Laying in bed lingering between sleep and awakening, the first slips of daylight peeking between the window coverings. Paradoxes have been known to melt into the muted gray first light of a day.
An elder was telling about a traditional Inuit method for dealing with difficult teenagers. While interesting, I didnt quite catch the part where this information was relevant. I was listening patiently for that bit, when

Tap, tap, tap… slid into my awareness from a far away place… of raven or woodpecker, perhaps? It stops, briefly, and begins again. Note the sequence. Why? Figure that out, later. Count! Not raven or woodpecker. The tapping is in cadence with regular rests.

5…..6…..5…..6…..5…..5…..4…..3…..4…..5

5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5

I come fully awake, and write down the sequence. A wave, perhaps. I start to ponder the features, wondering what the relevance is. Sometimes I just can’t figure that bit out. Not that it isn’t relevant. Everything is relevant.

I know some might think me mad. Oddly, some can more easily accept the existence of a living cell, though they have never seen one with thier own eye. Indeed, we know such things are true only because we stretched the limits of our human perception and proceeded as though it was relevant. We see and experience things within our limited perception which tell us about things which exist beyond our senses. But, all too often we dismiss the most critical information as unimportant, or worse, as figments of imagination.

Everything conceived in the mind of man is derived of factual events and experience. There is no human bean with the ability to create an original anything. All that we do is premised up something that came before, was or is made available, either whole or in part to the conceiver. We do not generate, we simply regenerate and recycle. The reason is simple. We can only work with what is available. We really only need a reason.

My first impression was, “blah.”
Cradled wood panels with image transfers and some writing. The images weren’t all that challenging or unique. The script writing was not entirely legible. My first impression was, “why?”

I moved in for a closer look. The bare wood showed through the encaustic. Why?
The images were kind of mundane. Why?

I began to read the available words… hmmm… a journal entry, apparently. Pretty brave of her to put THAT out there. I had to admit I could not publicize my journals. These dealt with self image, relationships, the push and pull of mundane living…
Bare wood, images of mundane things. A little color, mostly muted.

I stepped back and took in the whole of it again… tiled as they were… 35 or 50 panels on two adjacent walls, with a large, overly simplistic encaustic of a white bird on the wing… oh wow. I get it.

It’s perfect, Binky. It’s a perfect storm right smack dab in the middle of a mundane life. The kind of brilliant simplicity you dont even recognize as remarkable, unless you ask why. Or, perhaps I am just showing my butt. No matter, Binky assures me at our age, nobody will know the difference between our guts and butts anyway.

Bink Bergsman’s show can be seen through May at the Art Annex Gallery, located at 9308 Evergreen Way in Everett Washington.

Some I trust with money
Others I trust in a fight
Some I trust for discretion, that a confidence will never take flight.
But the number of souls I can trust with all these
Is very limited indeed.

The wee hours of the morning are excellent for contemplation and meditation because it is quiet. The phone is less likely to ring, nothing requires attention… as it is said, “silence is golden.”
I don’t want to sleep. I want to awaken and calm my mind. I want to let my mind go free of all the day time concerns and thoughts.
The wee hours are like a blank canvas or an uncarved stone. Everything might be revealed at any moment in which nothing is predetermined.

Guilty, as charged. I haven’t been consistent with the blogging. Blogging is important. It doesn’t pay the bills, though. Paying the bills has taken priority. I have been painting, teaching, marketing, and did a short stint managing a gallery for a friend. I am blessed. Many artists have not fared as well in this economy.

Art is generally considered a luxury item in our American culture. As a cowboy once put it, “That’s damned ingenious! Ain’t good fer nothin’, but it’s damned ingenious!” If you can’t eat it, ride it, or warm your bum with it, it isn’t something you really need. Even so, a cowboy came to see the art and was astounded by what he found. (It would surprise many an urbanite to know that contemporary cowboys are typically well read, well educated and well versed in the arts, if not conventionally articulate. Yes, real cowboys… in 2010. Beef not Kobi.)

We take things for granted in our American culture. Like the luxury of having so many cultures to experience. When it comes right down to it, feeding the body will take priority over feeding the mind until it is generally recognized that feeding the mind is the first step… not a luxury.

Critical thinking skills rank right up there with reading, writing and mathematics. Objective observation is the supposed cornerstone of the sciences. (Truth be told, the cornerstone is research $, and objectivity is slave to that Master.) In fine art, we have the vehicle to convey history, math, reading comprehension, objective observation, critical thinking skills, and writing. No other vehicle conveys all subjects cohesively. It’s not just fun… it’s effective.

It’s not just effective, it’s infectious. Open one mind in any given group…

It is most confounding that some would scream for the destruction of the USA. Apparently, some people missed the lessons of history. Take the lesson about the dark ages, for example. The period following the fall of Rome, and prior to the Renaissance. The title of the period, Dark Ages, is a dead give away. (Pun intended) Unlike Rome, the US does not actually occupy 2/3 of the world, forcing militaristic classism on populations the world over, plundering as a rolling thunder. (Not like Rome did.) Not saying we are anyone’s saving grace, but we aren’t the raging evil we are made out to be, either. We get quite a bit of bad press. (We keep most of the really bad press here, sparing the rest of the world the awful abuses of freedom of speech.)
There are a tremendous number of really dumb Americans, in fact. One has to wonder how that came to be, given the genetic diversity and the fact that we can all claim a heritage of smart exit strategy from some place else. It’s really quite beyond comprehension that we can’t get an exit strategy together when we go messing in other places!
The people of America are not the government of the USA. The history books tell us we were founded on that principle: by the people, for the people. If that was the vision, it was lost long ago to capitalism and constitutional ammendments.
Anyone who thinks slavery is not alive and well in the USofA has not met the working class of the US. The truth is, the backbone of this country is busy in the salt mines sweating double digit billions and wondering how long they can keep pace with the demand for more taxes, more charity, more blood-sucking government and more “suck-it-up” from the financiers of our own doom; all the while praying China or Japan doesnt decide to manufacture salt. We are not the fat, lazy, spoiled children of privilige too often seen on television. The backbone of America defends anyone, anytime, anywhere; feeds anyone, anytime, anywhere; and asks for little more than consideration in return. We do this because we are NOT so fat we have forgotten what drove people to give up thier homelands to come here, and because we really can not take the whole world in, even if we want to.

The good news for the screamers is, the time for screaming is almost over. The way things are going, the efforts to terrorize us will have been fruitless. We will be destroyed from within. When we are, the greedy bastards who engineered it all will be looking for a new home and new salt mine… I just want to go on record as having said, “I did not bring this to you. I brought the bread and the salt.”

Let me in, great Mystery of creation; that I may craft a thing which, by virtue of the joy it brings, merits the process. May I glorify the joy of Creation, first and always, by living it. Blessed be thy timeless name, which can not be spoken.

“My sins are ever before me.”  To me, this translates as “My process is ever before me, ever imperfect.” The visual language is a living thing, ever evolving.

Dave Martzolf

Chuck Close

Artistic Rug

Aside from artwork, because of artwork, and to support the artwork, I have a job. I am exhibition director for a small gallery attached to an art supply store. It pays the rent for the studio, and keeps me hopping around the community when I might other wise be isolated. I have to make myself get out in the world, out of my bubble of endless ponderings. I am always interested in what others are doing, but it tends to add to my list of ponderings.

I teach drawing, too, a few evenings each week. This, I do for the cash and the “AHA!” moments of sudden realization. I intensely dislike some aspects of teaching adult continuing education, however. Specifically, the aspects of mixed motivations, involved. Folks take the classes for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with learning, craftsmanship, or art. Some come to class for social purposes, some for entertainment, and others for therapy. I dont mind providing a little entertainment with the lesson…

I look for ways… little things I can do to make the world a better place. Not big splashes, just little ripples. The art supply and the gallery are vital community resources. Art is, both, provacative and healing. All communities need both of those influences. That which creates also destroys. Not everything that destroys also creates.

I stay late, arrive early, fix the plumbing, mop the floors, make and check the lists, and ponder the ripples. I am not one to climb to the top of the tree. I have seen enough asses up there to realize mine is not going to do much good. Besides, the fall from greater hieghts is more dangerous. I have enough difficulty picking myself up from lower altitudes.