"Juice"

When I went to the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD), my classmates and I were welcomed and illuminated by the president of the college, Joseph Canzani.  "We will teach you to see what you've never seen before!"  My classmates got years of humor from his pompous and pretentious speech, but there was some truth to it.  If you really want to understand something, you've really got to look.

I know we've all seen the inside of a tomato.  Maybe you've studied it a little.  The act of reproducing what we see forces us to study it quite a bit more.  We think we know what it looks like, and what we think we know can overshadow what's really true.  We have to be willing to let go of what we think we know in order to truly learn what is.

For instance, I "knew" tomatoes are symmetrical.  They aren't.  They're approximately similar from side to side.  They have veins.  The seeds aren't mathematically perfect.  The inner jelly is an alien mix of red, brown, purple, and phosphorescent green.  I could go on.  Get to know your own tomatoes.  See what you've never seen before!

Once you've studied all of the wonders of tomato-ness, what then?  Do you share your new-found tomato awareness?  Don't get stuck on the tomato example.  Whether it's a tomato or listening to the other side of a political argument, have you truly looked at the issue, or are you just operating on your assumptions about it?

This week, I've been watching the Public Broadcast Service's (PBS) documentary on the Vietnam War.  I lived through these events when I was a child, and I've always been aware that the war greatly effects my world view.  I'm watching the series to get another look at those times.  In essence, to test my assumptions about the tomato.

The other night, I watched a Buddhist monk set himself on fire and burn to death.  Imagine what that was like when I was a small child.  I saw other children crying, old people crying, soldiers crying, houses burning, piles of bodies, stacks of coffins, mutilated POWs.

This Ken Burns series is excessively long in my opinion, but it's nothing like my childhood when tv was war all the time.  It wasn't like 9/11 when people acknowledged the PTSD generated by one day's footage.  People, especially kids, got counseling.  In my day, kids didn't have any real thoughts or feelings to worry about.  They'll grow out of it, and counseling is hippy dippy crap anyway.

There were some positive things that came out of all this televised violence.  I understood people of different races and places had feelings.  They bleed, they die.  Old white guys in government can be dead wrong, self-absorbed, and power hungry.  The war made me more empathetic and a committed pacifist.  In some ways, maybe it would be better if we still showed the sins of war on tv?  Maybe we'd stop the wars we're currently fighting and put that money into health care and education.

Watching the show is unpleasant for me, but I think there's a chance that it will let me see those times more clearly, to see as I've never seen before.  Though I have to admit, I'd rather study tomatoes.

"Octopus"

I went to Chicago for a work conference.  Lectures, vendor meetings, fancy dinners (including an octopus appetizer)... but let's get the important part -- I saw a couple of my college buddies!!  Woo Hoo! YAY!!!

Chris, Alex, and I talked and laughed.  I am so glad to see them again after so many years and my heart is bursting with happiness to see them.  I would've liked to see more college friends in Chicago, but time was limited.  We are inspired by the 1981 class' reunion and blog site and want to do our own reunion.  We don't have photos from back in the day because we were too poor for luxuries like cameras and film, but if you were at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) around the time of the graduating class of 1983 let us know if you're interested in a reunion and/or have photos. We're inclusive and would like to see everybody we knew and loved back then, including the 1981 folks.  I'll make a blog for photos if anyone sends them.

I got to see some of Chris (Koronich) Nye's recent work when I was in Chicago.  See her website here.

Chris' work is expressive and happy, and I'll admit I'm a bit jealous that she paints what she wants and has found a market for it.  She combines her other interests in interior design, faux finishes, and yoga instruction into a cohesive plan for survival and self-expression.  She does what she wants artistically and in every other way.

I roamed around her house and contemplated her paintings, which I suppose is the real beauty of them.  They are beautiful in themselves, but they're also contemplative like Japanese landscapes which are intended to be viewed during meditations.  I wandered around in Chris' yard and stroked the lavender to get the calming scent on my hands.  When I went back inside with my lavender hands and there were the paintings again with all the colors of the garden.  They're suggestive, calming, exciting, and inspiring.

When I worked with naturalists, they liked to tell me to do things in "natureful colors".  I'd tell them that all colors are in nature, but they really just wanted tans, browns, and greens.  Chris' paintings have hot yellow chartreuses, purples, reds... an explosion of truly "natureful" colors.

Sometimes I throw paint around.  It's a happy activity that I don't take very seriously when I do it myself.  Sometimes I'll even hang one of those paintings, but I want people to notice things I've labored over, not the things I just had fun doing.  Another of my friends has scolded me for my wrong-headed attitude.  She says people enjoy it when I have fun with paint and also that other people can't do it.  No matter the people who say their kid could do it.  Let your kid try then.  There's a lot to be said for an expensive college education that taught us about color and design, right?

This all made crystal clear sense to me when I looked at Chris' paintings.  Sometimes I can do something similar, but it isn't the same, and I'll be the first to say Chris' paintings are better.  She understands things about interior spaces that I don't.  Her color choices are wonderful.  She brings flowers to life through suggestion.  I've got a blank canvas.  I think I'll follow her inspiration and throw some paint around!

Standing in front of the Chicago "Bean"

The octopus is just a doodle.  I don't want to take away from the beauty of Chris' art this week.

"Imperfect"

I’m all for personal growth, but some ideas seem to be asking an awful lot. Debbie at Dosankodebbie’s Etegami Notebook wrote about painting bugs because they bother her, and I thought I’d give it a stab. Debbie’s idea actually made me want to wage an all-out chemical assault on creepy crawlies, but since I wrote about perfectionism last week, let’s talk about human imperfections in a different way this time…

My brother was staying with his friend in Columbus, Ohio. As fate would have it, they were living in the dorm across the hall from where I lived my first year at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). It’s a long drive to Columbus from Cleveland, my car didn’t have AC, and I was hot and tired when I got there. The door was open, so I went in and was vividly reminded of the squalor that young guys seem to thrive in. I gingerly shoved a lump of disgusting laundry onto the floor and collapsed into the contaminated chair while trying not to think about death by bacteria. After a while I cooled off enough to contemplate the fact that the hospital wasn’t too far away and I should probably get a tetanus shot before continuing my drive to Indianapolis, Indiana, especially after studying the smudged fingerprints and smear of lead white paint on the outside of the iced tea glass one of them handed me. I wondered if these guys knew about the existence of dish soap or how to use it. It’s really a marvel that males survive their first few years out of the nest without succumbing to foot rot or some other terrible disease.

Maybe this is a good place to insert that both of these guys are older and more sanitary now. I’m pretty sure they’ve both managed to master laundry and dish washing. I should also say that I really like my brother’s friend. I always enjoy talking with him and looking at his art – I’ve even watched him tattoo people, but maybe tattoos are a topic for another day. On the day in Columbus, I enjoyed looking at my old stomping grounds. The apartment was the exact floor plan as my old apartment except in reverse, and it was fun to remember old times while making a mental note to avoid all male dorm rooms in the future.

Eventually we decided to go out for dinner. Okey dokey! Back to the world of air conditioning and people who know how to use dish soap! We got up to leave and I hit a dead stop at the door. When I had come in, the door was open and I was tired. I didn’t fully take in my surroundings at that time because I was rather overwhelmed by the mountains of clutter inside the apartment. Now I was on the wrong side of a door with a variety of dead cockroaches nailed to it, arranged by size. The largest was hammered in with a nail about the size of a railroad spike. Uh, uh, uh, oh...

I eventually managed to force myself past them, towards the pizza and air conditioning. The dead carcasses quivered when the door shut, and I could hear the whispering crackling of their wings against the door. I don’t know Debbie, is drawing roaches really going to help me overcome this experience??? I have to admit that I got creeped out just looking up reference online. Ew, ew, ew, yuck!!!

BTW, it is probably obvious to all of you guys out there, but just to state the obvious, my brother and his friend were delighted at my bile-filled near fainting fit. They made plans to add to their collection and joyfully described their method of asphyxiating the victims with spray fixative before nailing them to the door. They still giggle over it. Guys are sick.