Plugging into History

I recently heard from a woman named Stephanie Lamy a single mom living in Paris who, when trying to explain the Libyan revolution to her daughter ended up almost inadvertently becoming a crucial player in the unfolding of the resistance by connecting the elements of the social network that ultimately overthrew the Gaddafi regime. She is now helping communities create social networks to enhance people power and became interested in my Democratic Globe idea.

I'm suddenly becoming aware of a shift in my scope as an artist. In the 80's I was doing metal sculptures and series of multiples. In the 90's I became interested in larger concepts that were expressed in installations or designs for social constructions. In 2000 I started working on the series of Body Psalms films that turned into a whole vision for re-evaluating the flesh in a capitalist world. Now in the 2010's I have moved into creating what I'm thinking of as META-art projects: huge visions of how civilization can be transformed to allow more social creativity. As yet I have no way of turning them into what we think of as art (some sensual expression) that can be easily "exhibited".  Instead I struggle to imagine them into existence, like prying apart space itself to create new blank spots for fresh ideas to inhabit.  Then I try to shape them by writing so that others might one day be able to take these seedlings and grow something spectacular in the new world that doesn't exist yet.

We live in a time when anyone can suddenly be thrust into a pivotal role by simply being in the right place at the right time. That feeling of insignificance is a lie– we are all needed to be available when history needs changing! If a single mom teaching her daughter can suddenly become a crucial cog in a revolution of people against tyranny, is there any reason why that could not happen to you? Say, tomorrow?

Montana Logging and Ballet Co. Swan Dives into History

Montana Logging and Ballet Co... And this is on GOOD behavior!

This next week is the final concert that marks the end of our political satire, comedy and music group– bless its little heart– that has been together for 36 years. It's hard to describe just what it is that we have been doing for that long, which is why our name is so apt.

The group of 4 guys began at Rocky Mountain College in 1975 either as an excuse to play music, a way to meet girls, a recruiting tool for the school, or all of the above. We did meet some girls, 4 of whom– with a great deal of arm twisting– we convinced to sing with us. We also convinced the college to let us go and sing at high schools around the state on a one-week tour of high schools, by agreeing that it would not cost the school more than the price of sending two guys and a slide projector on the road!

We did it too, so when Rocky's enrollment went up 21% the next year they actually hired us to go on tour again, this time with sandwiches and everything. But we did have to find new crops of girls to go with us (I'm being totally serious here) to spread out their school absences. The fact that we had great fun with them does not negate the hard work we put in.

In any case, we loved playing and goofing around together (and no, we didn't get the girls) so when opportunities arose for us to sing for churches, women's groups, or fundraisers for the likes of the Whitehall Public Library, we always seized them.  We toured the nation and eventually became the "resident political satirists" on NPR during the Clinton years. (That came to a screeching halt the very day Bush took office, a significant indication).

But our greatest triumph by far was hooking up with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the figureheads of the South African freedom movement to bring democracy to the racist regime there. We met him in 1987 when one of my sculptures was gifted to him by an international office of the Methodist church. We raised nearly a million dollars for him when he came to our Montana concert in '91. Three years later Tutu had written the liner notes for one of our albums, South Africa was a free nation and the last of us had gotten married, so it was worth it after all.

Now that one of us is approaching 70 we decided it's time to bow out. It's been a great ride and for all our several fans: thanks! We couldn't have done it without you. That and the incredibly stupid things our leaders have done to continually inspire our material!

Sharing an Earthquake with a New Friend

I have an amazing SERVAS tale I've been repeating since it happened 30 years ago. I have been a SERVAS traveler off and on since the 70's, made many friends and had some remarkable experiences. One of the most spectacular unfolded the evening of Nov. 23, 1980 when I arrived at the home of a young SERVAS host in Naples, Italy. Martin was a 25-year-old student living with his family on the 5th floor of an apartment building in the city. His parents and sister were away, but when I arrived Martin made tea and we had just sat down to get to know each other.

Suddenly the building started to shake violently and– propelled by instinct– we both flew out the door and down the stairs to the street below. The whole city emptied into the streets as the earthquake continued for a few more minutes. Then all fell silent.  We had no way of knowing if this was a minor quake or where it was located. Though the buildings within sight were standing, over the next few hours we heard the epicenter was 50 miles away, where hundreds of people had been killed, with more reports streaming in. After a few hours of milling around fearfully in the street we decided the danger had passed (foolishly) and we returned to the apartment and I went to sleep while Martin tried to contact his family. But no sooner did I nod off when the quake resumed and again we raced into the street. By then it was midnight and all up and down the street crowds of people huddled around bonfires to keep warm.

Martin was very apprehensive, not knowing where his sister and parents were. He would place me with some friends around a fire, promising to return in a while; then he'd disappear, leaving me in a crowd of strangers with whom I shared no language. But after an hour or more he'd return to check on me, sometimes with a bit of food or water, and deliver what news he could.This continued all night, Martin disappearing but always coming back to make sure I was safe among his also frantic friends. I recall at one point standing with a crowd of 30 or 40 huddled around a single transistor radio, eagerly sucking up news when suddenly the crowd backed up and someone handed me the radio. The news was then repeated in English.

By morning Martin had still not found his family and was ragged with worry. It was clear that I could be of little help and his concern for me was only a burden, so I reluctantly took my leave. Later when services were restored I was very relieved to hear that Martin's family were all OK and that their building, though damaged, was still safe to live in. But as the scale of the disaster became apparent it was clear many were not so lucky. The Irpinia quake, 6.89 on the Richter scale, had killed nearly 3000 people and left 300,000 homeless.

The concern for a stranger of this remarkable man in the midst of his own crisis– and that of his attentive neighbors– left me with an unbreakable faith in humanity. Sure there are some cads and jerks everywhere, but people are basically good the world over! Thank you, Martin, and all of you who also serve a cause greater than yourself!

Is It ART?... Yes, one of 3 different kinds.

A clever artist recently put a packet of $20,000 in new bank notes up for auction as art. Then he estimated the value between $15,000 and $25,000, giving collectors a chance to determine whether the cash is more or less valuable as art. (It sold for $21,350) Artists love to pull this sort of prank because it's always fun to confuse the capitalists (who are equally curious if they can resell the silliness at a profit!) and because it fans the flames of one omnipresent question: what is art?

One answer is very clearly stated in a maddening and informative investigative 60 Minutes story on the high-flying art market. One famous dealer says openly: it is theater, pure and simple! Like a house of mirrors, here no one knows what is real but everyone is willing to play the game because there is a great deal of money involved! Art-as-theater is an enormous business among the billionaires, who are so insulated from the real problems of life that it serves as entertainment for them. Like professional wrestling nobody thinks it's real but people still pay to watch the spectacle.

There is no harm in this by itself, but it does cause real harm as it sends a terrible stench downstream to us ordinary passersby who are already pretty suspicious of contemporary art, where we're likely to just get more huffy about the demise of art in our times. This is not rotten so much as it is just disrespectful of community. If we can see these money games for what they are we will more easily be able to open up to art and better distinguish good art from mere entertainment.

Which brings us round to the second type of art: Decor or Entertainment. This is what we find most often in commercial galleries or in the movie theaters. It's intended to sell and therefor can't raise too many uncomfortable questions. It won't kill you but it's not all that nourishing either. It is perfectly valid for its purpose, which is to comfort and relax.

The third and most important kind is what we might call Meaningful art. This is most readily found in books on art history, art museums and in often in the "classiest" cultural institutions. The older stuff is almost always great art because it has been filtered through the sensibilities of all the succeeding generations. This is a very helpful process since the silliness and shallow sentimentality that might look "great" to one era is usually seen for what it is by the ones that follow and filtered out.
The three types are all equally valid though they differ in value. Theater art is the most expensive, Decor the most popular and Meaningful art the most powerful, a smorgasbord of delights! (Of course much of art is a combination),

Having said all this I must insist that I am no more of an art expert that you are. (Though I have made a serious lifelong attempt to define art in this Wiki.) Art, like sex, is totally personal. If it works for you no one can refute that and if it doesn't it is as good as garbage. This is all there is to it. So my advice is don't be fooled by anyone. Find the art that moves you and indulge yourself!

Meanwhile it will be interesting to see what the collector of the $20,000 "artwork" does next. My bet is he'll sell it to someone else for an enormous profit. I hope they serve popcorn with that!

An Astonishing Story!

I have to admit it was with some skepticism that I read an email from a stranger who said he was in the military and now he served as “a policeman for my country”. He said he was a great fan of art– mine in particular– since one of my bronzes (he didn't know the name) has been one of his favorite objects since he got it when he was 11.

Well my skepticism turned to amazement when he described the distinctive pose which I recognized right away! I wrote back: "Dear Mr. Rodriguez, thanks for your interest in my work. The sculpture you refer to is called “Awakening” and it's one of 30 bronze castings that were made of it in the early 80's, and sold for about $500. The good news for you is that now it's worth maybe 10 times that. PS: I've sold a lot of art, but never to an 11-year-old kid. I'm curious how you obtained the sculpture in the first place."

Well he wrote back with a very strange story. His best friend's family had bought a house, in which was left the sculpture and he loved it so much they'd given it to him. It was so important to him, he said, that during his Navy stint he took his bronze sculpture all over the world with him on an aircraft carrier. He said thanks for telling him the value but he would never sell it! Now I was really intrigued, especially with the image of this Navy recruit standing on the dock, ready to ship out with his duffel bag in one hand and his bronze sculpture in the other.

Well that reminded me of another strange story I'd heard some 15 years before...

A House You Can See From Space

I know it seems astonishing! That's why I woke with a start in the middle of the night. Suddenly I realized that I could describe where my art studio is IN SIX WORDS to anyone in the world and they could find it to within 100 yards. I know, you can do better than that with an address, but I mean a geographic description: "Three blocks Northwest of Montana's capital"! Can you do that?

Oh, you can? Well OK, you're right, you'd have to know where Montana is and that it's not just a generic mountain in Spain or a singer for that matter. But how about this: two years ago I spent Easter in a house that you can see from space. Well I don't mean literally. (Not least of all because, really, how are you going to get out there to prove it?) But here's a picture of what I mean. I'm pointing to the house; in fact the boundary where Germany meets Austria forms an arrow that points right at the front porch, a stone's throw from the point. Which I could even see without my glasses, (were I God). (But wait, if I were God I could have also gotten into space without much trouble, even if I did forget my glasses. But I didn't think of that till just now). (Sorry I digress).

This reminds me of my favorite address ever ever, though; one that my family occupied for a few months in 1974, which can be "seen from space" in that it's mailing address is so incredibly simple and elegant:

The Pond

Haddenham, Cambs.

England

You don't believe me so I'll wait while you type it into your map program...See? Isn't that cool? I know, it sounds more like the home of a guppy! But actually it is. No, really! It is! The house was rented to my fambly by the grandson of the guy who discovered and named the fish... And I bet you couldn't see that one coming from a mile away!

Can We Survive Ourselves?

"Animates", bronze.

Increasingly I see civilization as pointed in an ultimately suicidal direction, not so much in orientation as in blind purpose.  Our relentless pursuit of material progress at the cost of all else will drive us right off a cliff!  We have been seeing evidence of this for years, but while the last several months should give us pause, like the proverbial boiling frog it doesn't seem to.

A year on, Japan's tsunami seems just another in a series of worsening similar crises where our hubris appears to emerge remarkably unscathed as we all–except for the Japanese, who have actually embraced conservation as a result– return as rapidly as possible to what we were doing before: stripping Nature it of its immediate energy as fast as we can. In fact the lack of a knee-buckling catastrophe that would cause a real re-evaluation– like a Japan-sized crisis in the most powerful nation on earth– only serves to underline this hubris and guarantee the spectacle of our coming fall. (I don't mean to minimize the great awakening toward the environment, but in comparison to the increasing dangers it seems retrograde.)

I'm not being facetious in saying that ART will heal the world.  Illuminated by Matthew Fox's remarkably clear 30-year-old vision Original Blessing I can safely say he and the many he follows (like Jesus) were right: it is human imagination that will lead us into the possible. We are drugged with the mind-numbing pursuit of material "progress", which turns up empty of meaning! Our hope is to let our imaginations run wild... And then take them seriously! We are far more capable than we let on!

Moral Ecology and Superhumans

I remember sitting in my junior high science class in 1968 during a lecture about technology, captivated by a new thought. The pace of change was increasing so fast I imagined one day announcements coming over the school intercom every hour (yes, in my imagination I never graduated from 8th grade) to announce the latest wondrous technological development... I think that day has come.

It was just a year ago that I posted about the recent development of insect-sized robots. Today I watched a remarkable TED Talk about swarms of flying robots that do remarkable tasks I wouldn't have possibly imagined last year. The lecture ends with a cute video of flying robots playing music, which is very touching. But if you think millions of hours of expensive research is dedicated to robot music I have a terrific partial guitar for sale.

We know that any amazing technology that reaches public ears is already super-old news to the military. These autonomous flybots can certainly be used for humanitarian purposes, but only will be when they go on clearance sale at the Army Surplus Store! Meanwhile we can be sure that if we know about them, the CIA is already using them to secretly hunt and kill human beings.

I hate that I have become so cynical, but I think this is the absolute truth. This is the sort of technology that turns some few people into superhumans. The question is who? And how can humanity prevent such technology from simply being bought up by the most powerful to use against the least powerful? The state of human moral ecology is such that as soon as such super-human powers become commercially available, only international law with real teeth can keep the few superhumans (read: anyone who can afford the machines, i.e., the 1%) from exploiting the rest of us. What are the chances that the speed of developing amazing new weapons will be matched by developing the morality necessary to control them?

My alarm is not over technology but rather the increasing gulf between what is available to everyman and what is available to that 1%.
The world is always full of good people who would never use technology to abuse people, and thugs for whom that never comes into question. In movies about superheros the villains are almost always the latter:  humans made superhuman by technology, who are then taken down by superheros. But in a world where only the people without moral brakes have the superpowers, where is our salvation?

The new cold war will not be between nations but between the superhuman and the individual. I keep returning to the same haunting question that instigated my idea for a Democratic Globe: how can human beings retain control of a future increasingly governed by forces of mechanized exploitation that always outpace human cooperative institutions? (Which reminds me of another junior high fantasy, but that's another story).

"The Oldest Story" sculpture intertwines in dozens of ways

Last time I posted on a new model for marriage and got more hits than I have for months. So I'm going to add some thoughts to that subject.

We can rail all we want at the demise of traditional marriage but looking at the divorce rate it apparently wants to be changed. As Mexico considers a new temporary marriage I try to swallow my alarm and take a serious look.

Though we've done it forever it seems we have yet to examine the structure of our relationships very carefully. Marriage in particular; while it's apparently been good enough so far just to keep from killing each other, I think we can ask for more from it.

Like you perhaps, I always preferred to think of marriage as a standard item  right out of the catalog. Therefor I found it difficult to acknowledge there are a great variety of good marriages: couples that live separately– even on different continents– or share a bed but little else, or everything but a bed, or trade health care for sex, or... I could go on. You name it- someone probably calls it their marriage! My own parents had arrangements that would maybe make your eyebrows go up and down, but they were very happily married for 54 years! It may be temping to look down your nose at that, but on my dad's last visit to the hospital Mom gently wiggled his toe in the bed and said they were more in love than ever! How can anyone presume to think there's a better marriage than that?

Marriage isn't what is done, but what is shared, much of which is certainly indescribable, even to those involved. There must be perfect marriages somewhere, but beyond clear abuse how can anyone tell two consenting adults "Hey, you're doing it wrong"?

Much as I'm sure we all would like to thing of a single romantic image of the "successful" marriage I suspect that the good ones are as various in form as are people. So next time you hear someone howling to preserve the sanctity of traditional marriage, ask yourself what in the world that means. I say mix together people who love each other, add a lid, cook on medium heat and if they come out happy, that is a good marriage. That'll make a tradition I can get behind!

Marriage at the Speed of LOVE

"Visitation", oil, by Tim Holmes

On this Valentine's Day I find myself thinking about relationships, which makes me think of good jokes and here's a great one:  A couple of strangers, a man and woman, are assigned to births in a single sleeping compartment. They talk for a few minutes but are both tired so they turn in, she on the top bunk and he on the bottom. A few minutes later she says "I hate to trouble you but I'm a bit chilly, could you please reach me an extra blanket? "Oh I have a better idea", he says. "Why don't we just pretend we're married?" "Oh that sounds interesting", she says, "just what do you have in mind?" He replies, "I'll tell you what: get your own damn blanket!"

I come from a long line of married couples. As far back as records go, there are no divorces until I come along and ruined the whole picture! Not because I didn't dedicate myself to it; I thought my marriage would last forever, but I was only together with my wife for 20 years. What happened that I destroyed the family record?

Well, three things. First– as my Ex will freely attest– I'm an idiot. But what about my sister and cousins who also got divorced? Are we all so inept? Well, another reason may be that ours is the first generation for whom marriage is not primarily an economic partnership. It is a grand luxury to be able to choose to marry as a matter of preference rather than survival. You would think that this change would produce some attitude of curiosity about the structure of one of the most central of our institutions carried forward from pre-history, but save for a few adjustments of vows– like when Christianity was invented– marriage itself has seen little re-evaluation. I suggest now's the time and that is because of the third reason: the increasing pace of change.

A 50-year marriage for the next generation will be very different from that of my grandparents. My grandad grew up without electricity on a Pennsylvania farm that in fact was not much different than any farm of, say, 100 or even 1000 years earlier! When he went off to college he was introduced to three new experiences: he drove a car, used a telephone and– get this– heard live music for the first time! His lifetime encompassed a lot of world changes, but nothing like the pace of changes my niece will experience. Tara was born into a house without cell phones, but now– 9 years later– everyone in her family has one and wouldn't give them up. The speed of change has and will continue to increase exponentially. Will marriage adjust?

I suggest marriage is something like a wild animal– we want to live with it because of its mystery and power, but like a wild animal it is dynamic and unpredictable. The old marriage model is something like keeping a tiger by surrounding it by the iron bars of solid vows to keep it safely enclosed. Unfortunately the measure of success becomes whether or not the tiger ever got away, not whether it is actually still alive in there! For times of rapid change it appears we need a new model for marriage. 

I suggest one based on a different metaphor; that of a falconer. This is a person who also keeps a wild animal. Perhaps to the horror of the tiger trainer, however, every day the falconer lets her beast go free! But her wild critter keeps coming back home. This is because what the falconer is focused on: anticipating and satisfying any need that arises for her charge. I intend to point out this crucial difference to Tara when she grows up and thinks about marriage (if my generation hasn't totally ruined the idea for her). You can't say “Get your own damn blanket!” to a falcon because it may never return. The falconer focuses not on keeping the animal at all costs, but on cultivating and facilitating healthy growth, in whatever direction that leads. Every day the wild falcon returns by choice precisely because it knows that whatever excitement it encounters, there is no place in the wide world that it will be better loved and cared for than right here, at home!

Art v.s. Entertainment

"Challenge", guache & ink, 20 x 26 in.

My younger and wiser sister Krys says “Entertainment is the pursuit of false meaning.” In some ways our economy has become one where a lie works just as well as the truth (i.e. the financial crisis). It reduces the truth to short supply since it is more expensive. So the truth is often outpaced by its entertaining version.

One can see how the owner of a news outlet would gravitate toward the stories that sell regardless of how truthful or important they may be. This has a cumulative effect that worries me. What keeps news from becoming a list of items that fascinate us- a mythology that speaks more of our repressed fixations than of outer events? That is perfectly fine, as long as we know we are massaging our psyches, but this is not news– it's art.

Every artist is tempted to create entertainment. Where art really sizzles- the place where you can feel the earth move– is when the artist's hair is on fire! (Mozart's Requiem, Van Gogh's work, or those soviet artists who painted their visions at the cost of their actual lives.) There is no doubt in that case what is real; there's no chance that they were selling out. But where the rubber hits the road is not in the artist's process but in the viewer's experience. Viewers of today look at the great sacrifices of the burnt-headed artists of the past and are transported. By that and, oh yeah, Jeff Koons, who must be great or he wouldn't be so famous! Inside the viewer's heart maybe there's no difference, since truth is where you find it.

If you could take your novel and make it entertaining without losing the value of the compelling original truth, it might  be a great hit. But that risks elevating the values of popular success above truth. The only answer is to follow the heart- which always leads to a place of isolation, not by choice of ends, but by choice of means.

Moved by an Invertebrate

Cutest octopus in the world

(Knock it off, I'm not referring to the GOP presidential field.) Seriously; I've lived a life blessed with having become close to many animals. It's amazing to me how intimate a bond we can create with these beings with whom we share no common tongue and yet a deep language. We homo sapiens notoriously anthropomorphize, projecting human feelings out into the world, and particularly into the animals, so close to us in this dance of life. As a result we read all kinds of meanings into random behaviors that don't necessarily mean that an animal is trying to communicate anything at all, but might be just going through their lives without any reference to us ego-besotted humans. (Recently I spotted 100 or more ravens gather on the ground just outside the doors of the state capital building. Ego or not: Hmm.)

I'm not much for doting over invertebrates, really. So I was most putrefied with astonishment to be brought to tears by one. Like most people I place animals in a hierarchy from the simplest forms up, of course reserving the pinnacle for MY kind. In this scheme invertebrates fall somewhere between the heartless reptiles and the rock-like molluscs. But I recently I came across a remarkable video of an octopus coming out of the water and walking on land! That lead me to some research and an article about a special connection a woman developed with a lonely octopus that nearly brought me to tears. (And here's a great video on octopus love!)

We really do long for a deep connection with others and when that bond arises out of the mysterious wiles of nature, it is a most moving thing to us soft-hearted beings. The new movie The Whale, an amazing tale of how an animal captured the hearts of thousands, reminds me of how deeply love runs in this world. Oh how little we're yet aware of it!

Midnight Purchase

"Come Alive", mixed media, 28 x 18 in.

So I'm just sliding into a convertible with a lovely woman who's about to drive me to some fancy dance or something. "Better get a shirt", she says. I look down and am seized with embarrassment and frustration to discover that I didn't wear one! Now she'll have to wait while I go racing across the (college?) campus to get a shirt. For the first stretch I'm bounding, taking great leaps, worried that the building might be locked. I turn a corner to see with relief that it's open. However, precisely because I'm rushing, I find I'm now plowing through honey and then crawling, digging into the ground with my claws, struggling for traction. I see I’m in the stadium crawling through people; excuse me, sorry, comin’ thru, ouch.

Just then the phone jerks me upright, out of my dream.  I drag myself out of bed and, clutching at the door frames, stagger through the dark clear across to the far end of the next room and grope into the corner. This has got to be serious. "Hello?" I grog. Pause, click, "Hi!” says the cheery voice, “This is Fran Lescher. Perhaps you know me from the TV sho--"  I slam down the phone and squint toward the clock. A robocall at three bloody thirty in the morning!! There's not even a real person there to swear at! I stomp back to bed trailing enough steam to peel the wallpaper and throw myself in again.

Whatever those bastards were selling I've in fact bought a sleepless halfnight of restless churning over the general mess of things: how I fit into the world, the health of civilization, our chances of survival... Among the thoughts that drift over my innerscape appears a question: have I, by mindlessly neglecting my shirt, condemned some poor dream woman to wait in her car FOR-as these things go-EVER?  Is it not then totally possible (such betrayals do occur in this life) that these dream events have a direct affect in our world? 

Then the horrible possibility strikes me like a stone in the solar plexus: the woman waiting to get my ass back in the car!  Oh my God!  Could it be?  Maybe she's… Fran Lescher!

Is that really just a bird?

Boy-Shaped Domestic Hunter-Killerbot

The US military is depending much more heavily on drones to kill overseas. It seems so simple, cheap and easy to pluck out specific enemies from some safe pod halfway around the world without risking soldier's lives. The US has lead the current arms race with miniaturizing warfare and developing frightening new tools to abuse our enemies like the shape-shifting predator blob.

Now 50 nations are developing drones of their own, including Iran, which was accidentally delivered one recently by the US. Within a few years our new death tools will be old news, shared round the world. Already drones can be hired by private parties. (How long will it be before your insurance company sends a drone fly to see if you are smoking?) Soon enough the monster we created will come to pay us a visit.

The most frightening development to me so far are the spy drones shaped like animals. As soon as the first one is deployed anywhere (it will be by the US military) that simple fact spells doom for many animals. What enemy faced with drones that look like birds will refrain from taking out any animal they see– just in case– from that moment on that they don't know personally?  Once the animals are wiped out from a war zone what will the military use to hide its death secret? Children seem the next logical answer, People persist in having children, even in wartime. They are protected by their innocence. And surely our enemy would not kill on sight a suspicious child as they would a strange bird!... But if you think moral considerations will prevent that, where's the prior proof?

Does it feel like we are slowly choking ourselves with our own fear? As long as we leave it to a money-soaked political system the fear-mongers and the corporate powers they enrich will rule the world. We the People, (99.9%) must take charge of our own future!

Passing

Leo Hawelka, on his 99th birthday in his Vienna Cafe

Life is full of remarkable moments.  This week, as I reflect on the passing of the year, we heard the news of the death at 100 of Leopold Hawelka who opened a small Viennese cafe in 1938. After WWII and a stint as a draftee in the Nazi army his cafe served free water to guests, some of whom stayed all day just to stay warm. Over the years his cafe became a meeting place for not only the poor but royalty and stars and eventually became so famous that his passing was international news.

That's not why I was there, I went to meet with the woman making a film about my work, Karin Wally. And that day Hawelka, sitting at the next table in his great coat, just happened to be having his 99th birthday. Karin wrote to me today to pass on news of his death and reminded me that I had done a sketch of Hewelka that day (I had forgotten but went through my sketchbooks and actually found it!) Had she not written me I would not have known that such an iconic figure passed through my life.

That reminded me that I'd had another meeting at the same cafe when I first arrived in Vienna 18 months previously. I'd met with an artist who told me about the art scene and gave me some contacts for my visit. As we left that winter day we stepped around an old man in a wheelchair and his companion. As we passed she turned to me and said "Have you heard of Hrdlicka, Vienna's most famous sculptor?" Of course I had. He has major monuments in Vienna. Well, that was him! He also died within a year, but not before I was invited to attend his last major sculpture unveiling.

None of this happened because I am an important person, but simply because I was aware (or rather was reminded) of the greater stories swirling about me all the time. As we end 2011, the year of the freedom breaking out all over the world, perhaps each of us will look back on this pivotal moment in the Great Story and recall where we were, how we contributed, and who was there with us when it happened.

Home for the Holidays

As the last of our troops come home from Iraq, including a couple of my friends, I want to write that I am overjoyed that the war is finally over! We should be dancing in the streets. But I simply can't feel it. What I feel instead is a great sadness. Iraq started out a bad situation to be sure, but I'm not sure our invasion helped, pushed through on false premises and almost zero forethought (remember when it was going to last a few months and cost less than 2 billion?) Of course we're not going to feel anything like a sense of accomplishment.

I'm reminded of something my dad used to say: if you get a mouthful of too-hot coffee, anything you do next will be wrong. But I''m trying to resist the feeling that everything we did was wrong, because I know that can't be the case. We must have left something of lasting value besides the unaccounted-for billions in cash and some very valuable trash (bases, tanks, etc. that are not life-giving at all.) We were going to leave a few troops to "help" but the Iraqis wouldn't let us leave them without their being subject to their laws, so we backed out of that, too.  If that is what is preventing us from helping people, that's not a very good sign.

So there must have been some winners here. Who are the ones who gained? Besides companies like Haliburton (I'm sure Cheney's being VP was just a coincidence) American contractors made a killing. We may convince young, poor people to die for their country but no company is asked to sacrifice in the slightest. I only hope if I ever go to that part of the world people know the difference between America and an American.

Wouldn't it be great if our nation could give for the simple sake of the joy of giving?

The Enlightenment is but a Thin Veneer

Duende- the dark aspect of creative power., 36 x 52 in., crayon, by Tim Holmes

I remember a stark line from the film "The Field" in which the priest of a small Irish village comments that religion is but a thin veneer painted over the superstitions of the people. The villagers had essentially adapted the language of religion to carry on the same brutal lives they had lived before.

I read much the same thing in a marvelous paper called Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change by Clive Hamilton in which he reflects something similar concerning the Enlightenment and our obsession with science. We take great pride in being able to dissect reality with the prickly-sharp blade of our intellect. But, as it turns out, only in so far as it doesn't threaten our deeply-held preconceptions. He puts forward an elegant argument that the climate change debate exposes not so much a real conversation over how to address a critical problem as the tragic human tendency to paint a real danger with illusions just to preserve our sense of comfort. In this case a belief that we are 'above' nature and our intelligence will somehow prevail might be the precise cause of our demise. Intellect is no good if it isn't applied.

"The climate crisis is upon us because we are intoxicated by our subjectivity... the desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows, until a point is reached when the facts can be resisted no longer", he says.  One thinks of the poor souls who had to jump from the flaming tower, choosing a quick death to a slow roast. Let's hope we don't choose to wait that long to act boldly!

Hamilton's paper can be downloaded at:
http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/why_we_resist_the_truth_about_climate_change.pdf

Krampus Day: Putting the Darkness Back into Joy!

Krampus, coming for the children.

Contemporary culture really loves to make everything about happiness and cheer. It's just easier to jump to the head of the feels-good line!

This week the Tim Holmes Studio is hosting a antidote to that temptation.  Duende  is an art exhibit-installation-performance (more details here) to honor the dark time of year. I take my cue from Krampus (view more of my photos), who is honored today. He's the fearsome, hairy Austrian figure who visits children, accompanying St. Nickolaus, whose day is tomorrow.

Duende is an art term, but it's not easy to describe. It's not a style or subject or period, but more like an attitude in which art is created: in the shadow of death. The awareness of the darkness is what gives meaning and depth to life. The Duende show gives a multi-media taste of these depths for all the senses.

Joy or happiness or success is cheap and flaccid if it is unaccompanied by darkness. This art event points out the sublime beauty of the dark side of life.

The show is one night only, Thurs, Dec. 8 at the Tim Holmes Studio 446 N. Hoback, Helena, 6:30 curtain. $8 a head. Call 406-442-4233.

A link to rural Burma

Dr. Maung and Unfolding Flight. (news story)

Every so often I get to participate in an amazing international outreach and make a connection to a far corner of the world.  Last week it happened again!

Earlier this fall we got a call from Freedom to Create, a Singapore NGO which recognizes and supports obscure champions of human development.  They wanted me to create a sculpture for a new award called the Freedom to Create Women's Leadership Award to honor women's leadership.  I was able to sculpt the work, Unfolding Flight, a figure building its own wings, and get it to them in time for the unveiling/presentation in a ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa. The winner is Dr. Cynthia Maung, a humble doc who came to the aid of thousands who are fleeing a brutal military campaign in Burma but cannot escape into Thailand.  There along the border are 58,000 refugees whom she cares for, piled up like tumbleweeds against a wire fence.

And now one of my sculptures lives in the Burmese jungle! From there it is capable of whispering its message of hope to every passerby– whatever their language– from its perch on the dostor's desk. I feel so honored! On this day, World AIDS day, may we not forget those who are pushed aside...

The Most Powerful Silence in the World

There is only one interpretation of an event as clear as this!   -UC Davis.

I have not seen such a powerful symbol in the public sphere!  Perhaps not since Gandhi led the march to the sea in protest of the British salt tax in India is there a better example of so much being said with so little.

Even if you aren't following the Occupy Wall Street movement you've probably seen the horrifying video of a UC Davis cop calmly pepper-spraying seated, nonviolent students.  The incident is chilling!  (Even in the worst violent California prison uprisings guards are not allowed to spray the worst killers if they're seated!)  What is even sadder is that the university officials did not rectify this travesty against basic citizenship rights, an even more heinous oversight in view of this being not just a civic but a university setting.  [Why do I keep having the feeling that we need to overthrow Mubarak?]

To my astonishment there was another video posted, equally breathtaking, but for the totally opposite reason.  Watch what happens afterwards as the UC Davis Chancellor walks through the crowd of protesters from her office to her car!!  This is a poignant symbol that our grandchildren will remember. Like Archbishop Tutu said when my friends and I brought him here to Helena at the height of the South African apartheid regime, "we will eventually win because we are in the right".  There is no doubt looking at this video who is in the right.  Silent defiance can never be used for evil.  Violence will dig its own grave into which only the violent will fit!   

How Close Are We to a Coup?

Who's occupying whom?

In a very revealing 60 Minutes interview, the notorious crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff talks in some detail about his "craft".  We all know he was a scoundrel but do we realize how close he came, while we were all distracted by the dangers of terrorism, to selling the nation?  In revealing some very sobering facts he describes how he had essentially purchased 100 congresspeople!  That is about one third of the federal power structure!  But then listen to this: never did anyone in congress refuse his bribes.  NEVER!  In other words, if he were not caught and arrested, given enough time he could have bought a majority of U.S. representatives!


I don't think one man could literally end up owning the country, but he was not working for himself.  He was simply a thug hired by wealthy corporations to deliver representatives.  So who are the people who are really pulling the strings in Washington, we citizens, the 99%?  Of course not!  It is these same wealthy corporations, the ones who have been reaping the nations's profits for the past 30 years. How did that happen?  Some of them hired Abramoff but most hired other lobbyists who have not been caught.  Nor will they be, as after 30 years of this activity, this is how the nation works now.

It makes me wonder how close we are to a coup.  Or, more seriously, if– as seems to be indicated by the permanence of the influence of money in politics– it has already happened and we are only slowly becoming aware that much as our antics are being tolerated, we no longer own our own nation.

The Equal Opportunity in Inequality

We all know that equality is a good idea, but it's more than that. Until I heard of this scientific study I'd never heard the argument for social equality so succinctly made. It's a real eye-opener. An organization called the Equality Trust did a careful examination of many kinds of data to determine the effects of income inequality on society. Here is a video description of their results, in which they found all kinds of effects of income inequality. In it you hear one astonishing fact after another, like that the US is the most unequal developed nation, second only to Singapore. Our mental illness rate consequently is 3 times the level of that in a more egalitarian society like Japan and we have 10 times the violence! (chart) The same results can be seen comparing states to each other.

What this means is that even the RICH would do better in a more egalitarian society! As income inequality increases (the average pay raise for executives of the top 100 companies was 49% this year!!) it's not just their heads they risk as the revolution heats up. It's everything else that holds a society together.

In citing social mobility the presenter says if you want to live the "American dream", go to Denmark! I had the great luxury of living in Austria for a couple years. I'm here to say you can feel the difference. I love my country, which is exactly why I'm so exasperated! God Bless America...with some fast growing up!

Culture by the LOWest Bidder- (A Conservative Rant)

We all know that our culture has become increasingly tolerant for decades. What was taboo in our grandparent's time was exposed by our parent's generation and then celebrated by ours. That's not all good news.

The story of western civilization has been one of fairly constant refinement toward such distant ideals as beauty, quality, craft, subtlety, transcendence. But over the past few decades the liberalization of culture– which certainly focuses on freer expression– has been accompanied by a disappearance of the guiding influence of taste. The rot that so widely disgusts us in politics today spreads to journalism, the arts and even science. Spectacle drowns substance. For instance porn has not only become mainstream, it's now become  Big Business! Major corporations that are getting rich on porn are still quiet about it, but soon there'll be no adults left in the room to tell them to knock it off. Now that they are in the game, there is no going back. Politics will obediently follow, enshrining former taboos into the law of the land. Is this not alarming in its own right? Without some institutional voice urging us toward higher ideals the "development" of culture simply becomes a market-driven race to profit from the lowest instincts of the masses. In another generation there will be no need to even cover it up. It will have become business as usual.

A liberalization of culture is one thing, but abandoning the standards of a culture to market forces represents a loss of a sense of what is decent and good. Freedom of expression is a valuable individual right, but in the absence of a standard it matters less and less; "good taste" is reduced to the merely popular. And without a standard of taste there can be no avant garde, no satire, no creative breakthroughs. Everything becomes equally vacuous.

I can see no cure. We cannot transform our institutions, we can only transform ourselves. I wonder if,  like the memorizers of books in Vonegut's Farenheit 451, we individuals will one day be the secret carriers of high culture inside our lone hearts... Take some time today to remind yourself and revel in what is truly GOOD!

Vincent Van Gogh Exonerated!

I always suspected something– the story we'd heard always sounded fishy. If you read the letters of the highly misunderstood artist it seems odd that a guy so in love with life and one who so often rejected the idea of suicide would off himself in the middle of his most fervent and creative period. Now a new interpretation of the evidence seems to point to a twist in the tragedy of the premature death of this genius at 37. He was probably covering up his own murder by a couple of rowdy teens!

This not only fits the evidence but it meshes with the kind of guy Vincent was. For me he serves as a saint.  He loved that deeply, both in his life and his artistic vision. After all he was fired from his early career as a missionary among desperately poor miners for imitating Jesus so closely that he threatened the dignity of the church! No doubt there's some good reason why no one could stand to be around his abrasive personality for long. I sense it's because he burned too bright for society. Yet though he was forever lonely, his heart was always good and pure. He is just the kind of guy who, when shot in the stomach–perhaps by accident– would rather take the blame himself rather than see a couple of kids thrown into prison for a cruel prank.  In either case, he will forever more illumine for us all how intensely beautiful this life is, in all its tragic pathos!

This Changes the Whole Meaning of Columbus Day!

It was really just a fluke that it happened on Columbus Day, but in doing some serious study in Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex yesterday I read what Columbus discovered that surprised me a great deal more than the continent I inhabit.  And that is... the clitoris!  OK, truth is it was a different explorer on a different continent, the Italian physician Renaldus Columbus. But still it's remarkable… he claimed in 1559 that he had found the center of women's delight! No doubt women everywhere were overjoyed to hear about it!

Just think, all those millennia of ignorance suddenly shattered by the devoted explorations of a tireless adventurer selflessly pushing forward the frontiers of the knowledge of mankind! Unfortunately we don't have any record of what Columbus's wife thought of it, but don't you imagine that she was bursting with pride (or something) when at age 43 he published his findings? That is, if she wasn't busy.

I wonder what else we clever men could discover if we poked around in the right places?

Who Is That Behind Those Bars?

Polly Holmes,  Montana Representative, 1970-1980

Why is it that America imprisons more of its population than about any other nation on earth? For being such a "developed" nation we certainly are at the bottom when it comes to one thing: incarceration rates, and child poverty. OK, two things. Adding income disparity that would be three– uh, four including healthcare. Anyway my point is that U.S. imprisonment rates are among the highest in the world. Is America really crawling with criminals? Yes is correct answer! It turns out that 95% of adults have committed at least one imprisonable crime (including me, but that's for a different post). But other civilized nations don't throw people in jail when they make mistakes but when they're truly dangerous. That's how we used to do it before campaigning politicians began their tragic race to the bottom by appealing to our lowest fears.

My mom, Polly Holmes, was a housewife in 1970 when she decided the government could be more responsive to real people, ran for the Montana legislature as a nobody and won. One of her major concerns in the 10 years she served was to reform the way we treat prisoners, focusing less on our revenge and more on their rehab. She didn't get far, but VA Sen. Jim Webb has taken up where she left off, trying to reform the whole system. He just might succeed, too! Not for compassionate reasons, unfortunately, but for budgetary ones. If our system were honest we would almost all be in jail together. Or we could adapt a more humane response to those who make mistakes and try to encourage their cooperativeness. Then we could reap the creative energies of those currently locked up who made minor errors or smoked too many joints and only imprison those whose crimes are massive, like the Wall Street CEOs who stole millions of houses and pensions. That's what prisons are for.

Rise of a New Religion

Vision of Peace (detail), pastel

Much digital ink has been spilled (that must be what's on my shoe!) about how weird politics has become of late. As a political satirist I have to admit I am flummoxed by the situation as there's no way to make fun of behaviors this bizarre! We can only shake our heads in disbelief and hope for the return of normality for the sale of– if nothing else– some welcome contrast that could allow the return of humor.

But recently I heard a view that really helps explain things for me. In recent articles bloggers Mike Lofgren and Andrew Sullivan point out that the GOP has come to resemble not so much a political party as a religion! The problem-solving party of the Eisenhower years has dissolved into a kind of fundamentalist cult that cares little for science or facts or indeed reality. Instead it features a certain tightly closed world-view in which only those who spout the rigid dogma are tolerated. All else is its enemy, including, sadly enough, the very welfare of the nation.

Suddenly this bizarre behavior begins to make a kind of 'sense'. The GOP is no longer oriented toward either the improvement or even the survival of the nation. It's interested only in furthering the glory of its circle of saints (the super-rich), while all others will be sacrificed in a kind of Judgment Day soon to come. And as with any fundamentalists, there will be no dialoging. They are engaged not in democracy but in holy war.

I can only assume that what drives people down this suicide path is a hope for some brand of personal salvation but I really don't know. It could as well be a simple lust for blood (or weariness with this world)! I find that I take refuge in the hope that LOVE, after all, shines steadier and brighter than any hateful dogma. May the journey forward together– and the Love that inspires it– eventually prevail!

Learning to See

Carl Jung, perhaps the most important of our foundational psychologists, reveals how much we are unconscious of our true reality. As we pass the 10th year of 9/11 and finally begin to come to our senses about the tragedy, we can see that we weren't seeing clearly to begin with, which has caused much of the mess we are in now. If we had seen more clearly at the time this would be a very different world today. Living unconsciously is very expensive, often leading to catastrophe. If ours was a more feminine culture devoted to the powerfully transforming magic of listening, how different our future would look!

Jung says that our greatest threats are not natural crises but psychic ones. Our nation is not nearly as likely to "die a natural death" (like being overcome by a greater culture) as to fall by means of our own psychic failure to recognize and deal with our reality.  If in fact we are overcome by nature in the end it will not be because nature turned nasty but because we refused to live conscious of the real dangers we faced. The challenge for our time is to grow more conscious. And as events overtake our ability to respond intelligently to them, the stakes grow.

I feel that the most crucial growth we can undertake– as individuals and nations– is to learn to see what really is before us. The psychic reality is the REAL reality. Our culture, wooed by the power of the scientific mindset, tends to peg our sense of what is real in what is literal. But "literal" only refers to what we conceive of as most deeply true. I'm soon teaching a course in figure drawing, which is a great practice for learning to draw the person that is really before you instead of what your mind tells you is there. People are always surprised– myself included– to really SEE something that is right before them. If we had SEEN what 9/11 presented us, we could have used it to usher in a much more civilized world... But we do have the capacity to learn from our mistakes. I wonder what we'll do with that?

The Liberal Media

I'm not the only one growing disgruntled with the quality of American news. Apparently most young folks have grown to trust as a news source a pair of comedians: Steven Colbert and particularly, according to a Time poll, Jon Stewart. Much as it's real fun to get your news that way, it is a sad commentary on the demise of our culture that journalism is overtaken by entertainment. And I mean that in both senses. In the mainstream media (increasingly owned by a very few huge private corporations) we hear common references to the news world– as "liberal media", which only seems to justify the puppetmasters pulling farther to the right for "balance." But a cursory look to other media outlets around the world (who, need we point out, are less influenced by American politics) looks in comparison pretty darned liberal. Could it be that some secretive leftist conspiracy has overtaken the whole world, or is it more likely that the slow drift of our own American voice is revealed by watching the nearby bank move? It's a serious question.

My main interest is in culture and so I resist writing about politics. But politics, the place where rubber hits road, deeply effects culture. I dream of an open culture where citizens can freely exchange visions of possibilities for our future. That seems like the only way to survive is as a community of equals.  On that phrase pivots much of world politics now. Our age seems to be one of a very few trying to keep from having to share the reigns of power equally. Maybe this is the story of the whole of human civilization, but unlike any time in the past, if we fail now it won't be because we haven't experienced that a better world– such as a democratic one– is in fact possible.

The Ultimate Virus of Compassion

Tara and Henry

Last month I heard a rattling coming down the alley outside the studio and peering out, saw a guy pushing a grocery cart, going through the dumpsters for aluminum cans. I hailed him and brought him round a box of cans I'd been saving. As we loaded the cans he told me his rather sweet story. He was a house painter but is on disability after an injury and lives in a apartment complex for disabled adults. There he met a mentally disabled woman named Tara, "like a five-year-old," wheelchair-bound, who lives in a nearby room. She seemed to have a pretty bleak life, with little furniture, only a small, simple TV and no pictures on her walls. By selling aluminum he was hoping to get a better TV and some pictures for her, he said cheerfully. As usual I was preoccupied, but I got his name, Henry, and thanked him for his story.

I was happy to hear the clattering again recently. I gave Henry another load of cans and asked after Tara. He not only said she was doing well, but later than day wheeled her the 1/2 mile to the studio to introduce me to her! I was touched to be so honored. I wish I'd had the presence of mind at the time to invite her in for a studio tour but I didn't want to overwhelm her. My intent is to fill her apartment with real original art that she might choose herself from among my work.

Truth is that we are so thoroughly surrounded by thousands of acts of love and kindness all the time that we grow blind to them. The reason why there is such bad stuff in the news is that it is so astonishingly unusual. It is not a cruel world but one so filled with love that when there is misfortune we are transfixed by it. Let us not forget the truth of an undying love that grows on and on, passed from one to another, often in the most unexpected ways!

A Model of Purity

There's a new international modeling star infusing energy and sexuality to the fashion world. A French girl named Thylane Blondeau, she's not only alluring, but she's everything the industry could hope for in innocence. That's because she's 10 years old! There is some controversy. The implications of youth– especially girls– being sexualized for the sake of marketing is a serious matter.

When the model and parents are willing, as in this case, it may remove worries of direct exploitation but that does nothing to reduce the creepiness of seeing a kid posed in a sexy way for an anonymous audience. Why is that? Who is harmed? I'd say that beyond the degradation of any individual, or even providing an unhealthy opportunity for perverts, the travesty is in the effect on the culture at large. When kids are imaged as adults for adult pleasure (and especially for profit!!) all involved are subtly nudged away from seeing the model as a real person. This is even the case with a willing adult model. They may be privately assured of the falsity of their own degradation and thus safe from it, but the rest of society suffers from a general deflation of the human spirit as the complexity of the real person is reduced to a one-dimensional clone of the fashion icon.

This is what much of my work of recent years has been about, especially with the Body Psalms films. In that project I try to counter this degradation not by negating sexuality as the church as done for centuries– to infamously disastrous results– but by reminding the viewer that what is unnatural is not sexual interest but the reduction of a person to an object: OK for mythic figures, but not OK for real human beings!

Fundamentalist Consumerism

Holy Ground, by Tim Holmes, conte crayon

I'd never heard that term before I read an article by psychologist Bruce Levine who says, "Americans are broken by increasing domination of “fundamentalist consumerism” and “money-centrism” at the expense of all other aspects of their humanity—this breaks our integrity and weakens us. We are also broken by increasing social isolation, bureaucratization, surveillance, the corporate media, and by other public institutions." As an active professional artist I have been mourning for many years the tragic situation where the art world increasingly resembles the drug world as the focus moves from art and esthetics to money. In every sector from commercial galleries to the art market to even supposedly educationally-oriented museums, concern is for profit at the expense of all else. This is not to say that museums have sold out entirely, but most galleries have. Talk to any gallery owner and unless they are independently wealthy and run the gallery as a community service you will hear the same refrain: we must sell to keep the doors open! (Out with Kollwitz and in with velvet Elvis!)

The result is not so much a world of art as a market of entertainment and decor. That is what sells in a capitalist system. Unfortunately, this is just a symptom of the tendency of capitalist culture to reduce EVERYTHING to economics. We can see the same degradation in local business, news, the internet, Hollywood, politics, even religion. When turning a profit is the highest aspiration the result is inevitable: entertainment replaces quality; spin replaces truth.

For me, the answer has become avoiding the professional art world. I now share my art in areas where money is not the top priority– small non-profits, churches, community groups but mostly with individuals. The alternative world where quality, beauty and community are the highest priorities there are very few material rewards and little publicity. There is no way around this dilemma. The rewards are clear: if you value treasure you have to traffic in fundamentalist consumerism. For those who truly value spiritual gifts do so at the cost of material rewards. But the fruit is happiness and a deep sense of meaning, which becomes worth more than all the gold in the world!

Free the Hostages!

It is painful to witness our beloved democratic system dragged to the verge of collapse, and all without the slightest threat from outside! The debt crisis appears to be nothing but an adolescent temper tantrum ballooned to a ridiculous scale. It looks like the conservatives who led us into two in-and-out wars (Bush) or that "deficits don't matter" (Cheney) all the while handing out tax cuts for the rich, now don't want to pay for any of it (surprise!. Even though liberals fought like hell against those they at least still feel we need to pay our bills, even foolish ones. But I'm afraid the news is worse– that this political charade is only a decoy to distract us from the real action.

It is clear that large corporations and the wealthy– particularly the super-wealthy– have been making off with all the fat of the land since Reagan. Now that they also own most of the media they can also control the conversation, turning our attention toward party politics and away from income disparity. It looks to me like the US has become a "plutarchy" with a great PR campaign trumpeting democratic ideals. Now that the Supreme Court has blessed corporations as legal "persons" we know what "power to the people" really means to this elite. (If you don't believe me, what visible hand decided that fat people can't run for president?)

History will not be fooled, however. Once the richest 1% have total control of the nation they can even drop the pretense without consequence, just like the feudal lords they resemble. But history will favor the people's will. The real question is, will people KNOW their own will? If we are content living miserable lives nurtured with a weak education system but frosted with sparkling entertainment, that's not
likely. But if we continue to think and talk and dream together, we the people (real persons) will prevail...So I hope.

Bragging Rights: Film, Exhibition, Ballet, Butter, Eggs...

IR photo by Eliza Wiley

Last year at this time we were just saying goodbye to the Austrians who were here shooting a documentary about my art. Now a version of the film called The Moving Art of Tim Holmes, made for European TV, is screening at The Myrna Loy Theater here in Helena, 7:00 on July 14. 

Filmmaker Karin Wally was introduced to my work in Vienna in 2010 and started filming there (including in the stunning Schönbrunn Palace gardens!)  Then the crew traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, where they interviewed curators at the Hermitage Museum about my exhibition there in 1993-94 (One of the chief sculpture curators refers to me as a "master" in the film... !!!) Following that they came to Montana to shoot interviews and art across the state before returning to Vienna to do post-production. Most of the film covers the more international work I've done, but also includes some background and thoughts by family and friends that's a lot more interesting than what I have to say in it. Along with it is an exhibition of some of the work that is featured in the film. 

What I didn't know when Tess set all this up is that I would later get a commission to design and paint a dozen huge panels for Ballet Montana's production of The Inquisition of Don Miguel, which will be playing in the same theater in about 2 weeks (July 27-29 if you're local) and if I get the work done!  If not, come anyway– you won't even notice, the dancing is so great!

Political Satire v.s. Political Subterfuge

As a long-time political satirist I wish we'd see more debates like the one between the Daily Show comedian (and liberal) Jon Stewart and conservative talk show host Chris Wallace aired on FOX, an illuminating dialogue between two very different but often confused agendas, of which this conversation is a perfect example.

On both sides there is a relentless pursuit of victory and all means are pursued toward that end. But the objectives are different. For Wallace– and conservatives in general– the motivation for battle is a struggle between the legitimacy of right over left. However for Stewart (but definitely not all liberals) the struggle is not between right and left but between truth and falsehood. With that in mind one can begin to see how a warrior on the first side would detect a "political bias" on the part of the other– precisely because those objectives are different. The weapons that the first faces (truth) appear for all the world like the enemy they are battling ("liberalism") and expect to be confronted with.

Jon's bias isn't 'left' so much as true to the form itself which is motivated by a desire to expose hypocrisy among the powerful, whatever its source! Jon's point could have been stated more clearly, which is that the relentless pursuit of the truth has no political bias (except that the only people who ever abuse power are the ones who have it!!) If the fish caught in that net are mostly of one party that indicates not a bias of the reporter but that abuse of power is more common in that party. It all comes down to the truth, not ideology (though Jon did a very commendable job of claiming the bias that he does show occasionally- something that doesn't help the truth though it may produce a better laugh in the moment. Political bias is never OK in the pursuit of truth, even when it's very funny!) The opposite of that approach is not 'conservative', but rather condoning deceit, and what is worse, a failure to call out those who abuse power. If he only exposed people from the right while ignoring hypocrisy from the left, THAT would be bias, but Stewart follows the noble mission of political satire– the true weapon of the little people– relentlessly.