December 25, 2010
Gyroscope
If today were last night, I would fold my pillow a little different so my head would have been laying a little softer against the night, I would not have woke up in the middle of the night, I would not have looked out the window at the circle rainbow glow around the moon and wondered of the world. I would not have thought about how stupid some of the things humans do really are. It seems to me that keeping the human race upright with sails open to the heart is a constant concern. We have to work at it. Sometimes we are like a living gyroscope on the whip side of a hurricane, tilted to the extreme under the prevailing pressure of passage. We are not dead yet, but caution is needed in making ready the up right. There are those among us who state, "I did not do it, I had nothing to do with any of it, so don't expect me to help get the ship upright in the storm". OK, I don't expect those people to help, but some one has to pull on the pulley or the load want shift.
December 18, 2010
On Being and On Being Home
Big changes coming, the holidays bring Christmas and the new year, children will drive in and fly in and our house will be full. Charmaine has started to wrap small and large boxes and then pack them into larger boxes with bubble wrap, tape them up and UPS them off to children and grand kids on the far side of the mountains. It is snowing and our kitchen smells like all the good stuff that makes a house a home. I love being here.
It was just a week ago that I drove in through an icy Leadville to get back before the sun set. A day or two to rest and get ready for the exhibition up at Anderson Ranch. I was pleased but most pleased to be back in the studio. I had been down in Athens, Texas visiting my relatives. I also had a reception over in Tyler, Texas. I had installed a commission called, "All Flowers" on a great wall in an office building. My first show in an art museum was in Tyler, that was back in 1974. The director at the time was Ron Gleason. Ron is not the director any more and has not been for a long time, but he was there. It was so nice to see him. Ron has been a friend of the Texas Art Scene for as long as I can remember, and has facilitated more on the grass roots level than any one I know. I love the guy, and it was really nice to shake his hand and say hello.
Tyler is not a big town any more, it is a serious small city, with all that goes with the word "city". It is just 30 miles from where I grew up, and it was the place every one went when they needed something. It still is.
As I was driving back home to Colorado, I went through Abilene to pick up some sculpture for Charmaine, Tai and Laura and one of my own. That only took a short while and soon I was back dreaming my way across West Texas, where pick up trucks, vast distances of cotton fields and wind generators, cattle and oil field pumps ruled the horizon. I listened to the FLATLANDERS and thought of all those guys from Lubbock that write music and sing. It makes no difference where you are, or what kind of terrain you are plowing through, music just rumbles its way to the surface. Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, man they are as good as it gets. Jimmie Dale is at the top of any list I ever make of the great singers. That boy can sing.
All those big ass wind generators start to take on a certain field of play, they start to turning into something else other than what they are. There were two lone ones sitting out about a half mile on a little ridge that ran around a curve. One of them turned into Dave Hickey ware-ing his Ass Hole Suit, he was bobbling and shaking his arms at the other big wind generator, that had turned into a giant Jesus laughing and mooning him. It made the drive through Lubbock a lot easier for me. Sometimes it is painful seeing all those sale barns that have been turned into cowboy churches, and all those seriously ugly prefab building that meld into each other to the point that you can't tell the difference between a welding shop, a honky tonk and Babtist church, except that some of the Babtist churches have a mail ordered steeple stuck on them. Now there is a distinguishing factor, other wise how would you know. Thank you big Mooning Jesus for all that creative capital that goes to make up the Singer Song Writers out there on the high plains.
It was nice to see the Rockies rising on the horizon, snow capped and calling. I am going home through Leadville, this time of year that is slow going. It is always snowing up there, so no need to get in a hurry. I just take it easy and dream my way to the house.
I am here, I am all here.
It was just a week ago that I drove in through an icy Leadville to get back before the sun set. A day or two to rest and get ready for the exhibition up at Anderson Ranch. I was pleased but most pleased to be back in the studio. I had been down in Athens, Texas visiting my relatives. I also had a reception over in Tyler, Texas. I had installed a commission called, "All Flowers" on a great wall in an office building. My first show in an art museum was in Tyler, that was back in 1974. The director at the time was Ron Gleason. Ron is not the director any more and has not been for a long time, but he was there. It was so nice to see him. Ron has been a friend of the Texas Art Scene for as long as I can remember, and has facilitated more on the grass roots level than any one I know. I love the guy, and it was really nice to shake his hand and say hello.
Tyler is not a big town any more, it is a serious small city, with all that goes with the word "city". It is just 30 miles from where I grew up, and it was the place every one went when they needed something. It still is.
As I was driving back home to Colorado, I went through Abilene to pick up some sculpture for Charmaine, Tai and Laura and one of my own. That only took a short while and soon I was back dreaming my way across West Texas, where pick up trucks, vast distances of cotton fields and wind generators, cattle and oil field pumps ruled the horizon. I listened to the FLATLANDERS and thought of all those guys from Lubbock that write music and sing. It makes no difference where you are, or what kind of terrain you are plowing through, music just rumbles its way to the surface. Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, man they are as good as it gets. Jimmie Dale is at the top of any list I ever make of the great singers. That boy can sing.
All those big ass wind generators start to take on a certain field of play, they start to turning into something else other than what they are. There were two lone ones sitting out about a half mile on a little ridge that ran around a curve. One of them turned into Dave Hickey ware-ing his Ass Hole Suit, he was bobbling and shaking his arms at the other big wind generator, that had turned into a giant Jesus laughing and mooning him. It made the drive through Lubbock a lot easier for me. Sometimes it is painful seeing all those sale barns that have been turned into cowboy churches, and all those seriously ugly prefab building that meld into each other to the point that you can't tell the difference between a welding shop, a honky tonk and Babtist church, except that some of the Babtist churches have a mail ordered steeple stuck on them. Now there is a distinguishing factor, other wise how would you know. Thank you big Mooning Jesus for all that creative capital that goes to make up the Singer Song Writers out there on the high plains.
It was nice to see the Rockies rising on the horizon, snow capped and calling. I am going home through Leadville, this time of year that is slow going. It is always snowing up there, so no need to get in a hurry. I just take it easy and dream my way to the house.
I am here, I am all here.
December 1, 2010
Drawing on the wall for an upcoming exhibit at Anderson Ranch Arts Center
I spent most of the day today up at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO, drawing on the wall for an upcoming show.
James Surls: The Black Arts
Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, CO
December 14, 2010
5 - 6:30pm
This exhibition will feature drawings and large-scale sculpture and commemorates the 20th anniversary of Surls’s groundbreaking wall drawing, To Touch the Center, created at Anderson Ranch. On view December 6, 2010 - February 25, 2011 in the Patton-Malott Gallery.
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