RSS - PostsWhen 911 happened, I was in the second week of being a professor at a small college on the north coast of California. I was teaching drawing and digital imaging. On that morning, I was not sure if I was supposed to come in to teach, so I did. I remember saying to my first class of the day that it just did not feel right to be there, talking about things like line and gesture drawing. I told my students they were welcome to work in the classroom, but that I could not get it together. I had to hang back a little, and wait and see what was really happening. I did not know what to think.
The beach was strangely quiet those next few days post-911. No air traffic meant a deeper kind of silence than we knew could be possible. I remembered something Leighton Pierce told me when I was studying at University of Iowa- that there is no more true silence in this world. Electronic devices, planes, and cars have made it nearly impossible to ever record anything in the field with a true empty quiet in the background. Naturalists bemoan this challenging dilemma- this noise pollution that is unrelenting and completely ubiquitous. When you record on sound for video or film, you often take a small recording, like 3 minutes is best, but 30 seconds will do, of something they call room tone. Room tone is the sound of a space when nothing is happening: no one’s moving, nothing is being shuffled around. There is no speaking, or action per se. Sometimes a room tone is warm and enveloping. Other times, back in the editing room, you’d playback the sample and the room tone would sound harsh, shrill almost, and quite tinny. The silence of spaces shrink and fill to fit the limitations of the architecture of a structure. And it’s almost as if the world outside has a room tone of it’s own, a shifting patter that resonates and shimmers. I wonder how to delineate the invisible markers that shape the sound of a space, enclosed only by clouds and air. Today is similarly quiet.
Where we lived
Back in June, I started seeing this white chicken at the trail head of the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. If you have never been to this park before, it’s one of those great places in Portland where you can go from busy neighborhood street to quiet tree-packed path in seconds. If you begin walking at the parking lot and keep walking for 10 minutes or so, you’ll end up at a path that follows the edge of the Willamette, a path heavily trafficked by bike commuters, joggers, people with dogs and kids, and solitary wanderers. So it was a real surprise to see a chicken grazing just 20 yards from the parking lot. I was sure the chicken had been “taken for a ride in the country” as they say. Left to fend for itself.
The first time I saw it, the chicken was in the deep shadows between the street entrance and parking lot, and the footpath leading from the street. A little, sunken, semi-private area: a narrow valley several feet below street level. I did a double take the first time I saw it, then felt completely bemused. Was the chicken a sign of the whole backyard breeder/urban homesteader craze gone awry? The bird was picking around in the brush for bugs. The vegetation at that particular part of the trail head gets very dry in the sunny months, but at that time, in early summer, the pickings were green and lush. I’d even seen several school groups recently doing restoration projects in that area of the park: planting native plants here, plucking non-natives there. Picking up trash. The result being that his somewhat landscaped entryway to the wetlands had been looking more and more put-together. So when I saw the white chicken with the big tufts at its toes, I could barely believe it. It looked so out of place- like a house cat on a fence-less lawn, shrinking from the freedom. But maybe that was just me projecting? Actually the chicken seemed pretty calm. Not scared of strangers but certainly not overly friendly. It had found a place rich with greens and full of shade.
Chicken-sightings grew into a regular part of my walks through the area. Entering the park, I’d take a quick look to the left to check the brush from the path-side. And every time, every walk, all summer, regardless of the time of day, I’d see the white chicken pecking around, seemingly oblivious to the foot and car traffic.
But as the weeks passed and got warmer and warmer, my concern turned into worry. A part of me grew quite concerned for its welfare. How would it get clean water? Would it get hot? Or cold? Or maybe lonely. Maybe there is some kind of strange grooming ritual it’d miss out on back at the coop and it would grow surly and unkempt- feathers protruding from odd places and long long claws so long it could not walk anymore without getting caught.
One day during the heat wave in late July, I headed out to see if it was around. I had visions of it dead in the bushes, little red tongue hanging from its yellow beak, parted. I found a groundskeeper watering some of the trees and asked him if he had seen the chicken, or if he even knew about it. He did know about it. I said, “Do you think it’s ok out here? I mean- without food and water?” He replied that the chicken is always just hanging around, eating bugs, and that it seemed fine. The landscaper sounded like he knew what he was talking about- so I dropped it, for the moment, and vowed to check on the bird as often as I could. I presumed that any kind of animal control type service would automatically put it to sleep. So I guessed that non-interference was the best path. (Now I am not so sure.)
Keeping an eye on the chicken became a preoccupation. I even roped my husband and neighborhood friends into looking for the chicken when they passed by. My husband snapped a photo of it with his phone. The photo is the last I have seen of the chicken. It disappeared a few weeks ago.
I don’t know what ended up happening to it. I have recently seen several cats lounging around the area where the chicken used to be. And this makes me further question my response to the whole scenario.
Perhaps I should have called Animal Control? Or maybe the Humane Society? What kept me from calling these types pf places was a perhaps misinformed and ill-founded hope that somehow the chicken could adapt to being free after being domesticated. As if it was a creature in a Disney cartoon, finally released after a long captivity, ready to take on the world on its own terms. Some kind of messed up human-centric vision of freedom versus captivity. As a high school student I used to work with a woman who rehabilitated raptors. My job was sometimes to skin the salvaged roadkill to feed to the wounded birds. The birds would then ravenously eat the deer bits from a bucket. A gnarly job, yet really captivating when the birds became healthy enough to be free again. Sadly, though, the bird at Oaks Bottom was no wounded raptor. Doubtful it had any genetically programmed behavior that could kick in and make it understand how to live without human help.
Maybe the chicken died of natural causes. If so, my dear chicken friend, rest in peace.
Or maybe someone else found it and brought it back to their backyard coop and rehabilitated him. That is my naive hope. My ill-founded, naive hope.
Filed under: "Monsters", "Nature", Drawing, Painting, Portland Events | Tags: Charles Hartman Fine Art, Chimeras, Hayley Barker
If you have not already heard:
Hayley Barker: Chimeras
September 2 – October 10, 2009
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am-6pm
Charles A Hartman Fine Art
134 NW 8th Avenue
Portland, OR 97209
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am-6pm
You may be asking yourself, “What is a CHIMERA?”
(“chimera.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 5 September 2009)
- Main Entry: chi·me·ra
- Pronunciation: \kī-ˈmir-ə, kə-\
- Function: noun
- Etymology: Latin chimaera, from Greek chimaira she-goat, chimera; akin to Old Norse gymbr yearling ewe, Greek cheimōn winter
1 a capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail b : an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream <a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer — John Donne>
All of these meanings are relevant… Check out my artist statement for more details.
I’m excited for you to see this show in person.
Some kind words:
Portland Monthly’s Lisa Radon/ Culturephile
I just read an interesting article in the August 3rd issue of the New Yorker, “Peter Schjeldahl, The Art World, “Conceptual Motion,” The New Yorker, August 3, 2009, p. 7.”
It hit upon an issue that has been on my mind for ages, but that I’ve had a difficult time articulating- at least as well as Schjeldahl does. Granted, I’m an artist and he’s a critic, so he clearly has the authority to make bold statements about art historical issues. But I’d like to tip my hat to him for this little review of “In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976,” on view at the MOMA.
(From the abstract) Schjeldahl writes:
“The rise of conceptualism coincided with a crisis: a huge generation of art students during a dire economic recession. Not unlike our current situation, early Conceptualism may freshly excite young artists today. The show’s focus is contingent, but not arbitrary. None of the show’s artists are polemical…. Early Conceptualism can easily be considered a last gasp of Romanticism: the exemplary wanderers in wilds of geographic and imaginary space. The effect is less one of attitudes becoming form than one of form becoming attitudes of heroic initiative. They flattered in-groups of enviable individuals as well as burgeoning networks of institutional support. It was all very special, but fun for a while.” Yes.
It sometimes seems as if the conceptual art of the late 60’s-early 70’s has been read exactly how the artists of the time wanted us to read it: in a detached, “unemotional way.” You know the phrase, “the art makes itself.” But Schjeldahl makes a great point of mentioning in this review that in fact the person (or character or collective) behind a conceptual stance creates not from a place free of subjectivity, but from a place of where strategic decisions are made: decisions that culminate in a work of art that is read in relation to its maker. (For better or worse, many of us read art in a way that ultimately creates a biographical portrait of its maker. Schjeldahl writes that some of the most enduring conceptual art has a “charming” character behind it!) We come to know the maker’s character as it comes into focus from bits and clues gathered via the artwork, the artist assuming a kind of behind the curtain, directorial position in relation to the artwork. And so many of us were taught that a conceptual artists’ hands are not as messy (emotionally speaking) as an Abstract Expansionist’s! The idea that conceptual art has no or little emotional force or motivation behind it, or driving it, is simply ill-founded. It’s a bit like saying atheists are non-believers. It’s not that atheists are non-believers, it’s that they believe in no g/God. Maybe that’s a bizarre analogy? Put another way, the conceptual work that is most appealing to me ends up seeming a bit like a portrait of the mind of it’s maker in relation to the way he/she experiences ______ ( ______ being time/space/relationships… etc.). These works that lays bare inner thought processes: the artwork as idea- coming into full form in the viewer’s mind.
Schjeldahl writes:
“An ideological stance that rejected subjectivity- which LeWitt codified in his influential proposition that ‘the idea becomes a machine that makes the art’- simply displaced the figure of the artist from an expressive presence in the artwork to an Oz-like sovereignty behind the scenes. The effect is less one of attitudes becoming form than of form becoming, in the sense of enhancing, attitudes of heroic initiative. The movement’s ideals of community fail to convince in this light. They flattered in-groups of enviable individuals…”
So, yes. Some conceptual art is simply more charming than others. She was not mentioned as a participant in the show, but picture Yoko Ono’s film, Fly (1971), crawling across bare skin. Super sweet. Humorous even. And oh so conceptual.
Maybe it’s because I had a chance to step away from the studio this week, or maybe not, in any case this week brought many interesting art events to be enjoyed. A few highlights:
Jeffrey Mitchell’s talk at the Portland Art Museum was fascinating. I have been a fan of his work for several years, so it was inspiring to finally get a peak at how he thinks. If you have not yet attended one of these art talks, they are worth a trip to the museum. Artists choose a work of art within the museum’s collection, to discuss in an informal way, through the lens of their own work. Via this conversation over a particular work of art from the Portland Art Museum collection, artists are free to be scholarly, personal, and conversational. The piece Mitchell choose to talk about was a small bear-shaped pot from the Han dynasty, c. 250 B.C.E. It resembled a red panda, sitting upright, its paws curled in to its chest, with a small snake encircling it’s form, chasing an even smaller frog. As the crowd circled this modestly sized object, something fiercely wonderful occurred. This group of strangers sat, stood, and looked at this one art object for nearly an hour. It is a lovely revelation to feel that sense of time slowing down when truly looking at a work of art. Spending time with an art object (or an art video for that matter) over an extended time frame (more than several minutes) is a gift. Like Mitchell suggested- it is a kind of time travel. A sharing of space with a creature that holds it’s own physical memories; a thing that exists in a larger time frame than we are capable of comprehending in a real or palpable way. It was interesting to hear him speak of the way this bear pot found its way into his mind and imagination as he worked in the studio. An object can be examined from limitless points of view, associations unfurling like a Mark Lombardi drawing, crossing disciplines and ways of knowing. It was great to sense this richness from the conversation. We all know this kind of associative logic, but this is the kind of thinking artists tend to excel at, the artist’s seat of authority being a place of intuitive connections, strengthened by rigorous discipline, curiosity, and even obsession. So the conversation went all over the place: the bear pot as humble container for spirit, as playful yet respectable creature with its own kind of clan-like knowledge, as time traveler, and as container for that final hibernation. as one attendee so aptly proposed.
Some other things worth mentioning…. Painter Shelley Turley has updated her website and its worth a look. In a recent studio visit I was moved by her unique vision. Her newest series is inspired and fascinating. Her oil paintings of mysterious, somewhat ambiguously New Age-like rituals are sumptuous and strange- and they include satyrs, earth mamas, messiahs, and their requisite followers. These are not kitschy,which would be an easy response to these types of hippie, metaphysical group rituals. Rather they sensitively picture intimate exchanges that you could happen upon in a clearing or on a shore in a small town in America. They remind me of a Manet somewhat- in that they are pastoral, woodsy settings, but they have a contemporary, edgy, component, and the lush brushwork of a Cezanne. Gorgeous.
AMERICAN EAGLE, by Shelley Turley
A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of seeing PJ Harvey at the Roseland, performing with John Parrish. This was not my first time seeing her perform live. I saw the “To bring you my love” tour in 1995, and the “Uh Huh Her” tour in 2004, so I knew that the show would be energetic, her performance passionate, but this performance was really something else. It hit me on a much deeper level.
Chances are you have heard folks who came of age in the 1960’s talk about the first time they heard the Beatles “White Album,” or the first time they saw Jimi Hendricks. I have heard people say that when they first heard some of the strange sounds on Sgt. Pepper’s that they felt disoriented- their ears not being accustomed to the way that electronics can warp and layer various sound samples. That is how I feel about “Rid of Me,” 1993.
The night I heard “Rid of Me” was a very very strange evening. It was one of the last times I actually sat in a room full of friends and listened to a whole album from beginning to end, no one speaking, It was startling and raw. If you have the volume set loud enough to hear the opening lines of Rid of Me, you’ll be taken aback when the unexpected crescendo occurs- the band kicks in and she begins the chorus. It is a dynamic album in volume and in tone.
It’s the kind of album only a young woman could create, (and I mean this in the best possible sense). It’s the kind of album that speaks very specifically to other young women, especially young women who came of age in the early 1990’s. While countless men adore PJ Harvey, and while I know that PJ asserts she is not a feminist, I know there is a legion of women about my age who found “Rid of Me” at a time when they needed it most. (Granted- anyone can enjoy PJ in a deep way, we can all read it to find our own meanings, but the historical moment in which her album appeared in made many of us read her work in a very particular way.) Her early work spoke to a deep sense of frustration and anger, one articulated by a female voice: a voice simultaneously vulnerable, fierce, violent, macho, sexy, honest, and sweet. If the 1990’s were all about power, gender issues, and the body, then PJ embodied those issues in a way that stepped beyond the bounds of academic rhetoric and spoke from a place were personal experience trumps feminist lingo. Looking back, it was wise for her to say in interviews that she was not a feminist, and I completely believe her when she has said this. Calling her work feminist would have limited not only the way we can interpret her work, but it would have limited the scope of her content. She has always said that her work is about characters and stories. To see any work through only one lens or one discourse, particularly an autobiographical or politicized lens, does a disservice to the work. It closes down potential meanings. That said- her work was heard by many budding feminists who wanted to add her work to the canon of music about sex and power. And now- looking back over the years, her work has been about all of these things, and about so much more.
Over the years her approaches to creating albums has shifted in style as her range has grown, always somehow in sync with the cultural gestalt. “Dry” and Rid of Me” were guitar- heavy punk, full of dissonance and emotion. Her work over the years has traversed the spectrum from campy operatic songs, to dark, moody piano tunes, to blues/soul, to pop. Her album with John Parrish, “Dance Hall at Louse Point,” (1996) is a fabulous album from start to finish, so it was a real pleasure to hear them revisit some of those tunes at the Roseland, along with their newest album, “A Woman A Man Walked By.”
Seeing her working with him again, it’s hard not to feel that a fair amount of time has passed. She continues to reinvent herself, not starting from scratch each time the way Madonna does, but building on what was there. Her stage presence, while always formidable, seemed larger than ever. Said simply, it seemed as if she no longer needs to “perform.” She wore no shoes, a simple black dress. Not playing guitar freed her up to move- to kneel and dance. Her confidence, her comfort in her own skin was clear and apparent. And she sounded better than ever.
It’s hard not to look back and see what a long journey it’s been from “Dry” to 2009. PJ Harvey has grown up. Her music is a kind of measuring stick for some of us- a way to chart where we have been and how far we have come. Her music could also be a thermometer- it can be used to check the temperature of current passions and sorrows. Whether it invokes catharsis or expresses rage, PJ Harvey’s music will continue to be relevant- of that I have no doubt.
PS-I’m not linking to a video. It’d be best to just listen to any of her albums from front to back. Truly.
Iconic
Lately I’m spending a fair amount of time looking at William Blake’s illustrations. My favorite series is typified by this lovely, freaky, watercolor. 
This wonderful little video has been a godsend for my wrists and hands. I try to do them every few hours I’m in the studio. It is intended for carpal tunnel but works for wrist tension. Enjoy!
