All things Houston

Last Wednesday (Nov 27th, 2010) I flew down to Houston to meet with Susie Kalil and Linda Clarke, and go over to the home of a couple who are having me put a major sculpture in their back yard.  "Yes", this will be a beauty, it is due in March.

The next morning at 8 AM, I met with the grounds manager and a couple of other people to walk through moving the outdoor sculptures home. (then I worked with Rice students all day) The next morning bright and early we started loading the sculptures. There is always a loading issue when it comes to big sculpture, but we got it done and they are on their way home. Rice bought two of the pieces and the city bought one of the pieces. Again this is a major "Yes" for me, certainly I am happy about this.

I got home last night in a wind and rain storm,  lightning in the Mountains is particularly beautiful. It is nice to be home, but it is back to the yard to grind some  work from the minds eye. I love it.

Oct 19th through Oct 25th

Charmaine and I had an easy drive to Boulder, picked up our daughter Eva and then went on to the airport, we landed in New York and went to dinner with friends. I think New York is measured from dinner to dinner. On the morning of the 20th we all took the train down to Grounds for Sculpture to look at their indoor space. I will show 6 major sculptures there in the spring. The show will have an opening on May 1, 2011. The indoor space is big and open and very nice. There is a Debra Butterfield show up now.

The Grounds are very beautiful and a pleasure to walk through, but like most sculpture parks, there is to much work. "To many notes", the question is "which ones do you take out". Now that is not for me to say. I just walk and look, I did enjoy it.

The next day Charmaine and I and Linda Clarke met with some New York City Parks people, and visited Museums and Galleries. But the best thing is that we went to the International Sculpture Center Gala on Friday night, it was like going to a family reunion. Lots of the people who were there that I have known for 30 or 40 years. It was nice to see them for a fact. When I saw Albert Paley from across the room, I went over to congratulate him on getting a major commission down at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas. (One which I tried very hard to get and did not, Albert got it.) I can tell you for a fact  there is a lot of work that goes into these things, so I was very surprised when Albert told me that after a 20 person art committee chose him and he went to work on it, the Provost of Texas Tech killed the project. Go figure. It certainly renders the decision of a group of people who had worked long and hard, kind of meaningless.  Just another walk down the road to nothing. Welcome to the world of "fair and equal give every one a shot" art world.

We got home Sunday afternoon late, back to the mountains and cold and rain, by Monday morning it was snowing some serious white. I really love it because my studio is warm year round. I just eat chicken soup and work. I love being home and I love making sculpture. But as life would have it, in the morning I fly to Houston. Houston is my friend on an absolute level.

This trip to Houston will cover some territory, giving a lecture at Rice, working with students, and seeing what Jim Harithus is up to at the Station. (The Station is one of the best show places in the world, not because it is a great space,  which it is, but because of the shows Jim puts together) The Station is a private museum, no board, no committees, Jim does not go to who is "hot" young and beautiful, nor who is in fashion, there is no trying to show what the in crowd shows,  and there is no bull shit, just great shows. I also will be taking the work down from the Rice University Exhibition and bringing the last four home to the "here and now". It will be nice to see them out the kitchen window.

But maybe the best thing about going to Houston is that I will spend some time with Susie Kalil, Susie is one of the best art writers in the world (and there very few), spending time talking with her is like digging in a Diamond Mine, she is a psychological digging machine. She can go to the bottom of the well and keep going. She is as intense as it gets. But that is what makes her a great writer.

I will let you know how all this goes when I get home on Saturday night.

Monday morning - On Being Ready to be Born Again

"On Being Ready to be Born Again", it is a good phrase to set the stage for another Monday. I start over each and all my days while walking with the Blue Angel. It is a slow rain that falls around me, steady cold comes to call me out in the open spaces between the Pinons and the big stones. I stand in silence to listen.

Soon the house will light up, and the smell of coffee will fill the kitchen, we will be cooking flapjacks the size of the bottom of the skillet and getting ready for a good bye. Chakaia Booker and Alston have been here for three days. On Friday night Charmaine and I had about 50 or so people for dinner. Jesus Morolas was our house guest on Friday night.   Lots of conversation on the world at large, lots of laughing out loud, lots of eye to eye and lots of fun. 

Jesus left on Saturday morning for somewhere and Chakaia and Alston leave this morning for New York. We will see them again next Friday night at the Fifty Year Anniversery Gala of the International Sculpture Center, which is being held in New York. The get together will be like a family reunion. Lots of friends will be there. I am ready, it is a new day.

Dreams of Snakes and Monkey Business

I stand on a floor of jungle leaves, watching snakes move between the tree trunks and vines and over and under and through the covered ground. I see a friend from my child hood high in the canopy above, he is pretending to be a monkey. I tell him there are hats even higher up in the very tops where the branches are thin and small. He goes higher and retrieves one of the hats, but the small limb gives way and he falls, holding the brim with both hands, he uses the hat as a gliding wing and settles down in front of me. He hands me the hat, which I take in my left hand, in my right hand I am holding a soup spoon that has a flower pattern on the handle. The spoon belonged to my mother.

Are dreams a real dimension of collected memory projected in the minds eye? A Cobra or a Monkey or the Spoon, all bring signs and clues.  I am the Spoon, feeding the snakes and the monkeys and the wolf, I feed the beasts, and rub there ears, I keep them close at all times, even when they snarl and give out low guttural growls that rattle my bones. I trust them to be true. They will not lie to me, nor will the wolf do me harm, so I look them all in the eye and do not turn away.  They are my friends.

I need the Signs and I need the Clues, I leave the threads of chemical language, the scent of my being touching the stones on the way to the  
                     
                    "Overlook"

Broken lines mark the path from home.
Ways that pass again and again,
causes left in disregard, unconsidered
and let go with out notice.
I step over and through bridges and rivers,
going beyond a point, a degree, or a stage.

I lean into the wind on the highest mound,
uncensored and unchallenged,
while allowing and letting,
and breathing deep the air of history
complete and believed.

Who among us has found the way back home by following the broken lines, back home to the safe here and now. Safe with friends gathered from  across the horizon. We all mill the kitchen floor waiting for the bread to rise, with bowl in hand we speak of children and future. We are all Spoons.

Through it All

 

Through it All

Cut 1988 - Printed 2010

"In 1986 I cut a woodblock while working with Chip Elwell at Anderson Ranch Art Center, in Snowmass Village, Colorado. The block was called "Cut Hands, Hurt Eyes". Chip was going to hand spoon rub the entire edition of twenty of this block but, as reality would have it Chip died a week after the block was cut. This wood block was six foot by three foot and was the parent block for the one to come. 

The second wood block that I cut came in early 1988, it was called "Through it All". This block was four feet by eight feet. A fine arts press in Houston tried to print it, but could not make it work, so the block went dormant and has been in storage for the last twentythree years. Some months back I partnered with John Smither on pulling this block from the back room. 

John Smither from Huntsville, Texas is now the publisher and Flatbed Press in Austin, Texas is the Fine Arts Press, together we have brought this wood block back to life. We have done an edition of only twelve of these large-scale prints. The paper used is Kochi Mashi, a very heavy and raw paper from Japan. The paper size is 52 inches x 100 inches. I signed the prints by noting that the block was cut in 1988 and printed in 2010. 

This is a very important work of art in my personal history. "Through it All" is always in the now of our existence and is as applicable today as it was twenty or more years ago."

Good Morning from the Mountains

After months of work/work and more work, I am about to start writing on my "Thoughts from James Surls" again.