High Holy Mass of Contradictions

Birthday present

Originally uploaded by Kate O’

Around the middle of December, Karsten was getting ready to start making visual art again after a long, intense period of house renovation, and in the middle of a period of exhaustion and depression, he needed a comfortable project to ease him back into it. Unfortunately, he’d also gotten his mind set on oil painting, which is a medium he’d done almost nothing with since art school.

I’m no artist, and I know almost nothing about oil painting except what I’d learned from Karsten while he’d been doing research, but I do know projects and I know how complexity compounds difficulty in execution. And I know Karsten, and how ready he is to feel bad about himself when something he tries doesn’t go quite right.

So I was worried that he would take on a painting project that would require a lot of skill with oil paint and he’d get frustrated and disappointed in himself. I tried to help him think of something that would reduce the variables in the process: we talked about copying an image from somewhere else and doing it in solid tones. The thought was that not having to work from an entirely original concept seemed like it would reduce the risk of losing faith in his own artistic vision due to medium complications, and not having to make elaborate color mixing decisions seemed like it would reduce the complexity of the painting and leave him to get familiar with other elements of technique, such as the application of the paint itself.

And then I happened across a print in a Chiasso catalog (which is seemingly no longer available). It was orange and white, like the colors I’m starting to use in my new home office concept, and featured a simple silhouette of a vine. I really liked it, but I thought it lacked a sense of animate life and needed a perched bird to be truly perfect. And I saw a wonderful multi-effect opportunity emerging.

When I asked Karsten if he thought he could paint the picture for me, he was unsure if he was up to the challenge. That was his fatigue and depression talking, of course, and I did worry that he might not be ready to try it, and that if he tried and felt like he failed, he’d be crushed, but he agreed to give it a try so I crossed my fingers.

It took several weeks, and I got to peek at it during the process, and it was always just as wonderful as I hoped.

He presented it to me a few weeks ago, and I have it sitting on a shelf in my home office, waiting until we finish painting the walls from their current dirty-pepto-bismol-pink to a simple crisp white before we hang it.

You can see how it fits in with some of my office accessories in this picture.

I just love it. It’s about the best birthday present I can imagine, for so many reasons — not least of which is that Karsten now has so much more confidence about taking the next step with painting. So maybe it’s sort of a present for him, too.

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

• checking out chris wage’s project 365 slide show — it’s wonderful! http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwage/sets/72157594455834211/show/ #
• Thinking I should probably get my overly knotted neck and shoulder looked at. #

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

Chris Wage is a freakin’ photography genius (even while drunk enjoying an adult beverage or two):

I LOVE that picture. It makes me feel like I’m back in that moment, in the late hours of the party with the die hard revelers still going strong, laughing it up with great friends. What a great moment.

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been getting creatively inspired a lot lately. I already talked about going to hear the Peter Plagens lecture at the Frist and how creatively inspiring that was, but then on Thursday night we went to the Société Anonyme show at the Frist with Brad and Jed, and Brad spent a good chunk of time explaining why “Tu m’” was, as he put it, the Rosetta Stone of modern art. So I listened and I looked hard at it, and I saw it. And I kept coming back to it as I circled the exhibit. I’d look at other pieces, the Mondrians and the Miros, and then I’d make my way back in front of the Duchamp piece that did begin to feel like the punchline to the whole show.

All day Friday, I kept thinking back to that piece. I’d be working on the budget at work, and I’d think about the genius of using a tool to say I don’t want to use this tool anymore. And I’d think about the shadows from the bottle brush, and how much there is going on in just that part of the work alone, not even to mention the rest of the composition.

I’m not a painter or any other kind of visual artist; I’m a writer. And lyrics are my primary medium. But looking at visual art can inspire me in ways music doesn’t reach. (I bet Randy at Ethos totally gets what I mean here.) It’s like rewiring my brain; all the lights seem brighter and the circuits seem faster. And I see dimensions of things I’d been blind to.

Whether that translates into more and better songwriting, I have yet to see. I’m writing here and there, but nothing yet has screamed epiphany. But even if it’s not about that, even if the net effect is just to reset my powers of observation and make me live a little more in the moment, hey, that’s powerful stuff, I’ll take it.

Technorati Tags:
art, creativity, songwriting

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Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

I got a message on Flickr a while ago about a picture I took of the Tennessee State Capitol building — that the online guide Schmap may want to use it and would I indicate my approval or not. So I said that’d be fine with me. On Saturday I got confirmation that the picture was indeed included and was now live on the site. From the message on Flickr:

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released third edition of our Schmap Nashville Guide: Tennessee State Capitol Building
www.schmap.com/nashville/sights_downtown/p=18858/i=18858_3.jpg

I do like the sunset colors on the capitol, but I don’t even think it’s a very good photo — it’s only a crappy Treo-quality picture, after all. But I did take the stupid picture, despite what the photo credit shows:

Guess I probably should sort that out. I bet Chris Wage would never let crap like that slip.

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Karsten and I went to the Young Professionals / Brian Ritchey / The Katies show at Mercy Lounge with a bunch of my coworkers last night. (This was after we'd been to Lyrix to see our buddy Joe Hendricks play a writers' round, which was after we'd been to Cabana with the coworkers for happy hour.) The show was great. All three acts were great, even if I'm especially partial to the latter two who are friends of ours through day job connections.

Anyway, I saw JD of Gypsy Cab Co. rockin' out with his new haircut and funky vest. Small blogosphere. No pics because it was just too damn dark in there for my Treo.

After the show was over and everyone had had their fill of after-hours dorky dancing to cheesy '80s pop, my colleagues and I sought drunk-dining options at Hermitage Cafe south of downtown. Wow. I'd never even heard of it, but apparently it has quite a following. Wow. That place was... um... an experience. Wow. You know the kind of dive where the cook is flipping hash browns with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth? Where the waitress looks about 80 even though she's probably only 40, and she says "hon" a lot? This was even divier than that. When I asked for decaf coffee, the waitress answered that it was Sanka, apparently giving me a chance to back out of the deal. I said, "well, ok" and she cautioned me again, this time more clearly: "It's not very good, hon." I reassured her that I would face the consequences bravely and she moved on to someone else's drink order. My shoes were sticking to the so-called "carpet" which was so worn it looked as if it had become a single trodden-down layer of matted grime and grease. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Naturally, the place was overrun with drunk songwriters. (Including several of us.) Heh.

I'd say more about it but I got so little sleep I think I've overstretched my ability to articulate. Off to make dinner and then go see the WJ Cunningham opening at the Estel Gallery. I think it'll be an early night tonight, though. I can't imagine staying awake much past 9 PM at this point.

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend.

From NPR.org:

Casino magnate Steve Wynn acquired Picasso's painting La Reve for $139 million. Then, while showing off the valuable work at his Las Vegas Hotel, he punched a hole in it with his elbow.

Can you imagine? When I told Karsten (who is, as you may know, a visual artist), his jaw dropped, he shook his head, and then pointed out that there so many levels of absurdity in that. First: the concept that a piece of stretched canvas with oil paint on it is worth $139 million. And then... oops? He asked if Wynn was drunk or anything. And no, as a matter of fact, I dug around and found this account from Nora Ephron on huffingtonpost.com:

Steve Wynn has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that damages peripheral vision, but he could see quite clearly what had happened.

Again, I ask: can you imagine? Yikes.

She also admits to having had a burning desire to take a picture, but showed the sensitivity and discretion not to:

At the same time I was holding my digital camera in my hand - I'd just taken several pictures of the Picasso - and I wanted to take a picture of the Picasso with the hole in it so badly that my camera was literally quivering. But I didn't see how I could take a picture - it seemed to me I'd witnessed a tragedy, and what's more, that my flash would go off if I did and give me away.

Wow. I can't imagine. I can't imagine being the one to witness it, let alone being the one to damage it. It hurts my brain just thinking of it.

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Sorry, I’ve been meaning to post an update on the animal art auction and have been too swamped. Or lazy. But swamped makes me sound more important, I think, so I’ve been swamped.

Anyway, we won a painting! And not just any painting: a meerkat painting!

Karsten loves meerkats. All along, I was hoping we’d find a good painting done by meerkats. But the first few we saw were kind of disappointing. Cute, of course — it’s impossible to imagine meerkats painting without being nearly cuted to death — but each of the surfaces had very little pigment on it, so there wasn’t much to be cuted by.

But then we saw this one, and we both agreed it was wonderful. And the colors in it even complement the shabby chic aesthetic we’re going for in the bedroom. So we bid on it and guarded it throughout the evening, and we won it! For a lean $52 (the auction sheet stated its value at $90ish, and just for the frame and matte I’d say that’s about right).

So if you click through to the rest of the pictures on flickr, you’ll be able to see more of the animal art that was up for auction. It was really a fun evening. If it happens again and you’re local, you don’t want to miss it.

Originally published at Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed. You can comment here or there.

Sorry, I've been meaning to post an update on the animal art auction and have been too swamped. Or lazy. But swamped makes me sound more important, I think, so I've been swamped.

Anyway, we won a painting! And not just any painting: a meerkat painting!

Karsten loves meerkats. All along, I was hoping we'd find a good painting done by meerkats. But the first few we saw were kind of disappointing. Cute, of course -- it's impossible to imagine meerkats painting without being nearly cuted to death -- but each of the surfaces had very little pigment on it, so there wasn't much to be cuted by.

But then we saw this one, and we both agreed it was wonderful. And the colors in it even complement the shabby chic aesthetic we're going for in the bedroom. So we bid on it and guarded it throughout the evening, and we won it! For a lean $52 (the auction sheet stated its value at $90ish, and just for the frame and matte I'd say that's about right).

So if you click through to the rest of the pictures on flickr, you'll be able to see more of the animal art that was up for auction. It was really a fun evening. If it happens again and you're local, you don't want to miss it.

We've been looking forward to this for weeks. If we start putting big sheets of paper on the floor of our house with piles of tempera paints for the cats to walk through, well, don't say I didn't warn you here first.

Thanks to tubenerd for encouraging me to take a picture at this art event the other night. It gave me something to post in Metroblogging Nashville, and I've been a neglectful blogger over the past 10 days.

But anyway, this was a way cool fun night of art happenings.

I started this post on Monday but got busy. Whoops!

Sunday and Monday were sort of the conjoined twin anniversaries of ( our transplant to Nashville three years ago )So Sunday, we had brunch at the Pineapple Room at Cheekwood to celebrate the end of our third year in Nashvegas, which means... the beginning of our senior year here! Maybe sometime soon we'll start figuring out what we're supposed to be doing.

Happily, we also managed to convince tubenerd and oiran to join us, and slipped in a little birthday mention for the Tube Dude.

After brunch, we ( saw god )

Anyway, after that, we walked around the sculpture trail, took lots of pictures of each other (here's pics of Karsten -- I didn't ask anyone else's permission to share photos), got cold, came back to our house, drank hot cocoa, and sat around making silly music on Karsten's keyboard. I had a LOT of fun. :-)

Just finished watching the movie Smoke. And I have a serious Three Buck Chuck buzz going on. So let's just see if I'm able to write what I'm thinking I want to say, shall we? :-)

The message is, storytelling is arbitrary. There are millions and millions and millions of stories, and they all run into one another and overlap, and you get to decide where to start and where to stop telling the story. It reminds me of something I always associate with vito_excalibur having said on The List a while back (but, vito, if you feel like revealing your source, I'd be intrigued) about how the difference between comedy and tragedy is where you stop telling the story. I love that.

Anyway, it's a good writer's movie. Or artist's movie. I love the concept piece they show Harvey Keitel's character having worked on for years: taking photos for five minutes at 8:00 AM every morning from the same location. I would love to see a collection of those photos.

I wish I could say more, but the buzz is making me want to get up and dance around the apartment, and I must obey the buzz. :-)

I've convinced toastytuft to apply for this. :-)

Guitars to twang all around Music City

[...] The citywide public arts project sponsored by Gibson Guitars has
issued a call for artists. The project will feature 50 originally designed
10-foot tall fiberglass Gibson guitars. [...] "We are trying to get all of
the creativity of the artists in the area to put their energy into designing
fabulous guitars and making them as wild and as wonderful as they possibly
can," said Nina Miller of Gibson Guitars.