I've got this blog, and I know how to use it.
--Catherine King
by The Tears Of Things
Today we mark the third anniversary of The Tears Of Things. We're still quite small by most blogospheric standards, but we were never about generating a wide audience. We still aren't. The key to our strategy, whatever the subject, is to direct the relevant eyes to the relevant ideas. Keywords plus google equals focus. Consider the Dennett quote fixed in the sidebar since the beginning, under WHY:
We are here to play a more direct role in changing what is ignorable by whom.
This means that anyone looking for information about art big shots like Glen Lineberry and Lisa Greve of Bentley Projects (and Greve's husband, lawyer Ed Rubacha), and Lisa Sette of Sette Gallery, art collector and taste maven Kathleen Vanesian, ASU professor Neil Lester, New Times editor Amy Silverman, artists like Santiago Sierra, Leslie Dill, Jon Haddock, Sue Chenoweth, Beverly McIver, Mark Rubin-Toles, Gregory Sale, Cindy Dach, Greg Esser, and Heidi Hesse, and bureaucrats like Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker, will encounter our postings on the first search page, sometimes as the first posting, some of them from as long ago as the very beginning of this blog. (See, for example, Catherine's coverage of the HairStories and Arizona Biennial '03 art exhibtions. A year later, the "Democracy in America At ASU" series.) Still there, still near the top. Somebody's reading us, and none of the people named above can do a damned thing about it. Then there are those behind the Phoenix Artist Storefront Program, and key members Christine Schild, Molly Holzer, and Jennifer Petersen of the Scottsdale Unified School District. Welcome to the blogosphere, pals.
This isn't self-aggrandizement. This isn't promotion. The searchers are not interested in us, they're interested in the names above. When I point my finger at the moon, don't mistake my finger for the moon. Simple. Then they judge for themselves the veracity of our postings, and compare what we've written with whatever other information is available, online and elsewhere. It isn't about our popularity, it's about finally having a voice. It's about being unignorable, and having a more direct role in the discourse. It's about not letting them get away with it, whatever it is: bad business ethics, Islamic lies, anti-Semitism, illegal immigration spin, Cuban art sycophancy, misogyny, racism, talentless artists, or all-American anti-American success stories. As Catherine wrote in her series on our sickening experience with Bentley Projects:
Historically, when the little guys get screwed by the big guys, the little guys just have to eat it. I know I sure have, many times over. But it's different this time, because of our blog.
It's been called "the power of the long tail." We don't know how it works, but we're sure grateful it works the way it does. In fact, we'd call it the long arm, with the most precise and delicate fingers at the end, pointing at the exact thing you're looking for.
But The Tears Of Things is not just about polemics --and here's where the bragging begins.
We're proud of this work: the Portraits of Catherine and other fashion postings (the fashion boards), the flower photographs, the ongoing paranormal explorations, the digital net art (see the banner above, then on the sidebar), the parrot photographs, the public art project ideas, and, of course, our ongoing online Cuban novel, La Pionera and The New Mango.
Fashion. This is Jerome. I've been lucky to witness the development of Catherine's extraordinary wardrobe over the last five years, and to learn the reasons for her selections and rejections. (After a few years, I felt competent enough to draw her attention to a few items that have caught my eye, and I've been thrilled when she agreed each time.) I've been amazed when, time after time, she shows me a picture in Vogue, or Elle, or Bazaar, or Spanish Moda of the kind of outfit she had already worn the previous season. She has anticipated and trumped so many trends, from silhouettes to accessories to textures, especially high-touch. As for where the elements of these ensembles come from, of course I won't tell you, but it sure ain't Dillards or Anthropologie.
Naturally, as a lifelong artist, she creates her own pieces for this wardrobe, which you can read about on the sidebar, crowned by the gorgeous, world-class Psychedelic Leprechaun. Right now she's finishing Sugar-Frosted Half-Jacket, which you can catch a glimpse of in progress here. I'm looking at it now on the dress form, with its rows and rows and columns and columns of delicate hand-sewn lace, and it resembles nothing so much as a Renaissance courtier's jacket which stepped forward through time, foaming and fizzing in restrained but expanding cascades. The way it flares . . . I can hardly wait to post the Portrait.
Oh, about those Portraits. Lately I've been cropping some of them --what we call the Handbag Series-- for banners, and again I've been amazed at Catherine's talent, this time as a model. Cropping emphasizes both the elegance of her gestures and the consistency of her style. I'm thinking especially of the "metallic" piece with the vintage brocade coat, starfish necklace (actually a belt), and copper beaded frame handbag. (By the way, two days after we posted that banner --which we called "I've Seen The Future, Baby --It Is Beauty"-- YES ran a cover feature on "metallic" fashion. This kind of stuff happens all the time around here.)
Catherine also created my own style. When we met, I'm abashed to admit, I dressed high-end thrift-store hip: BC Ethic, Dragonfly, Diesel jeans, lugged shoes, short hair. Bo-ring. But all that turned when Catherine bought me an aubergine Moschino sport jacket with subtle Western features, such as black-leather, curved double-headed arrow accents and rounded pockets. I loved it.
It's taken awhile, but now, as my interpretation of the New Formality, I normally dress in what I alternately call Cosmic American (after Gram Parsons), or High Western Gentleman style --frock coat, vest, tie, boots-- think of the Man from Tombstone, carrying a silver-topped stick and wearing a black Western hat. (I warned you we were going to brag. Clothes may not make the man, but they sure make the man feel better.)
Well, so what? you may ask. And why tell us about it? Who cares what you wear? Aren't there more important things to talk about? No problem, blandman, stop reading now and return to your place in the long khaki line, the line of least resistance. Let oblivion roll over you, and make no independent decisions about the figure you cut in the world in the only life you may ever know. Go on, toddle off now.
In the meantime we two, who should be dead by now, and who know that every moment in this broken world is precious, will continue to develop our high style of substance. What is fashion to us? Glamourous armor.
Flowers. The flower photographs were therapy for Catherine --she considered the flowers, like the orbs and parrots, collaborators in her mental health-- but the series went flat when the Bentley crew jammed us over them. Still, they're beautiful: you can see a lot of these inimitable arrangements when you Image-Google "Catherine King." She has used them, and will use them again, as parts of digital art pieces.
The Paranormal. This preoccupation began before the blog, when Catherine found strange images in her interior shots in what we came to call The Haunted Apartment. Around the same time, we committed ourselves to making art. When we got a computer and went online, she immediately began checking out paranormal sites. Though they helped a little, they seemed overblown and clichéd. Meanwhile, she had all these images; how to make sense of them? Answer: she made art. "Crowd of Witnesses." "Roomfull of Phantoms." And a number of others, some of which we collaborated on. The whole thing culminated in our art proposal called "American Gothic," which would have been an extended interpretation of ghosts and spiritualism in American history.
We make art from what enters into our lives; examine the Parrot Goddess piece (and read this background post about it) and you'll see that every element is a part of Catherine: the lace she dyed, her hair, the pearls she wears, the flowers she chose, the orbs she electronically captured, the parrots who also came into our lives, parts of the Portraits . . . We're not interested in realizing the pretty pictures that float around in everybody's head; art is serious. It needs to come from the world. The dead came into our lives and said, "Let us help you," and we have. The best summary of our paranormal position is in Catherine's "Meet My Collaborators" piece.
We'll be making more digital art with the dead in the future.
Digital net art. Nice segue, eh? Whenever we're directed to digital art on the internet, we're usually disappointed. Comics, animation, geeks showing off, explorations of randomity, appropriation. And people moaning that the result always looks like it was made on a computer (!). But we see very few online artists making art just within the parameters of the average monitor screen. Who accept the limitations of the medium, and make best use of them. Some of our work would benefit by being blown-up life-sized, such as The CrazyQuilt of the Parrot Goddess II or The Blinds, but they were made principally for the monitor. (Oh, and if you Image-Google "digital net art," our work is one, two, and three in the nascent world of this new form.)
And while I'm on the size of images, why do so many blogs --not just art blogs-- post such small images, or no images at all? Why not make the embedded and pop-up images as big as you can? Why so stingy? The screen can take it. The technical capability is there; why not use it? Heck, we even change our banners all the time.
Parrots. This is Jerome again. What started with this has now grown to this. (The black-beaked ones are fledges.) And pretty soon I'll be building a perch that will bring them even closer, less than a foot away.
Again, what's the big deal? why all the attention? They're just birds, man. Oh, yeah? It's my contention that parrots in the US, displaced from their evolutionary niche, have yet to devise a new "evolutionarily stable strategy," as the Darwinians say. In evolutionary terms, they have been displaced for the mere blink of an eye. They're in between, so they're trying a lot of things. Read Mark Bittner's book for details. They just don't act like other birds.
Bittner had the right attitude towards them, too: leave 'em alone. When the flock he fed got famous and the city wanted to turn them into some tourist attraction, he persuaded them against it. But there's a crew of fools in Brooklyn who want to exploit "their" monk's hood flock. Go check out their website to see that they have no idea what parrots are about. These jerks look at green beauty and see only money.
These little friends aren't "our" parrots. We're just lucky to watch them, study them, photograph them, and imbide their vibes. Every morning, when the first one arrives, he or she gives out a welcoming shriek, and we choose to believe they're as glad to see us as we are to see them. Fellow outsiders.
Public Art Projects. The one inconsistency in this blog concerns the local downtown Phoenix art scene. The short version: when we discovered the true nature of those skanky, poisonous pukes, we dropped our coverage; let them drown in their own degradation.
But we still have visions of proposals which could help turn the city around. Our Glorious Golden Grand Avenue fantasy, for example. Or The Collective I. While others are noodling about special districts and increasing all kinds of breaks for incompetent artists, we step forward time after time with real public art. Art that has nothing to do with us --our egos are absent.
Which reminds us. Quick aside: Recently, the Scottsdale Cultural Council, wiping a tear from its eye, announced a number of staff cuts due to a budget shortfall. Apparently, their two stupid plays --menopause?! nuns?!-- didn't turn out to be the cash cows they were supposed to be.
And here's where the egos come in. The SCC could have saved $800,000 by refusing to fund two turds in the plaza by Dennis Oppenheim and Donald Lipsky. I don't know how many "staff positions" that represents --20? 12? 8?-- but it doesn't matter. In the breaks between looking for work, these unemployed arts professionals can stop by and contemplate the Oppenheim and the Lipsky, and wonder about what might have been.
La Pionera and the New Mango. We end on a high note, talking about our beautiful baby. Here we'll let you look over our shoulders at our notes on the upcoming shape of the novel:
--the section wherein Jeronimo Reyes eavesdrops by taped video on two spiritualists, Hocabed Hatuey and Ermalinda Ybarra, who reveal, via The Heap and The Scrying Mirror, several different manifestations of what people are calling The New Mango; and Jeronimo begins his own transformation.
--the section wherein Geronimo's cousin Cristobal Ybarra-Castañeda and his wife Cristina sit at the dinner table and compare their days. He runs a kind of wheeled one-stop shop --he's deep in some grey markets--and she manages a day-care center. Between them, they hear a lot. The section is packed with street information from the chismorreo, and shows the spreading influence of the New Mango, the increasing demonstrations and Rapid Response attacks, and the growing guerrila capitalism.
--the section where the ISA students boycott the first Lisa Zeitgeist lecture, right after the second set of New Mango cards appear, and set up their own performance art pieces and protests in the plaza outside. This is also the scene where Ted Player and Lisa Zeitgeist try to co-opt Flash No More. Player doesn't know he's meeting his fate.
--the section wherein Jeronimo witnesses the first appearance of The Forty while he secretly monitors a Rapid Response Brigade attack on an independent library group. As soon as the RRs draw their sticks and start swinging, forty nondescript black men appear from nowhere with their own sticks --slim, chocolate-colored ones-- and swiftly and carefully break a lot of arms and legs in a just a few seconds. Amid the confusion and pain, they unsnap their sticks, slip them out of sight, and melt back into the crowd.
--the Makeover At Ermalinda's Beauty Salon, where Lisa Zeitgeist, Heather Benlinederry, and Rosa Blanca Azul begin their own transformations at the hands of the living and the dead.
--the scene where the New Mango Manifesto appears laminated on hundreds of disposable lighters across Havana, and the attendant brouhaha when authorities try to hassle everyone with a disposable lighter.
--the scene where Guillermo is dragged offstage in the middle of an emotional and surrealistic rant at an ISA Zeitgeist lecture, and put into prison by Carlos Lage.
--the scene where The New Mango Manifesto appears in jabas vinyl all across Havana, and the fury that erupts when, again, the increasingly harried authorities try to search every jaba vinyl they see.
--the scene where Carlos Lage tries to "torture" Kiku Ybarra by showing her The Abakua Derivations, which he confiscated from Guillermo.
Skipping ahead . . .
--the scene where Carlos Lage, furious and frustrated, pulls off the road in a diabetic crisis and falls out of the car. He is rescued by Flash No More, who appears by means unknown. After settling him back in the car, Flash No More picks up the portfolio of his Abakua Derivations and says, "I'll take these back now. You've done well with them. Thanks. But now they have other work to do." And he drives Lage to his secret hamlet and walks away.
--the section where Guillermo and Kiku, both now free from prison and safe in Lage's hamlet, take a week to recover, spending most of that time in the bathtub, untangling Kiku's hair and tending to her skin. Jeronimo had delivered two bags of health and beauty supplies from Ermalinda's.
--the scene where Dillard Benlinederry waits out Hurricane Lazaro in a famous old cathedral, and then experiences a life-sized apparition of The Astronette (he's seen a tiny version before, standing on the logo of a New Mango card). She gives him a silver crucifix, which he holds out like a dowsing rod as it guides him --turn here, turn there-- across post-hurricane Havana.
That's enough for now. As for the Epilogue, it shows the fruit of the last line of the New Mango Manifesto: A Cuban On Mars by 2030!
This is The Tears Of Things. Some have tried to slur us in the past as angry, bitter, and isolated. Nothing could be further from the truth. We're in love with each other, with life, with this country, and with this world. It's just that we don't suffer fools at all. But even in the middle of the Rebarb, when cruelty and social cannibalism rule, we choose to believe in the promise of people.
There are tears in things, and Catherine and I take part in what Judaism calls tikkun, gathering shards of the broken vessel in the hope of reassembling it, so that once again it may hold the Light.
Posted by Jerome at May 4, 2006 11:40 AM | TrackBack