Medicine and Art

Print by Vesalius

For those of you lucky enough to be in Tokyo in December through March, visit the Mori Arts Center in Roppongi Hills. It is one of my favorite museums in the world. Back in 2005, I saw several wonderful exhibits including one with scale miniatures of several major cities including New York, Singapore, and Tokyo (at least a portion of it). Also, since the museum is perched at the top of the Roppongi Hills complex/high-rise, you can see miles and miles out over Tokyo. It was almost surreal to be looking at a miniature scale model in front of you (the model was so detailed that it even had the trees lining the avenue outside our apartment building) and then to look out the window and see the city itself as if in miniature. Their exhibitions are constantly changing and I wish I could be there for an upcoming exhibit on Medicine and Art. Looks really interesting... exploring the connection between our bodies, disease, and art. We owe credit to medicine and science for some of the most beautiful and intriguing works ever created. If you should go, just know I'm envious....take me with you!

Playing god

K is my hero. He is a terrific artist and my mentor. I'd like to promote him here on my blog, but I kind of like him to remain anonymous. He does these wonderful night scenes, very Hopper-esque, yet uniquely his own. More than that, he is humble, insightful, and uncompromising when it comes to his art. A certain department store once asked him to produce a giclee of one of his paintings to sell at a silent auction for their grand opening. He politely refused and was a bit horrified that they could even suggest that... Once I asked K why he became an artist. He said he liked playing god.

Art 101: Lesson 2, Greed

Gustave Dore, Inferno Canto 7, Pushing Rocks

Not all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls
Might purchase rest for one.
Canto VII., lines 65-67.


Money screws up the world. Money is potential... potential food, potential shelter, potential security... potential Louis Vuitton bag. People become fanatical in their pursuit of money because it represents their potential possessions. Perhaps they falsely believe that money buys happiness. They kill for it. They die for it. They start galleries in the H*lt*n in order to obtain it. I'm raving mad today... I passed by said gallery last night on the way to dinner (grumbling to myself about those damned giclees). One of their artists was sitting in the middle of the room, painting a small painting. A family was inside admiring the work on the wall. A salesman pitching. When there is an artist actually working on a painting in a gallery surrounded by giclees, what is the buying public to think but that those paintings on the wall, for sale, are all originals done by him? The galleries have these artist nights for this very reason... to draw people in, to make them think that those cheaply done "fine art prints" are actually originals... they are liars... they are deceitful... they are slick. For them, art is not art. Art is a business, nothing more. Avoid commercial galleries in tourist areas like the plague. And, finally...do not let possessions possess you.

Insanity Revisited

Mona Lisa Through Glass

Whenever I visit a new city, I head for the art museum. In Chicago, I had the flu, walked 10 blocks in the blistering icy wind without a good winter coat just so that I could see Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. In Washington D.C. it was Whistler's Peacock room and a small hidden Vermeer. At the Louvre, it was La Joconde... the Mona Lisa. I'm just a giddy tourist... as my fellow travelers will attest, I'm not very pleasant on museum outings. I'll lose people, guards will kindly tell me to step back from the painting!!!! I'll spend two hours staring at one work of art. With the Mona Lisa, I guess it was more the fame of the painting... and besides, who goes to the Louvre and doesn't see the Mona Lisa? As you may know, the Louvre is insanely huge and labyrinthine. And with my bad map-reading skills...and leaving it for the very end of the day just as the museum was closing... well, but, I can walk pretty fast, zipped by the Venus ... beautiful... should stop to ad..mire.. a Caravaggio... must keep going...up stairs... elevator too slow. And when I finally did get there, there was an insipid velvet rope with a million people there... so I took a deep breath, and admired two gorgeous da Vinci paintings not more than 20 meters from the Mona Lisa... all to myself. And, I saw the Mona Lisa too, from the side (it's behind glass)... as people are exiting... and the guards... eh, non!

Finding The One

Gustave Klimt, Danae

Love at first sight... it exists. My roommate in college once went to a lecture given by an enlightened Buddhist monk. His theory of life (and I'm not sure if all Buddhists believe this) was that we meet the same people in this life as in previous lives. He said that there are "threads" which connect us to one another and sometimes draw us together, even if temporarily. But most people cannot recognize the people they once knew because it is a special kind of knowledge. Maybe it can be likened to that feeling of knowing a person whom you have just met. Or maybe it is the concept of the kindred spirit or soul mate. This monk said that he was at the theater once and walking through the crowd he caught sight of a woman... they looked at each other, and in that instant he knew that she was his wife from a previous existence. Reluctantly, he let her walk away because in this life he was a monk. Can we not liken this to art? Sometimes, oddly, we see a piece and it is love at first sight. It invades our thoughts, gives us no peace... it speaks to us... requires that we possess it.

Art 101 at Walmart

Okay, I've been going on and on about giclees being terrible. Yesterday I was on 43things.com updating my list of things I want to do and I happened upon a post about buying original art. There are people out there that truly want to support young, aspiring unknowns. They're willing to give them a chance and wanting that really interesting piece, yet they did not know where to start. So, how do we find young, up-and-coming artists? How can we buy original art? The first step is to educate yourself. This means learning the difference between an original and a giclee (pronounced JEE-clay). So, go to Walmart, Target, Costco, Pictures Plus... Frames 'R Us... your neighborhood frame store where they sell framed art. Pass by the obvious prints on paper and walk towards the paintings. They will look like oil paintings because oil paint was indeed used to print them. They will be on canvas, true canvas, same type that artists paint on. Now, look closer. There will be no brush strokes, it will seem almost too perfect. It will look "thin" because it is just a thin layer printed on. This giclee that you are staring at only costs maybe a few dollars to make. For an artist to have a giclee printed, let's say, just one giclee, may have cost maybe $20. Now look at the price tag... and faint... no, turn away in disgust. But, wait, this is supposed to be educational. Okay, now go visit your local art museum. Look at the paintings hanging on the walls. Note the texture, the depth of color (particularly in the darker areas), notice the sensitivity of the brush strokes or the boldness (depending on what you're looking at). Enjoy a nice leisurely day really looking at just one piece. It's not a waste of your day. Note the expression, the life. Now go back to Frames 'R Us. Look at the giclee again. See the difference now?

Cultural Capital and the Honolulu Academy of Art

The Honolulu Academy of Art

The Honolulu Academy of Art... or rather, I think it should be called the Honolulu You're-Not-Welcome-Unless-You're-A-Wealthy-Old-Woman-Who-Thinks-She-Can-Buy-Culture Academy of Art. When I first moved to Honolulu a few years back, I actually liked going to the museum. The courtyards are beautiful. They have a nice Asia collection, and they even had a John Singer Sargeant.. quite gorgeous and reminiscent of my time in Boston. So, I joined as a member. Big mistake. I attended one of their "functions"... was just sitting at one of the tables, enjoying a quiet afternoon, when one of the women came up to me and said, "This is for members only. My stuttering reply (so shocked... why would they assume...?) was, I AM a member. She looks me up and down... oh, so, sorry. What a... Oh, I see.. I'm not dressed to the nines... You see, these women proclaim to support the arts yet fail to see that artists generally don't walk around town dripping with diamonds. I suppose, though, that these patrons of the arts never give it a second thought. As a friend of mine once said to me, they are a necessary evil. True, they possess no creativity, cannot produce culture, but they can buy it and in so doing, they support the arts.

Dark Tales

Vilhelm Pedersen, The Little Mermaid

I've been reading fairy tales again... I know, who reads that but little children? But, no, these are not the mouse-ears version, the happily ever after tales with the princess riding off into the sunset with the prince (who, incidentally never really talks in the movies). The original Andersen stories are dark and terrible with lots of mutilation and death. Cinderella's stepsister, for instance, hacks off her toes to try to fit into the glass slipper. Or take the Little Mermaid. In Andersen, she falls in love with the Prince, but the Prince marries another so on their wedding night, the little mermaid is supposed to kill the prince so that she can return to her mermaid life. But... she doesn't. She instead commits suicide by throwing herself into the water and is transformed into spirit. Yet, how many of us know THIS story? Do we all really need the happy ending? Is Andersen's telling just too dark? ARE we happier buying into the Disneyfied version of the world?

Monet or Rembrandt?

Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol

Is she a Monet or a Rembrandt? I beg your pardon???? I can't quite remember the context of this conversation...except that I was simply trying to introduce a female friend of mine to my friend Joe. And this was Joe's question. Well, a painting by Monet when viewed from afar is quite stunning, but up close is a jumble, quite a mess. A Rembrandt is both beautiful up close and from far away. So... WAS she a Monet? Or WAS she a Rembrandt? Well, since I never did end up introducing her to my friend, I suppose she must have been a Monet.

Modesty?

Seduction by E. Cheung

I just realized that I've lost all sense of modesty. I was uploading some nudes onto the RedBubble site and there is a check box for indicating if the image is safe for workplace viewing. I have yet to check the box... many of my drawings and paintings are nudes, but I don't think they are in any way "inappropriate." I must admit, though, that I've never really worked in an office environment and so don't really know what it is like. I really have no clue what it is that people do in offices. I imagine they do things on the computer, shuffle papers around? Answer phones? E-mail? Have meetings? I worked in a lab for my first real job. There was no dress code, no punching in, punching out.. just did the work whenever it was convenient for me... sometimes came in after hours. Come to think of it, if I got an office job tomorrow, I would have nothing to wear... maybe I would go in as an artistic nude.

Art and Soul

I am trying to detach myself from my art... no wait, what I mean is I'm trying to not get so attached to my work. I have the most horrible time letting go of my paintings. The day after I sell it, I want to refund the money and tell them it was all a mistake. The last time I was in a funk for about a month, couldn't sleep at night, sometimes I would cry thinking about how I would never see it again. I feel pretty stupid even saying that, but I did. And, I just don't like the idea of selling work as giclee. Then there would be endless, mass-produced, soul-less pieces floating around out there. It just seems wrong. I went into a gallery once to inquire about a particular painting. The saleswoman told me that the painting was an "original giclee." Isn't that a contradiction? She explained how oil paints were used in the process, that it was an oil on canvas... etc. etc. etc... but the truth of the matter is that giclees are simply copies printed onto canvas and then in some cases "touched up" in a few places by the artist (such as a daub of paint on the cloud), signed, and then sold for an obscene amount of money. The unknowing buyer who walks into the gallery thinks they are being sold an original and that some day it will be worth double what he paid. The reality is that it will be worth nothing because it came from nothing.

Garbage

For a few months now I've been in a slump... Sketches that lead to
nothing, lots and lots of nothing. Lots and lots... Of nothing.
So... Maybe just need to let go of realism. To let go of trying to
make everything into something final and just let it be. Maybe this
is the pencil sketching era... Oil painting is so involved - the
oil, turpentine, cleaning -not to mention the cost. I started a
landscape last week, gorgeous rolling hills of yellow flowers in
some picturesque village... And it was so utterly uninspired that I
painted it out and threw a garbage truck onto it, literally...
Painted a garbage truck over the whole darn thing....Ick.. Such a
total waste. At least with sketches you don't have to feel so bad
about trashing it. Also thinking about putting a knife to work
that's been sitting around collecting dust. Clears the mind I think.

A Visit to Byodoin

Buddha at Byodoin in Kaneohe, Hawaii

Yesterday I drove to Byōdōin to take a break from all the madness. It lies in the Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. There were few people around so it was peaceful and contemplative. The temple itself is a replica of the one in Uji-shi, Japan. The Amida Buddha that sits inside the main hall is the work of sculptor Masuzo Inui, a descendant from a long line of carvers of iconic Buddhist statues. Covered in gold leaf with exquisite details on the mandorla, the statue is a tribute to the Buddha and to the ability of humankind to manipulate the physical world around them. Looking at the statue, you would be hard pressed to find who the artist was... in fact, it was from a xeroxed information sheet that I learned who the artist was... As with much of Buddhist art, the work is mostly anonymous; this is in stark contrast to modern art where the artist sometimes is more celebrated than the actual work (hence we have people who paint whales on the sides of buildings and then sell a giclee for thousands of dollars...). People seem to want to know the background of the artist, maybe buy into some romantic notion of a lone artist starving somewhere on the streets to be "discovered" and made famous overnight. It is as if the art buyer does not really trust his own tastes but needs some story to tell their friends. Maybe hanging up a piece of art is too revealing of a statement whereas buying a familiar image is safe... because then people can all be different by being the same.

Voynich

Detail from a page of the Voynich MS

I have been studying the Voynich manuscript for some months now. There is a theory out there that perhaps this manuscript was the work of a mentally deranged individual. While the manuscript is in and of itself quite intriguing it is also interesting to find that so many people
would devote so much to scrutinizing it in the hopes of solving this most mysterious work. Human nature... We need to know the "why.". Why would someone expend so much creative energy to produce something so elusive and seemingly nonsensical? If indeed this were the product of an insane mind, then would not all of us possess such impulses but that we simply have control of our selves? Do we generally lock away such obsessive impulses so that we can exist in the normal world? What exactly drives creativity? Is it simply an unchecked passion artists allow to surface? Part of the manuscript's appeal is our inability to decipher it. I think it would lose much of its allure if suddenly we could read it. Such is the draw of art... The expression of the artist's psyche in material form to be endlessly interpreted, just slightly out of reach.

http://web.mac.com/elemcheung

Art and Death

An artist friend of mine just suffered a massive stroke last week while visiting his family in New York. It brought to mind something that happened about ten years ago when I used to live in Boston. I was part of a calligraphy group that met once a week. I remember one day, one of the women told the group that they should go to a sale held by this particular artist... because the woman was dying... *ahem.*
So.... what to make of that. Of course we all know that the value of a piece of art is not in the materials. Yet, I find it disquieting that people could be so materialist, that they might simply look at art as an investment... as in a stock or a piece of real estate, or god forbid just something to go with the horrible yellow couch in the living room. I suppose I should not be so naive. People often are driven by greed (witness the current fight over universal health care). And part of the allure of the arts is that we believe that we might not have to deal with money. Yet, to be taken seriously as an artist, we must also possess a little bit of business sense. However, if we look beyond that rather callous remark about the dying artist, we could look at it in a more gentle light; that the value of a work of art increases in value simply because nothing more from this artist will ever be produced again. One might venture to say that it is the very individuality of a work that makes it valuable.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Hau Tree Lanai
I am re-reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It has always been one of my favorite books... I think I first read it when I was 13 years old during summer break. Back then it was just a swashbuckling, fast read. But what struck me even back then were his descriptions of the land, of the fog, of the sand on the beach, and all that detail about the schooner. Of course, I had no inkling of anything of that sort... I lived in a little suburb in Los Angeles. And even though the ocean was but 20 miles away, it may as well have been 200 miles away. A landlubber to this day... ironic when I think of it, now that I live in Hawaii... and just today sat within a stone's throw from where Stevenson sat under the hau tree, listening to the sound of the ocean beating upon the sand. Maybe it was in such a place where stories wedge themselves in a writer's head to be born later. The vivid descriptions of the landing, the sea, the biscuits could only have come from having lived it. Is that not art? To take something real, perhaps even mundane, and to transform it into something eternal? One could argue that the ocean, the beaches, the sand... all those things inspire... yes, but only one of great imagination could take something we take for granted everyday and find something unique about it. The hau tree where he used to sit is now a place for enjoying a leisurely breakfast... go see it... Hau Tree Lanai off of Waikiki.