That Vagabond Narcissus the Hunter and Horseman of the Apocalypse

 

After viewing Mike Calway-Fagen's art work at Vox Populi I decided to delve a little bit into his self myth and went through his website and read his artist statement there.  I came across a word that I hadn't seen before: anthropocentric.  Loosely it is the idea that humanity is the center of the universe and that everything is here to benefit man, be it at the expense of other lifeforms.  To distill it further, that as a race we are egocentric.   Mike states that this is the cause of our past, current, and future apocalypse.  In a quick effort to bring us to a similar vein of thought and into my first assumption. . . I don't believe Mike means apocalypse in, what most of us associate the word with, the biblical sense.  I assume he is using the term as "a major misconception of ourselves", a "veil to be lifted" from our metaphysical egos.

Setting those semantics aside for now I want to address the idea of anthropocentrism.  To start off many people consider this a negative trait.  That viewing the universe through an exclusively human experience is bad.  I believe that one should remain open to multiple view points but retain an opinion.  There have been many times I thought for sure that 2 + 2 = 5 to discover that the idea wasn't as solid as I thought.  However, its the thinking part that is important.  Instinct is to be respected, but thought furthers things a bit, huh?  I don't think that anthropocentrism is a negative trait.  I believe that it can lead to negative traits, but one can take cleanliness to a negative place as well.  We are in competition with other species for resources.  They more so than us, (ego?) but a natural competition anyway.  Jump.  Lets examine competition in a more facilitative way, say an Olympic foot race. . . and use this as an analogy for anthropocentism (and use an anthropocentric game to do so) In an Olympic race its fair to say that the athletes are in similar, if not the same, physical condition.  What separates the medalists from the non-medalists are their view points of themselves.  Winners tell themselves they are the best, the race losers tend to have nagging suspicions, lose focus.  In effect Ego wins the prize.  If you are running this race and a fellow sportsman falls, breaks an ankle, do you stop in the middle of the race to help or finish and come back to make sure he is tended to, or assume he will be attended to?

The crux.  In an effort to achieve is it not right to assume we are the best, to tell your self, "I can?"  be the little engine that could?  Exclusive and excess outlooks of anthropocentrism could very well lead to a biblical apocalypse in addition to the other definition earlier talked about.
In Mike's work I see the Hunter.  His pieces exude an outdoors man's, a huntsman's aesthetic including taxidermy, boats, animal motif's, weapons, and totems.   Is this what it boils down to?  An idealistic hunter who believes that he needs to manage his game population to continue both species well being?  Or to keep his resource from depleting? Does he wonder if the animals have a mind/soul?  Does he pick out their personalities and translate them into human terms?  I can't translate my thoughts into a sparrow's or a deer's.  Isn't that ego?  To bend the terms of their understanding into yours?  Colonialism at its worst?  Are we trying to colonize the psyche of the animal kingdom with our own agenda?  Of course we are.  Does PETA have their own agenda?

Have they consulted with the whales and seals, or do they rely on human data?  Maybe.  I don't know.  Its just a spur question.  Is it really the thinking and trying that matter?  Or is it only the actions?  Or is the original message/action irrelevant? Was Aleister Crowley correct? "Do what thou wilt?"  Is the only thing important the receiver's interpretation of the message?  Francis Bacon's "Anything can mean anything" relies upon an agreed code.  Can we alter the coding in our own nature or just how it is received?  Anything can mean nothing.  Are the veils of reality that we wear needed to be lifted?  Are we afraid of what we might see?  Would we sacrifice ourselves for beings separated/different from ourselves in order for our own apocalypse to happen? Mike Calway-Fagen's work is up for your own message receiving.  At least its asking questions.  I think.  For more discussions and work visiting questions in an aesthetic manner visit the PostColonials Show at Linda Matney Gallery in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Openings will take place on March 18th at 7 p.m.

Be there or be ^2.

By the Old Sea Shore, Not as Conceptually Oblique as You Might Think

THERE were two sisters, they went playing,

      Refrain: With a hie downe downe a downe-a

To see their father’s ships come sayling in.

      Refrain: With a hy downe downe a downe-a

And when they came unto the sea-brym,

The elder did push the younger in.

‘O sister, O sister, take me by the gowne,

And drawe me up upon the dry ground.’

‘O sister, O sister, that may not bee,

Till salt and oatmeale grow both of a tree.’

Somtymes she sanke, somtymes she swam,

Until she came unto the mill-dam.

The miller runne hastily downe the cliffe,

And up he betook her withouten her life.

What did he doe with her brest-bone?

He made him a violl to play thereupon.

What did he doe with her fingers so small?

He made him peggs to his violl withall.

What did he doe with her nose-ridge?

Unto his violl he made him a bridge.

What did he doe with her veynes so blew?

He made him strings to his violl thereto.

What did he doe with her eyes so bright?

Upon his violl he played at first sight.

What did he doe with her tongue so rough?

Unto the violl it spake enough.

What did he doe with her two shinnes?

Unto the violl they danc’d Moll Syms.

Then bespake the treble string,

‘O yonder is my father the king.’

Then bespake the second string,

‘O yonder sitts my mother the queen.’

And then bespake the strings all three,

‘O yonder is my sister that drowned mee.’

‘Now pay the miller for his payne,

And let him bee gone in the divel’s name.’

     I've heard people claim America's culture is bland, without a long history, and commercial in nature.  While there are reasons and points to the previous claim, to make a general statement with out investigation is in no ones interest on this subject.  Modern migrations have brought old histories and culture to obscure the American "native" one and time has gone on to obscure our shared histories and amalgamated them to where we can't always decipher what came from where.  Modern Philosophies and "Avant Garde" art don't spring spontaneously from the ether and its easiest to be shocked by the things we choose to self censor.  Many of the contemporary art movements seek to distance themselves away from 1960's art history and the idea of the object and viewer in a private space. I believe this distancing is un-necessary as more community based projects and performance art began to grow then along with Folk Music making a revival into the popular scene (an unfinished thought).  At UnionDocs on February 10th and 11th you will have the opportunity to experience, with others, documentery films about the sharing of songs and stories, experience the songs performed live and artistic interpretations of the Child Ballads through paintings on exhibition.  

     Hey! Stay on track already. . .  So. . . Child Ballad no.10, known as "The Cruel Sister", and "Twa Sisters" is an old tune dating to the 1600's;  a song over 400 years old and still sung today; the Twa Sister's has been covered by Paul Clayton and even as late as Tom Waits in a 2006 recording.  If my memory serves me right, Art Rosenbaum, who worked with his son Neil on one of the documentaries being screened at UnionDocs, recorded Mary Lomax singing this song or part of it.  Whats important about Mary singing this song is that the song was passed to her by her father in a long line of oral tradition at which roots go back to the 1600's.  Even though the Child Ballads are not totally inclusive of every single ballad, they represent a hefty cross section of what we may consider an American cultural equivalent to Beowolf or even Homer's poems.   I'm sure if we dug deep enough both of those  form an influence upon the ballads somewhere.  The themes in the ballads are not necessarily restricted to Western, or European ideas and archetypes but can be found around the world in all cultures.  The "Twa Sisters" design I developed is based on a variation where the sister that has been wronged has been made into a violin.  When she is played before her parents, her sisters crime is found out.  We always hope justice finds those who wrong.  Unless sometimes its ourselves who are the cruel sister, perhaps then we wouldn't want "to face the music".  Paying people there dues, many thanks to Teddy Johnson and Heather Fares who have done a tremendous amount of work preparing for the Child Ballad shows in both Baltimore and New York.  They will be continuing to work together and are setting up a new exhibition for The Rotating History Project in Baltimore. . . --->http://rotatinghistory.blogspot.com/ .

Confirmation Bias: Koans

Another Etsy print utilizing "children's" art tools consists of MechaGodzilla getting a girlfriend as the readers of "The Inquirer" keep an eye on the relationship.   It’s amazing to see how quickly ideas, archetypes, songs; well culture has morphed in the past century.  I suppose we (the royal human we) have always acclimated quickly.  I don't have as large a grasp on language as I wish I did, but am still enthralled with shared cultural words.  Most times being used in mixed language sentences they lose a . . . je ne sais quoi.  And yes, we do have to thank the French for the feminine blonde, while the rest of the English language is neutered. Like spoken English I've been interested in appropriating for a few reasons.  It creates a dialogue with the past along with paying tribute it.  Building upon ideas of the past is how we've advanced to the technological/digital age.   I enjoy seeing things morph, figuring out (or at least creating my own theories) how they connect to the next gestation and adding to it.  It is an instant personal gratification becoming part of something larger than myself.   If it wasn't for a personal enjoyment I may even associate it with the loss of self.  What is that anyway?  "Is it alive, does it writhe? Can it survive under the sun?" The closest thing I equate to a gnostic experience is losing myself to the act of painting and becoming lucid to the fact that I'm awake and dreaming.

   A question was asked of a Zen master,  "What is the meaning of the ancestral teacher's (i.e., Bodhidharma's) coming from the west?" The master answered, "The cypress tree in front of the hall."  But this is about transformations of ideas, traditions, and art.  Knowing what has been is a good clue of what is and will be and like any good lie should be studied.  The variations, the small differences are what have become interesting.  How many times are you going to watch the same movie?  I bet it was based on a play that was performed over two thousand years ago.  There is some funny stuff in transitions for those of us caught in the middle.  In a way, it’s like being aware of puberty, being in it, past it, and aware of it from the other gender's view all at the same time - and the whole time daises that grow from our ancestor's corpses towards the sun, bending in the wind laugh along.  Oh, wait . . . we embalm and encase our dead like they are pharaohs.  No wonder we have movies like "Night of the Living Dead".   No, that doesn't make sense enough . . . let’s go with Brandon Frasier’s "The Mummy" as reference instead, using a shot of  Brock from "The Venture Bros."  fighting a mummy, even though "Night . . ." is much cooooler.

 My third wish is there to be no more 1970-1990 horror movie remakes.  We're supposed to change things, make them better damn it.  I mean look what happened with Gojira.  Someone transformed two Japanese words (and the Japanese do love to abbreviate/transform their words) for gorilla and whale and made up Gojira.  Then it’s misinterpreted to Godzilla for the U.S. release.  That is a radical name, and besides who would have wanted to go see a movie about a gorilla whale? It was something new [(ish) I'm not forgetting "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" or earlier stories dating back to St. George].  And then there was the 1998 U.S. Godzilla release promoted by Taco Bell.  Hell, Taco Bell started out as a hot dog stand.   What was my point with this? Ah yes . . . The Child Ballad Show.  Having expressed the need to recognize the importance of "tradition" I think it’s fair to impose one's own will upon its impending change.  The streets don't change but maybe their name . . .  The only fear/sin against tradition is the same for history: forgetting it.  Maybe forgetting should be replaced with "not learning".   To do either would be missing a hold on it.   "Is it numb?  Does it glow, will it shine? Does it leave a trail of slime?"  The most important thing to do with tradition is to play with it.  Game the sh*t out of it.  Most of the time all its doing is pointing out that you’re alive.
 Speaking of transformations. . . I'm happy to be sharing wall space with Bart Lynch (image above) in September.  In the past I've had the chance to visit him in the studio and its mind boggling how he works.  To see these seemingly spontaneous calligraphic marks converge into an overall composition consisting of stories within stories within stories is something to behold.  I highly recommend viewing his work when you get the chance.  That's at least one thing that I'm doing at the Child Ballad Show in Baltimore.  I just finished the painting for the show, and believe me I played the sh*t out of it.   To answer  some of you all's first questions reading this, "No, when making the print I was not consciously thinking about "Bambi meets Godzilla".  Someone pointed that out to me the other day and I almost threw up in my mouth because I had forgotten about it.  I'm more optimistic and think the relationship in my print will turn out better."   Have I learned anything?

Don't forget the 5th law: A Discordian is prohibited from believing what he reads.
If you are having trouble with that, consult your pineal gland.

Time to get back in the studio.




Jiun, a Shingon master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students.
His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter:"Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization."

Philadelphia Burning

With our recent trip to Japan I began to get used to all of these ancient land marks surrounding us. I began to wonder what we walk by everyday at home, in the U.S., and don’t even know or care is historic. We do live in Philadelphia, some big history for the country there, but what about our neighborhood? What do we have in our ‘hood that is similar in importance to what is in Motoko’s Parents in Japan? Is there anything? I drove around our neighborhood and tried to explore some areas that the local preservation group is trying to have deemed important for Philadelphia’s history. I was a nice day out so I brought along the camera to shot some photos for painting references, and sketched some as well. I started out at planphilly.com and looked through the points of interest, chose our driving path of least resistance, and hopped in the car/truck thing to go and breathe some fresh (questionably) air. It was fresh. The area we live in is up for, a name calling, debate. Things can get heated between city folk about where they are from and what neighborhood is what and authentic real estate agents will get into fisticuffs over it. Being a transplanted southern boy now living in the lowest part of the North’s denial, which it’s the same as the southeastern coast, I had to define again where I live and joined in on the fun. Technically we live in what was historically called Olde Richmond. It is now considered part of Fishtown (sigh of relief). So what is all this coming to? I can proudly stand up and say, “I have had a connection to my current neighborhood all my life!” If you are, not quite a person of a certain age, are a person of a certain age, or progeny of said people you too have this cosmic connection.

I’ll start at the beginning and we'll work our way to the cosmic connection by the end of the week.

My first stop was the music club The Barbary has been around since 1969 and is up for a nomination into the historical preservation society. Their page= www.myspace.com/thenewbarbary

That Music Venue that is so cool it is almost historical, but would never claim outright that it is because that - would be uncool.

According to wiki-travel it is “Hipster Heaven.” I can’t find any information about its importance to music except that it’s been around for a while. Someone let me know about that one please. Its name is interesting in context of the city considering this: the USS Philadelphia was lit aflame by its own people in the first Barbary war.

I will be posting a new Philadelphia 19125 painting every day over the next 5 days. You can purchase them off of my etsy site for $60.00 eachHERE. These paintings are mounted onto 6"x8" frames. Hey, even figure painters need to paint landscapes. After these it is on to the Child Ballad work, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Child-Ballads-Show/127757983923416?ref=mf .