will help anyone choose whether or not to buy this album. 

I was born and raised in Brazil but left the country at the age of 17 to come study here (USA), and here I stayed. Listening to Baleiro’s songs takes me back to a time and place I thought I had learned to forget.  It is not only the sound of the music that takes me back there, it’s the attitude.  An attitude that makes itself felt not only in the way Baleiro articulates his sound, but also in the way he constructs his lyrics. 

In terms of sound, Perfil is pretty global.  Baleiro not only integrates together a bunch of different Brazilian musical beats and styles; but he also deftly cannibalizes and assimilates other genres ranging from American rock, pop, hip-hop, rap and even country, on to Indian beats and rhythms.  On the other hand, although  Por Onde Andará Stephen Fry (pronounced by Baleiro as Steefã, which I love) contains some of the same songs found in Perfil with their global feel, the album has more songs with a Samba beat and feels more straightforward Brazilian (or Brazeelhã).

In terms of lyrics, well, one just has to learn the Portuguese to understand the breadth and natural poetry of the language, not to mention the humor with which Brazilians put it to use.  Brazilians are adept at assimilating other cultures without ever diluting their own.  Listening to these albums reminds me of how they integrate into their culture anything that washes up onto their shores, especially the English language.  They do it effortlessly and with (again) humor.  They consume it and weave it seamlessly into the fabric of their own speech where it feels entirely at home and yet points to the fact of its appropriation and difference.  Brazilians do this so gracefully, so unlike the French who do it with a petty Anglophobic attitude.  So yeah, I really miss the attitude.

Zeca Baleiro’s music takes me back to a certain time and place, which is weird, because he is of this time and not of mine.  It reminds me of how much I actually miss that time and that place...

Are these good albums? I like all the songs, love some, and find myself moving to a lot of them.  That said, nobody actually makes albums in this day and age anymore... But the music: it is fun.

hot and bothered

...Whole week has been dismal in terms of economic news.  The recovery has been slow and seems to be slowing down some more, and the markets are jittery.  The DOW takes a nose dive in the middle of the week, and the bad news keeps coming.  Job numbers were dismal this morning.  Dow is “only” down by half a percent at this point, but there’s still a couple of hours of trading to go and it is the end of the week.  The big adjustment happened on Wednesday when it plummeted 280 points, now its just “shedding off extra weight”...

I’m no economist, I just live with one, so I am surrounded and bombarded by economic news all the time.  Curtis and I are trying to plan for the future, but the future looks dismal, and humans and politicians are persistently present value oriented, which is why the future will continue to be dismal. 

Curtis tells me that the problem with the economy is the uncertainty the firms are facing in the face of uncertain future government legislation and expenditures.  I see it as more of a certainty.  Firms are certain that the government will keep spending like there is no tomorrow. 

This unemployment number: it might just be the new normal.  Like in France, where normal is 17% unemployed, our 10% might just be part of the landscape of the future.  This government will keep spending until it can’t borrow anymore, and then it will collapse.  And then and only then, will Americans accept politicians into office that will change legislation to fix the problem.  It might be too late.  Meanwhile, the public is more than happy to keep demanding its entitlements on borrowed money and time, all the while clamoring for a balanced budget-> go figure...

...so I walk in from doing backbreaking work in the yard in what feels to be 150 degrees out there.  I don’t walk in in the best of moods.  I spy a message on my answering machine and press the button to hear it.  It is half a message.  Only half because it was delivered by a computer (such a personal touch, really) who does not know when to start talking, and does so while my message for the caller to express him or herself is still playing.   It was half a message about how I can spend more on my credit card.  You know... I just can’t help myself today... fuck you America, just fuck you.

I am in a happy state

state proof
5-plate etching

...even though the white balance is off from left to right, things never look square, I need to set up my lights, and I need a new camera....