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ORANJE & Chris Magee
ORANJE WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 20th 8pm-2am
“indulge WHERE: 2323 N. Illinois St., Indianapolis, IN
your WHO: Anyone Age 21+
senses” COST: $20
ORANJE, described as “an interactive experience of music and art,” will feature 43 artists and 26 musicians. There will also be a Fashion Lounge, hosted by Savvy Salon.
AND, Chris Magee, a good friend and sometimes roommate of mine, will be exhibiting some of his pieces at the event! These are some of his past works:
Sketch on Gold Gesso
Graphite, Powdered Charcoal, Powedered NuPastel, White Gesso over Gold Gesso, on Birch.
This piece was part of the Independent Music & Arts Festival at the Harrison Center for the Arts.
One of the pieces that Magee submitted for ORANJE
Pecha Kucha Video from PKv.3 (courtesy of WFYI)
for more info (next event, tickets, etc.) visit www.pkindy.org
some updated posts
Recently, I was honored with a response from E. London Carlsson regarding the post, “A Presumptuous Proposition.” An excerpt:
“I must side with DaVinci when he stated that, ‘Art is the highest form of philosophy.’ So if art is where these ‘would be philosophers’ are hiding, then they have picked a good spot. That is not to completely disagree with you. It’s just that truth is often lost in sweeping generalizations.”
I also have just updated my “What I’m listening to” page and “What I’m reading.”
My Neo-Nihilistic Tantrum*
What is the goal of all humanity? What are we working towards? What exactly do we think we’re doing? I’m not sure. We’re working towards peace, harmony? – what sorts of fancy things do we think we’re trying to do?
I mean, we’re (allegedly) going to wars so that we can establish more peaceful societies, so that people can learn. We want people to learn so that they can establish more knowledgeable societies, so that they can express themselves in the arts. And they want to do that…why? Arts and learning are what start all our wars. We have no purpose, no goal.
Everything – every answer we have just asks another question. And the second that we start to act upon one of those answers, we’re denying the possibility of asking more questions. Once we start to act on it, then we start formulating our own truth and getting ourselves, basically, stuck at a lesser answer than we could possibly reach. But what makes asking more questions better? Why continue doing that? What are expecting to attain? And where are we going with it?
It seems like greater knowledge just breeds more misery. Because the more knowledge you have, the more you realize how much you don’t know. So why are we doing it? What’s the point of it? We’re just working towards more war, more tension. The point of going to war is to make a peaceful society; a more peaceful society is made so we can think & be pensive & study the arts. And the arts just open you up to more questions. And all these unanswered questions – and all the answered ones, too – really just lead to more factions and more war. I say, let the world implode, let it fall apart. There’s no reason.
There can be no final Answer. Every answer brings another question. Everything can be deconstructed further and further. This is true of the physical world, the mental world, the spiritual, emotional – whatever we wanna call it – it’s true of the entire world. So when we decide to start acting upon one of those answers that we know is not the final answer (but by acting upon it we are choosing to accept it as the final answer), we’re not being honest with ourselves. We’re not being true to what we know is real.
*note: I dictated this diatribe to my phone during a nap. This is the complete transcription of my somewhat-muddled naptime musings.
updated on 1 August, 10pm
wow. um, sorry for promoting the Book It exhibition. it was horrendous. hope you didn’t go!
from 31 July
Friday, August 1, 6 to 9pm
The Harrison Center for the Arts and IUPUI University Library and the Herron Art Library present Book It, Friday, August 1, 2008 from 6 to 9pm. The Book It show will be a rare opportunity to promote artists’ books as a field in the fine arts.
An Avocation
Updated on 10 July.
I am in need of a hobby. Recently, I realized that I could use some help when it comes to being normal. And, it seems that most normal people have some sort of hobby or recreational diversion. So, I’ve decided to pursue one.
I am going to collect old books.
Specifically, I will focus on books published between 1880 & 1920. This period of history has particularly attracted me because it reminds me so much of the Present. Between William James and Oscar Wilde, van Gogh and Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse and James Joyce, there was a complete upheaval of every facet of the establishment. Philosophy, physics, psychology, painting, literature, sexuality – seemingly impossible changes were taking place everywhere! No dark corner of society or science would go unscathed by the passions of this era’s thinkers. So, this collection is basically me living vicariously through them (or, if I’m lucky, being inspired by them).
We’ll see how this goes…
some online sellers I’ve been perusing:
Update:
I have purchased three rare/out-of-print books so far! They are:
Henry James‘ A London Life & Other Tales. This is the first edition/printing from 1889.
This copy has a blue cloth binding and gold gilt lettering around the edges. It is 366 pages long, and includes the short stories, “The Patagonia,” “The Liar,” and “Mrs. Temperly.”
William James‘ Human Immortality. This is the first edition/printing from 1898.
This copy has a maroon cloth binding with small gilt lettering on the spine. It is a slight 70 pages, and its full title is: “Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.”
Oscar Wilde‘s The Portrait of Mr. W.H.. This is the first edition/printing from 1921.
This copy has a charcoal-black cloth binding with small gilt lettering on the spine. It also has a facsimile signature of Wilde’s autograph on the front cover. It is 133 pages long, and is from a limited printing of the full manuscript (it is #407 out of 1,000 copies printed in 1921).
Aron Wiesenfeld
The Delegate’s Daughter, oil on canvas (56″x32″)
Aron Wiesenfeld is emerging in the art world as a highly talented allegorical figurative painter. He got his start as a comic book illustrator before delving into more traditional mediums.
Aron says about his work “If something is going on behind the surface, people are drawn to it but don’t know why. They’ve connected to something in it. And that is a constant theme through my work, the ability to paint something to suggest something that isn’t shown.”
Girl With A Bike, oil on canvas (48″x60″)
Leigh Timmons says, “I would call Aron an “artist’s artist”. He has the courage to pictorially delve into the darker side of the human psyche. Yet, there remains a peaceful serenity that mesmerizes the eye.”
His work is often comprised of figures seemingly caught or lost in some type of overwhelming landscape. He is drawn to empty spaces that may seem lonely, but they’re about the story that’s happening off the pages, in the world outside the canvas. It is that backstory he is interested in.
The Plight of the Blind Romantic
I am a romantic, an idealist, a lover of beauty – And, thusly tempered, I am horrified by Reality, by Life & death & carnality, by emotions & Hopes & ideas.
Nothing “real” is how it seems it should be. Nothing meets the fantastical criteria I harbor deep within me.
The glorious World I visit in my dreams is so different from this Earth we occupy. I am constantly driven to escape, to flee from Reality and Necessities and Normalcy. I know that the Earth supposedly offers everything we should need to be “happy.” But some of us, blind since birth, cannot see it. We enter a museum, attend a wedding, read about romance, kiss a person who loves us, eat, sleep, and have delicious dreams – And, somehow, this bouquet of Joy nauseates us. We are sick in spirit. This wonderful world seems alarmingly empty, hollow, and terrifying.
Most recently, I fled via alcohol. This provided an efficient respite…for a time. But, ultimately, it just brought the wretchedness of Life into sharper focus; it forced an unbearably acute awareness of futility upon my already-frail psyche. Addiction truly is the antithesis of escape.
The polarity of Needs – imposed by competing & contradictory Desires – juxtaposed itself in a satirical tragedy of the utmost irony. That is why Sappho & Eustochium & S. are so dear to me.
Sappho, the lover, poet, and muse, is a victim of this irony. Living on the island of Lesbos, she composed lyrical verses for a sailor, valiant Greek seaman. After years of longing for his eventual return to her, she received word of his death. Upon hearing this news, she hurled herself off a cliff, to join her lover forever in the sea. And yet, today she is hailed as the Mother of Lesbianism. A crueler remembrance could not be conjured up.
Eustochium, daughter of a raped Paduan nun, was the physical embodiment of this Irony. She was the purest of her cloister’s Sisters, entering the Paduan convent at 11 years old. But, she was afflicted by evil (& powerful) spirits. She suffered through 25 years on this earth before succumbing to the Death that had haunted her for a decade. The name of “Jesus” was found cauterized on her left breast.
S., a fictional enigma created by Salinger, was a lifelong seeker of beauty & purity. His search was markedly desperate and honest, but never fruitful. He could not find what he was looking for. So, in an act of ultimate Irony, he ended a beautiful life with an obscene & grotesque act: suicide.
I would also add John Wilmot to this cadre of malcontents. His addition would be for a different reason, though. A beautiful poet, he spent his entire life pursuing the despicable. He chronicled his misogynistic endeavors in cynical plays and poems. But, at the age of 33, dying of syphilis and alcoholism, he made one last attempt at Living – he wrote an impassioned plea to Parliament that saved Protestantism from extinction (and rescued Christendom from making an irrevocable mistake).
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