Interview with the Wolff

Up now:
http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=9588

Spring in NYC?

Walking up Broadway in the sun, the sky taken from peacock's eyes and spread clear across the universe. You could easily roll on the ground, leap up and feel exact. Exactly with the warmth, the sudden sidewalk full of smiles, the perfect touch.
The difficulty being in maintaining a cohesive shape and not melting down one side of oneself, or the person standing next to you.
Spring is inappropriate...

Leaving Home

I left the City of Green Fire. I didn't know I'd left it because its imprint is indelible. I remember its warm cobblestones. I always walked barefoot there. Actually I didn't wear any clothes at all, yet never felt naked. Was it completely safe? No, but the parameters of its possibilities were so much an extension of me that I didn't feel any more fear than the usual nightmare or beautiful dream. Did it break my heart. I'm sure. But that seems a daily surgery once the hood is lifted, and light pours in. How do I know I'm not still there? Recently someone made a comment about City of Green Fire, saying it is a painting about gestation. Simultaneously I am working on a large collage/painting on paper. Unlike what I usually do I started with no image in mind. I tore up some maps and an old physics book and began to glue pieces, paint, and draw. Sometimes when I work the emotions of the period are very strong and they get purposely mixed in with the making, even if the picture is relatively subdued or, as in this case, mostly abstract. This time this is true and also I'm working without a template. It's pure wing-it. The familiar creatures of the City aren't here. There is no writing on the wall and no wall of green fire. I'm in the illuminated place of action?/no-action? Every time I make a mark, glue a piece of old equation or a bit of archipelago I drift in another direction. The ripples go out and impact everywhere. Of course this is true all of the time but I'm not usually so acutely aware. The City walls, tunnels, arches, and bridges to nowhere are no longer there to echo back my location.
I'll send you a postcard...

Mapwings

The image so far...just ground up my everyday soul into little bits and tried to put them back together again...

City of Green Fire conversation

My friend Vincent Czyz sent me this:

Here's an exchange between a friend of mine (Christine) living in Holland, and a little from me about your fabulous painting.

CHRISTINE: > The painting is quite impressive color wise...

ME: Oh NO. The colors are not nearly as good on the website. You should see it in person. I want to buy it ... it's only $10,000.

C: Well, if I am impressed by the colors now, I'd probably even be more intrigued in person. And yes, I know how much the internet can morph the look of actual paint. I remember Blue Dog, color-wise, in person was much more impressive than anything seen on the net.

This painting is colorfully intense, symbolic, and feminine ...no wonder you like it!

Hard to make out all > of the images though. Seahorse, Sphinx, and Patron of Roses.
Taking my time to look at it closer..., Christine.

ME: Yes, fun stuff.

The entire painting has feminine curves of all types in most images. Also tons and tons of pairings -- Pair of wings, shadows, falling water, breasts, goldfish [koi], roses, reflections, all odd kinds of symmetry....even the woman seems divided into two parts. And undoubtedly, the symbolism is going to be paired too.


I looked up what the symbolism may mean...interesting....Enjoy the reflections, while I keep looking. Christine....


seahorse represents:

The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the seahorse was an attribute of the sea god Neptune/Poseidon and as such, the seahorse was considered a symbol of strength and power
Chinese cultures believed that the seahorse was a type of sea dragon, and as such they were revered for their power and thought to be symbols of good luck.
ancient Europeans believed that the seahorse carried the souls of deceased sailors to the underworld - giving them safe passage and protection until the met their soul’s destination.
are symbolic of patience and contentment - they are happy with being where they are, and are in no hurry for advancement.
However, along with a resistance to change, and a carefree approach to progress, the seahorse can be a symbol of inflexibility or stubbornness. To wit, the seahorse wraps its tail around the nearest object in order to anchor itself in turbulent waters. This is a lesson to be persistent in our goals, but be mindful that we are not too inflexible or stubborn in our achieving them.
Eyesight of seahorses are incredibly sharp, pay attention, and take a good look around psychically and spiritually

Sphinx

The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, and to have asked a riddle of travelers to allow them passage.

The exact riddle asked by the Sphinx was not specified by early tellers of the stories, and was not standardized as the one given below until late in Greek history.[4]

Stages of man riddle

Patron Saint of Roses:
The rose is thought to represent God's love for Rita and Rita's ability to intercede on behalf of lost causes or impossible cases.

Rita is often depicted holding roses or with roses nearby.

On her feast day, churches and shrines of St. Rita provide roses to the congregation that are blessed by priests during Mass.
koi fish symbolize -perseverance in adversity and strength of purpose

Symbolic in the Buddhism to represent courage. Humans "swim" through the "ocean of suffering" without fear, just like a fish swims through water.

The Koi is symbolic with family. On Children's Day Koi flags are raised: Black Koi, the father; Orange/Red, the mother; Blue/White for a boy; and red/pink for a girl.

There is another word to describe "love" which is "koi". The kanji character for "kokoro (heart)" is included as part of both kanji characters. Both "ai" and "koi" are probably translated as "love" in English. However, they have slightly different nuance: "Koi" is a love for the opposite sex, or a longing feeling for a specific person. It can be described as "romantic love" or "passionate love". While "ai" has the same meaning as "koi," it also has a definition of a general feeling of love. "Koi" can be selfish, but "ai" is a real love. Here are some lines that explain them well: Koi is always wanting. Ai is always giving."

maplife in progress

Map life, life in scraps, maps torn and then the snake oil solution, the answer to all issues---more paint, more lines, more strokes:
(more later)

Same Face, different eyes and time

From the lenses of different friends come other portraits backing down through the years:

Blame it on Bronzino

I rarely draw in pencil but after seeing the Bronzino show at the Met some urge took over me. Having no other body at hand I dragged out the mirror and did the portrait stare with myself.

Waking Up

Here in the palm of February I can taste the whip of late March and the cruel incoming kiss of April. Somehow I'm waking up before the snows have blown off my cave ledge. Whatever mechanism drives the body's perambulations about the globe is giving notes to the backseat driver in my mind. There is a flurry of wings, a scent of color, and the uncurling of heart, unmindful of joints, injuries, or any calendar-including the Mayan. I say to hell with the apocalypse, lets get on with the morning sacrifice and burn myself down to the sooty nub and walk away.

Movement IV--negative space

The long drawn intake of air beneath Shaun White, the huge expanse of vertical white around Lindsey Vonn, the slip-slide of shifting apertures among the speed skaters, the cut & swirl of shapes made by the figure skaters and then the meeting & parting of space between the pairs. I was once told that chemical engineering is sometimes called The Cotillion of the Molecules. Here in this ecstatic ballroom of frenzied, nut-jobbed, beautiful and generous humans is a dance that cracks my heart.

The Oldest Thirst

Inspired by a Rumi poem

Movement III-Valentines in NYC

So day of the inscribed heart, chocolate and pissed off guys I go with a friend to see the new Bollywood movie My Name is Khan. The theater is a surf of Hindi voices. The movie is over-the-top, brilliant in places, ridiculous in others but, for myself, wonderfully satisfying. Off through the night we go to a Chinese restaurant where they speak Mandarin and serve a fantastic fish swimming in a red sea of peppers. Chinese New Years is revving up--its the first day and the place is full and hen gao xing (very happy). We get burnt by the peppers and discover that its year 4 thousand and something. Its also Year of the Metal Tiger. Fueled by peppers and wine we zigzag out into the night and down into a bar with candles in blue glass, ladies with quick eyes wearing very high heels, and a soft, dreamy darkness.
I'm full of arrows shot straight from the bow of the city itself into the drawn heart on my sleeve.
祝 你们 新 年 快乐！

Movement II--Short Track

Like a ghost of a thought Apolo Ohno slips through the field of skaters, leaning so far that his body almost kisses the ice, as his gold fingertips dance across the white. The sheer fluidity coupled with blink-speed decisions, a lost moment and two skaters dissolve into the slipstream.
It makes me happy to consider making a more beautiful painting, pouring everything I know into a field of brush strokes...
...the movement of their bodies draw perfect lines across my eyes, across my heart and erase time

Movement

This morning, before coffee, I found myself watching Bollywood dance sequences and the car chase in Bullitt. The delight of movement. The pause, the flurry, the growling mustang, the rotating wrist & hip, and then the roar of acceleration & the down stamp of feet on winged tilt of torso and eyes. Shiva dances everywhere, even in the heart of the machine.

Paint a Bunny, Kill a Bunny

Brain Twist

Today, sitting in my doctor's office, I was reading Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. My doctor is Chinese and the office is in Chinatown. The predominant language in the office is Mandarin. Now I study Mandarin, so occasionally I'll catch a phrase, word or familiar sound. Imagine reading about the nature of reality (in English) while being submerged in a sea of language that you only peripherally understand. I am just beginning to grasp that everything might only exist in our minds as sense data when they call the woman next to me. She is asleep so I lightly nudge her. She gets up but forgets her file. I pick it up and hand it to her saying" Ni de..." (meaning "Yours..."). She takes it and says "Xie xie ni" (thank you). I go back to reading about that damn table.

Fly

Fly, as in: Ways to Cross the Water: Walk, Fly, Swim
...just imagine you are a bird flying way above the ocean as it tongues onto the sand...

Sunday night at The Bubble Lounge, strippers & champagne

January on Pandora

The cold was cold, but the wind was freezing....on the way to see Avatar yesterday morning (the only not sold out show as of three days ago).. and then to be plunged into the fecund world of Pandora's illuminated nights, ferned, predatorialized days, and screaming dives off mountains floating in mist ripped skies. Nice. I greet you 2010, with a smile for all blue people with nerve fringed braids.

And a note on how people get where: someone arrived here, from Alabama, by typing in: brain lichen
not so different from Pandora

NEW YEAR!