OPEN EXHIBITION ANNOUNCEMENT
v- Pix Credit: Hygienic Building | Hygienic Art Gallery Archives | Photographer Unknown |
New London, Connecticut | 29 January 2005 marks the 26th year for the annual Hygienic "no judge, no jury, no censorship" art exhibition |
     The Hygienic Art Exhibition is Southeastern Connecticut's premiere fine art, film and performance artist celebration showing new and original artworks from the sublime to the outrageous | This year marks the 26th year of the art exhibition | Modeled after the Salon des Independants Movement in Paris during the early 20th century, in which French Impressionist masters protested against the then art establishment and artists for fawning over the aristocracy exhibited there works in cafes in the seamy parts of the city | The exhibition is touted as New London's only winter tourist attraction and is notorious for it anything goes policy of no judge, no jury no fees, and no censorship | One piece per artist all are welcome |

MORE INFO: History of Hygienic Arts Gallery | About the Fauvist Movement |

ARTISTS' RETREATS
  is a relatively new artists' colony [if it's not too soon
  to call it that] nestled on the edge of 460 acres of pristine forest and wetlands | This property is, itself, surrounded by a couple of thousand acres of protected, undeveloped state and privately held lands, all inside Connecticut's Eight Mile River Watershed ~ currently under review for a National Park Service Wild and Scenic Rivers designation |
     Only four year in existence, the organization has nevertheless managed to attract a high-calibre group of painters, sculptors, composers and writers to the retreat-like setting | Six applicants are accepted for up to three months, and have come for different parts of the globe | Visiting artists' works from past retreats are either scattered around the grounds or archived within the half dozen or so buildings that make up the campus |
     Today, the founders of the organization that manages this retreat held an invitational open house for town residents, artists, and "alumni" from earlier retreats | This was to provide an opportunity to hear about the place and of its vision for the future |
     The vision, it turns out, is multifaceted | Only the beginning has been acheived, getting artists of skill and self-discipline to come and immerse themselves in their craft | The next segment is to see about expanding the scope, so that perhaps as many as 12 artists can be on site each retreat period, which can last up to three months | The goal is to remain small, however, and it seems clear the intent of the organization is to preserve the bulk of the forested property as undeveloped open space, in keeping with the surrounding area |
     The next two objectives are more daunting | These include to incorporate landscape architectural design into the artistic scheme | A discussion was held amongst the artists present, but it seemed clear that more work is needed to clarify the meaning of "permanant" rather than "temporary" garden installations | For me, this brought to mind a yearly garden show held in Montreal each summer where garden plots are planned in advance, assembled in the Spring, and taken apart by Autumn | It remains to be seen how this endeavor shall evolve | I shall watch with interest |
     Then there's the vision of a new kind of memorial park, a Thanatopolis which, according to the text of I-Park's materials is to be "...an important aesthetic component of the project as it will become home to beautiful memorial gardens (living memorials), [and ] monumental sculpture ... [lending] an air of seriousness and mystery to I-Park while imparting a worthwhile sense of perspective and proportion."
     This would be a place for people's ashes to be interred and for suitable permanant commissioned artworks and more modestly scaled limited duration memorials [to last for a very short duration to perhaps 40 years] so that the surviving friends and family can come pay respects to their departed |
     Given that local ancdotal history of the area speaks to the possible presence of Native American burial sites, and of I-Park's proximity to Devil's Hopyard State Park [with its own mythic Spirit tales and lore] such an idea doesn't seem far fetched | And what a beautiful, contemplative place for the dead to be laid to rest, even as ashen remains |
     But these are visions of the future, not the happenings going on there today | Today was also spent hosting the over 100 guests, providing both short and long hikes along a set of connected walkpaths maintained fastidiously by hand [using mechanized equipment disturbs the contemplativeness of the locale], showing videotaped interviews, musical scores [written while on retreat] and poetry readings of talent unmaksed while here on past retreats |
     ...and for exhibiting the playfulness of extreme pumpkin carving as decoration on a display table |

For first-hand info about I-Park visit their website

WHAT IS PUBLIC ART?
From the Fairmount Park Art Association website a thoughtful read |

What is public art?
     Public art is not an art “form.” Its size can be huge or small. It can tower fifty feet high or call attention to the paving beneath your feet. Its shape can be abstract or realistic (or both), and it may be cast, carved, built, assembled, or painted. It can be site-specific or stand in contrast to its surroundings. What distinguishes public art is the unique association of how it is made, where it is, and what it means. Public art can express community values, enhance our environment, transform a landscape, heighten our awareness, or question our assumptions. Placed in public sites, this art is there for everyone, a form of collective community expression. Public art is a reflection of how we see the world—the artist’s response to our time and place combined with our own sense of who we are.
Who is the “public” for public art?
     In a diverse society, all art cannot appeal to all people, nor should it be expected to do so. Art attracts attention; that is what it is supposed to do. Is it any wonder, then, that public art causes controversy? Varied popular opinion is inevitable, and it is a healthy sign that the public environment is acknowledged rather than ignored. To some degree, every public art project is an interactive process involving artists, architects, design professionals, community residents, civic leaders, politicians, approval agencies, funding agencies, and construction teams. The challenge of this communal process is to enhance rather than limit the artist’s involvement.
What is the “art” of public art?
     As our society and its modes of expression evolve, so will our definitions of public art. Materials and methods change to reflect our contemporary culture. The process, guided by professional expertise and public involvement, should seek out the most imaginative and productive affinity between artist and community. Likewise, artists must bring to the work their artistic integrity, creativity, and skill. What is needed is a commitment to invention, boldness, and cooperation—not compromise.
Why public art?
     Public art is a part of our public history, part of our evolving culture and our collective memory. It reflects and reveals our society and adds meaning to our cities. As artists respond to our times, they reflect their inner vision to the outside world, and they create a chronicle of our public experience.

Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).

ART CLASSES
Tonight I go to watch a watercolorist whose work I admire conduct a "hands-on" class exhibiting his technique |
     I fault [or credit, actually] my friend and neighbor Joyce with this | To be honest, she has been more aggressive about prodding me to paint than I ever seem to be myself | In fact, the photo on the left is a still from a cooperative extension class I took a year ago at her insistence | The image to the right is from one of those classes | Thank you Joyce, keep on me about painting | I need a "discharge plan" from my present line of work |

Fisherman | By the way, this is the piece I donated to the Moodus Sportsman's Club raffle a couple of weeks ago | I did it for my Dad, who passed away in 1996 | He loved fishing and when I was a kid saw to it we got to share his love of the sport, even if we didn't get to go out very often | I hope it is now with someone who loves fishing as much |

SPEAKING WITH PICTURES
Sometimes words fail me and I have to "speak" through what I see |
Some recent examples |

TRAIN STATION


| in the shadows |



| old saybrook station |

OUTDOORS


| just before sunset |

TOURISM


| father bill's cabin |

INTERIORS


| over engleman's left shoulder |



| one of mark's mantels |

MALL CULTURE


| shopping mall slalom course |

WEBPAGE PROBLEMS

Cleartel seems to be experiencing technical problems this morning | That's where I have all the www.rondak.org files, and I link my images from this page to there | None of the images I've posted seem to be coming up | When I tried dialing into my account there's no reply | When I called tech support a pre-recorded message comes on that states, "We're receiving a much higher volume of calls than usual. Please stay on the line." | Anyway, I see no reason to spend a crisp, sunny Saturday morning [in GMZ+5; 41°N 72°W, at least] waiting for tech support to reply to my call only to have 'em tell me we're working on it | So... if you've come in part for the images, maybe try back later on and Cleartel will have resolved the problem | Thanks ~
Will

PHOTOGRAPHY
all images except the pix of cartier-bresson are his own | portrait from reuters |
Henri Cartier-Bresson |
1908-2004 |

FOR MORE ON HC-B Photology's Bresson | Magnum Photos | Afterimage | Artcylopedia | About's Bresson | NPR's The Works of Cartier-Bresson | A bio [from 1999] on the World Socialist Website | Not just HC-B but for photographic works about Paris Seasons of Paris, which includes some of his images | Finally, a good site about the art of taking photographs

PHOTOGRAPHY
pix credit © 2004 | mike [at] satanslaundromat.com
Still photography can say much or nothing yet be beautiful | A "photolog" website calling itself Satan's Laundromat provides as much | Crisp, clear, drenched in color images that, while maybe not taking your breath away, give one pause |
     Site blurb reads "...This is a Brooklyn-based photolog with an emphasis on urban decay, strange signage, and general weirdness...."
     Artfully constructed, beautiful pictures of sites and places few one ordinarily consider appealing | Nothing gross, mind you, just unusual |
     Go see it

VISUAL ARTS
Two website finds
Iconomania | Studies in Visual Culture [only one issue online, unfortunately]
The Panorama | History of a Mass Medium | [a book review] | The author of the book postulates that

"I hope to show that the pictorial panorama was in one respect an apparatus for glorifying the bourgeois view of the world; it served both as an instrument for liberating human vision and for limiting and "imprisoning" it anew. As such it represents the first true mass medium."
Stephan Oetterman, The Panorama, 7.

Personally, I'm not sure I agree that depicting panoramic vistas are, in and of themselves, glorifications of the "bourgeois view of the world" | They seem to be to be an attempt to get a glimpse of the breadth of a span of line of sight | This is not to say they aren't ever bourgeois images. just that Mr. Oetterman's perspect seems unduly limiting of the potential of panoramic vistas | Looks like a great book, otherwise |

WILL'S GALLERY || SUMMER ACTIVITIES
We all need to relax once in awhile | Holiday weekends provide a brief respite from the bounce and chaos of the rest of the week, and the regular grind | But each of us chooses to relax differently | Some just want to sit by the food vendor's cart [as is the case for the folks on the right] and take a load off our feet [though, without a doubt, the vendor doesn'thave the day off] | Myself, I like to grab a pen and paper, or paints and paper, and capture what I see for posterity |
     Of late, some have said I ought to go commercial with my work, and I can use the rest of the summer to be more determined about that | With that in mind, rather than hide all these moments of relaxation under a metaphorical rock, I have stored them online | The image to the left can be clicked on to an entry page with a listing of some of those restful moments | Gives folks a chance to see a [small] range of my non-expository works | You can also see links to some of the online essays from this page |
     So... have a look-see and let me know what you think | will.brady@gmail.com [by now, most folks know the routine, cut and past the addy into the proper line on an e-mail form]
     Enjoy your summer |

BOOK DESIGN || ILLUSTRATION
Peter Sis | Wonderfully intricate design from an MacArthur Grant recipient | They may be children's books that are being marketed, but they are beautiful in detail |

PERFORMING ARTS
Images this section ©2004 | fabulous dance theatre
Giselle | Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre | We saw Michael Keegan-Dolan's interpretation of Giselle at Yale's "Department for the Drama" and came out every bit convinced that we just saw a titally new take on theatre, dance and Irish drama | I thought it was an Irish Greek Tragedy, elaborately performed yet with only symbolic, and minimalist, staging | Powerful, poweful imagry that kept my attention rapt the whole time | It made a whole lot more sense after coming home and reading a historic synopsis of the ballet [first performed in Paris in 1841] but it was still riveting even without knowing the history |
     The story of the pitiful, dismal life of the innocent Giselle, imprisoned in a dark, cruel town of frustrated, venal, petty, yet passionate bakwards villagers [and especially by her demented, retarded incest-driven brother Hilariaon] Their lives briefly lifted each week with the spark and verve coming from the erotically charged country line dance teacher, Albrecht | Albrecht was equal opportunity seducer, giong first after the mute Giselle, but taking any interested party available, including the shy and handsome town butcher Patrick |
     Further peopled by the sadistic nurse Mary, as well as Giselle's distant, phone pole sitting father [serving as a lone "Greek Chorus" to update the audience with the story's twists and turns] the tale is grating and fierce |
     But it's the dancing that draws you in | Lithe and beautiful, [especially the duets between Giselle and Albrecht] and shows that Giselle can have joy and beauty in her tortured, troubled life | The Line dancing seqeunces seemed a gifted Irish choreographer's take on American Cowboy pop-culture skillfully intermixed with traditional Irish jig dancing [move over Riverdance, there's no comparison here] | The dance is joyful ...JOYFUL! |
     Chock-full with profanity, violence and obscene language, the spectacle of the tragic story nevertheless doesn't get hidden by such diversions | Lyrical and beautiful and sad | Gentle viewers might take heed in this notice, and there are several powerful, extended raw enactments of sexual encounters, cartoonish in depiction [perhaps] yet far more realistic and exotic than most any porn film I've ever seen or heard about | When Nurse Mary basically rape/seduces the butcher Pat while mending a cauterized finger, the scene is not just hilarious but very erotic | I can see why this made such a stir at the Dublin Theatre Festival |
     Giselle dies tragically, victim of an insane jealousy by her brother toward the suitor Albrecht | Her come-uppance is in the last part of the performance, during a chilling almost mystical sequence in the graveyard where, together with the ghosts of other young women dashed to death before their time, the spirits [the wilies, according to Slavic and Russian lore] first lure the mad brother, and smother him to death by seduction |
     One final bit player in this morality play, is the Church, itself absent of presence and involvement in the daily events, but imposing its judgement in the end by denying poor Giselle a proper burial in sanctified grounds | Why? because she'd had "relations with a stranger"! | As in life, the Church stays involved via force feeding opinions by virtue of power, not forgiveness |
     I'd go see it again, and again and again and again | The dancing -when it comes- is exquiste and beautiful | It's a whole new experience in dance | What I've said thus far is mere narration of events | In fact, what goes on before your eyes is sure to impact on dance, theatre and drama for years to come |

Neil Welliver | The first time I ever saw a Neil Welliver print I was stunned! A
six foot square presentation of raw wilderness resting on the wall of a hotel where I worked as a night shift security guard. Having moved to the city from the high peaks region of the Adirondacks, it was a breath of fresh woodlands air right there on the wall. The hotel actually owned six of these prints of Welliver's, and they kept me refreshed and gladdened whenever I saw them || A couple of years later, while still working at the hotel, I had the chance to more intently study Welliver's works in a book that was on display in some traveling book show. (I should have bought it). For a week I read each night about him and his approach to producing images. The lesson continued from there || Welliver has been enthusiatically praised as the "landscape artist's landscape artist." He recognized as a 20th century "realist" painter yet actually credits his style ~in part~ to the abstract artists of that same century || In truth, his images work because of what he does not display in the image || He allows the viewer's eye to decide for itself, what is displayed and what is missing. No small feat, indeed! Welliver often works in a square, rather than rectangular image. He'll start with 24x24 inch studies in preparation for working up to 6 foot square prints, like those I first saw years back ||

But the essays they take you to don't give you a fair sense of who Welliver is as a person. And for that,
I want to tell a story about him (anecdotal). Seems he was questioned about his career as an artist
and a painter. GIven that he's in the wilderness a great deal of time, he was questioned
about such a profession being, well, a bit fey. To which he commented, that as a man who goes out
in the wilderness with paints and water and brushes, works for hours at a time doing on-site
studies, often in the cold of winter, frequently using water based paints, well, seems
that standing outdoors exposed to the elements for hours at a time, freezing, carrying his own
supplies, there didn't seem to be anything more macho than that!

Rockwell Kent | While sort of aimlessly surfing sites about a couple of different artists, I stumbled upon a wealth of sites about the artist Rockwell Kent | I've long admiered his work, as well as his indomitable spirit | And it takes very little encouragement (none, actually) to spend a moment telling you all about one of my most favorite artists |

     Now, to bring you up to speed on this, Much of the time I spent was while looking at a remarkable site devoted to Kent's work that was put up by Doug Capra, a history and writing professor at Kenai College, up in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District | I wrote Capra about his site | Herewith I share what I wrote |


     Coming across the pages -this evening- that you've put up about Rockwell Kent's time in Alaska was a breath of fresh air for me. And I read what you have written thus far on your play, which I gather you have already had at least part of it performed. Hope it was well received ...or is he still getting bad press in Alaska?

     And since I was able to enjoy another's perspective on an artist I have for many years enjoyed, I thought it only fair to share with you a brief encounter with Mr. Kent, albeit, posthumosly; he being represented by his widow, Sally |

     I was, at the time, working for a printing company (Denton Publications) in the Adirodacks back in the late 1970s. One Christmas season it was my job to come up with a center spread "Christmas Card" that would be published in all the 10 papers the company printed each week | One thing was certain was that everybody was tired of having head shots of themselves with some holly and wreaths on the side | Since I was handy at pen and ink sketching myself, I was assigned to come up with something new |

     At the same time, I had recently seen a show at Lake Placid Arts Center that was comprised of many different Christmas cards created by Kent for friends, family, corporations and just as concepts for cards | I quickly saw that whatever I would do wouldn't hope to match up with the beauty of Kent's possibly "minor" works | My idea, then, was to see if we could get permission to print a card or two as the centerpiece in the papers | I had no idea what I was getting into |

     I got the gumption up, looked in the phone book, and called Sally Kent Gorton at Asgaard Farms | She said she'd be delighted to have me come visit and see what might be suitable |


     I expected to stay an hour or so. I spent the entire day |

     She graciously showed me around their home, the one built after the fire in 1969, pointing out a vast array of paintings, prints, raw sketches, stage designs (for an opera, Peer Gynt) that he had done and were still at home |

     Because it was cold, the studio was closed, but after the tour of the home, she left me alone in a room filled with drawered cases of works on paper | She apologized for the work being so disorganized and told me I would have to look through the darwes to find the images I fet I needed |

     The rest of the day I was left alone with the collection | It was like being thrown in a cave of riches and told
to look at whatever I pleased | When I was through, I'd pared it down to some two dozen images, which she then entrusted me to take with me for a week so the printing company could reproduce them | She asked only that the paper print a proper copyright notice as the Estate was having troubles with an unnamed but prestigious publishing house in New York City that had apparently taken to publishing works of her late husband without even a scintilla of permission or credit, profiting from the sale of reproductions of work without proper payment |

     At the paper, it was difficult to pick out which ones would go larger which would not | We opted to print them all | One of them, a cross section of a family's home at Christmas, was the cover image |

     When I brought them back, she again thanked me and gave me a print of Kent's of the Upper Jay, NY covered bridge, only a few miles from Asgaard | I thought I should be thanking her |

     Later, I was to receive two gifts | One of them one of the few remaining signed copies of N X E, the other, an 1890s edition of William Blake's "Jerusalem" with two different bookplates on the inside page | A letter was enclosed noting "...the book had survived two marriages and a fire and that whenever I got tired of doing hand lettering to look at these things for inspiration..." |


     I still do |

     I also further marvel, to this day, how both the power and generosity of Rockwell Kent survived all this time, well after his passing from this realm |

     While I was disappointed in not learning what or how the play concludes, what I read so far has me hoping to some day read the rest | If you haven't already done so, I hope you can complete your play about Rockwell Kent | I recognize though, that, sometimes, any thoughtful project can take years to complete |

     It seems so important that people do what they can to preserve and make known the work and life of this exciting human being | How much richer we all are for the vibrance of his life, and for the ability he had in being able to chronicle it so skillfully |

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for more info on Rockwell Kent:
Plattsburgh State's Rockwell Kent Gallery | Rockwell Kent Wilderness Homepage by Doug Capra | Smithsonian Magazine article The Stormy Petrel of American Art | Artcylopedia's Rockwell Kent entry | The Hermitage Museum collection

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plein air painting | without a doubt, painting directly onsite outdoors, is my favorite method of painting | I'm required to work quickly, with available light, and taking into account that I might not have the luxury (a dubious one, I think) of a broad color pallette with which to work | So the Adirondack trip taken recently was ideally suited for me | Forget the black flies, they were a minor distraction at 13th lake, but did not drive me away |
     It is perhaps not surprising that I am drawn to painters like Neil Welliver, who once said that painting outdoors was one of the most "macho" professions: exposed to unpredictable weather conditions, have to carry supplies (which weigh a lot more than the non-painter might think) in and out of the wilderness, the temperature variants can mess with the fluidity of the media one works in | Point being here, less about endurance than making note of an exhibition at the Alexander Gallery [in NYC] set to end in June but now extended to 2 july 04 |
     All this said, you may find it disconcerting that the image here is neither from my recent 13th Lake trip [images still not scanned] nor anything of Welliver's | There's links here to his work, go to them | What you see here is a pix I did at night while cabin camping in New Hampshire | The cabins are no longer there, sold to developers for condos, sadly, but the image remains |

pix credit -1- Museum for Moderne liv -2- Canada Travel
Cocteau at Musee des beaux arts-de Montreal | he was famous for being famous, spurned by the surrealists for being too much of an artistic "jack of all trades" | But his work has been influential far beyond that of many of his critics |
     I was most taken by his images from World War I [The Great War] | While I'd known of his erotic work, and of his avant garde films (performance art really), his war correspondence was both dramatic and captivating |
     Co-curated by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and George Pompiedeau Centre in Paris, the exhibition's display in Montreal will be the only North American presentation. Those interested in seeing the complete exhibition while there ought to find a way to see it if at all possible | For more info: 6 may through 29 august 2004 |

Sense of Dignity | The text:

Each person on earth is endowed with some quality or skill unique and special to oneself || It is not for mere mortals to deny another one's birthright of sharing that gift because of social prejudice, custom, superstition or set of beliefs || Rather we must grow and provide the opportunity for all people's to develop their gifts, then all may grow with their fruition || Anything less denies us that to which we are entitled || To one's sense of dignity

     Penned in 1987, it took until 1990 to come up with the center illustration | This is one of a collection of works that I consider to be my personal values statements |
     There have been those who looked at this work and stated immediately thereafter, "oh, you must be anti-abortion" | While one would be accurate in surmising that I believe that sentient life begins at conception, there are so many other parameters to weigh in on with that subject that I find statements such as that too concrete, almost simplistic |
     Would that life was so concrete, ..so black and white | But it isn't | the sentiment is also off the mark, maybe even misses the point | I'll be posting other samples of my work as time allows |