the beauty of the Mark, the intention or ambivalence of the Maker

Robert Smithson 1970 diary page

http://www.earthworks.org/links.html

william anatasi subway drawings

http://www.subwayseismo.com/about/

Often ( and for me as an artist this is not always a good thing) on the way to creating a new piece I will see a scrape on a wall, an inadverdent mark on a piece of tin or plastic, or the claw scrape of a wild animal on a tree and say to myself-

forget it! forget art!

you will never make a mark as provocative or beautiful.

parking lot markings
http://gscottage.blogspot.com/2007/08/pavement-markings-for-band-practice.html



artist Cy Twombly

http://www.menil.org/twombly.html


physicist Clint Sprott

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/

peering in with my giant eye

http://www.garde-rail.com/artists/jtaylor.html

If there ever was a portal to New Crobuzon, John Taylor's vessels will take you through.

Each ship carefully made of pieces of scrap metal, wires, weathered bits of wood.
These are the artworks I'd fill my place with, if I could.

If for nothing else than to lie on the floor with, peering into the
windows with my big eye, imagining the voyage.

Reclusive, or perhaps simply quiet and without interest of public scrutiny,

John Taylor's works are sold out of Garde Rail Gallery.

New Crobuzon and the pirate vessels in The Scar, are in books written by China Mieville.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville

making it out of dark times

When people say- the light is at the end of the tunnel- the ones who are not in the darkness have little idea of what they are saying. Sometimes the transition is so terribly painful.
The things that others see as small obstacles are ideas and words that are screaming inside the mind. Those voices, whether real or imagined, whether a small bout in the mania or the depression, are all we hear.

Joan of Arc

Now the flames they followed joan of arc
As she came riding through the dark;
No moon to keep her armour bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, Im tired of the war,I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white
To wear upon my swollen appetite.
Well, Im glad to hear you talk this way,
You know Ive watched you riding every day
And something in me yearns to win
Such a cold and lonesome heroine.
And who are you? she sternly spoke
To the one beneath the smoke.
Why, Im fire, he replied,
And I love your solitude,
I love your pride.
Then fire, make your body cold,
Im going to give you mine to hold,
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

(Leonard Cohen)

the amazement of visual ambience

magdalena jetelova