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July 29, 2010
I
dropped everything else to work night and day for a couple of weeks to create a
dove with an olive branch in its mouth out of copper. It now is mentioned on my
homepage.
For breaks between the days spending hammering out the feathers, I created some 3D abstract "paintings" on copper with vitreous enamel. One was sold at an auction to raise funds for a non-profit organization. I gave a couple of the others away. The one made of an irregularly shaped scrap of copper sits on my coffee table wondering where to go.
May 30, 2010
In
today's New York Times, Sri Lankan rap artist Mathangi “Maya”
Arulpragasam, also known as M.I.A., said "Give war a chance."
Doesn't look like a militant rebel, does she?
April 18, 2010
I've been buying equipment and supplies to take my work in a different
direction. Experimenting, learning and practicing takes an enormous amount of
time. I spend less time updating this site or adding things to this blog as a
result. It could be a year, or maybe this fall with luck, before I have a full
peace pole resulting from this. There might be some plaques, and maybe some
caps, before that. But the new peace poles, when available, might end up being
more expensive than most of the rest of what I make. I am working hard to avoid
that. We'll see.
A jig that withstands a couple thousand
degrees (F) when holding experiments.
April 14, 2010
In Paris on December 10, 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They say it has been translated into
more languages and dialects than any other document in the world. It was the
first global expression of the rights to which all people everywhere are
entitled.
Article 18 of it says "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought."
Does that give the politically correct something to think about?
March 8, 2010
Every once in a while I try to remember to post an email from someone. We're
supposed to do that, aren't we? It's easy to remain lost in creating the work
and forget to tell anyone about it.
He is in another country, so English isn't his first language, but he is speaking about the plaques and cap I made for him.
"I just want to tell you that I am very, very happy with the plates and the top. Very beautiful and artistic!!!! So much feeling! Thank you!"
February 26, 2010
I didn't know what waterboarding is. When I found out, I assumed it was
something our country was doing for the first time. As it turns out, it goes way
back.
Around 1900 the USA annexed some islands in the Philippines. The Philippines declared war to prevent us from taking their islands. And thus began the American-Philippine War in which we not only used waterboarding, but even sang at least one marching song about it. It was called "The Water Cure" and celebrated the use of waterboarding on Filipinos.
Mark Twain was so unhappy about that war that he founded an Anti-Imperialist League (there were more than one). Could it be that rather than launching negative responses, like that one - being against something, instead we should be ahead of the curve with a positive response? If we predicted what the next trouble spot would be, and therefore where our militarists next would advise sending soldiers, could we try to go there first with scholarships, students, musicians, cooks, etc., to meet hearts and minds and see if we can prevent it from becoming a place that people with guns view as a trouble spot needing their attention?
February 25, 2010
Artist's Statements:
To me artistic statements cerebralize the viewer's experience with the work by creating
what feels like a high school art instructor's dictum about what should
be kept in mind while viewing the work. Is there a surer way to prevent an
emotional involvement with it?
I once was walking through a museum when I passed an art teacher leading a group of senior citizens in an art appreciation course. I tried not to appear too dismayed. "When you look at this painting, look at this person in this window and think of the relationship that must exist between this person and the one on the floor below. Think up a story that connects the two people." Oh, for god's sake.
Is Mozart improved by noting cord changes? However much more than that an artist's statement might be, it still intellectualizes the experience in a way that violates the best cords art ever strikes.
One of my works was hanging on a wall when a viewer asked me what it means. The artist standing next to him said, "You can't ask an artist that."
February 1, 2010
Today's post is about coppersmithing, not peace, but some people investigate
this site to see if I've got the skills necessary to make their peace pole. So I
might as well post this as an example.
The teenage girl across the street was doing a science project. She was supposed to use a Peltier Module (see next paragraph if you've forgotten high school physics) in some everyday application. She decided it would be interesting to put one in an ice cream scoop. She knocked on my door to ask if I could cut a piece of metal in the shape of an ice cream scoop for her. I quizzed her a little about what she was going to do with it once cut. She had no idea. So I asked her to leave the Peltier Module with me over the weekend and I'd see what I could do.
Peltier Module - an electric current flowing through the
junction of two dissimilar conductors can cause it to act as
a heater or cooler. Flowing one way can make it warm. Flowing the other way can
make it cold. Flowing in one direction from metal A to metal B and then
continuing on into another piece of metal A cause both to occur at once. So a
Peletier Module gets hot on one side and cold on the other.
The ice cream scoop I made containing it is at right. For this photo I pulled the 9-volt battery partway out of the handle so you can see it. Her idea was that the back of the scoop would get hot, to make it easier to scoop, while the front would get cold, to keep the ice cream cold. In practice, the copper conducts the heat from the back so well that the whole thing warms up. After a while the battery gets warm and warms the handle too.
I wanted to find out if contact with cold ice cream would absorb that heat leaving the back warmer and the front colder, but I didn't have any. So I pushed it into a container of ice. The whole scoop got cold quickly. It probably needs more horsepower than a 9 volt battery.
January 15, 2010
Once upon a time in Berkeley, California on the street one would pass groups
of black men wearing Muslim garb and sitting with African percussion instruments
between their knees. A half a dozen or a dozen of them, even a couple of dozen,
would spend a good part of the day making rhythms. During a normal day one might
pass such groups at least several times. When I did, once in a while I leaned
over, or sat down, within reach of multiple skinned drums, and shared heads for
a bit. I would add a complimentary sound, and one that avoided interfering with
or overshadowing the fingers originally on the drums, until it seemed
appropriate to add something akin to a lead guitar weeping loudly between lines
of a lyric connecting them. Sometimes that is done by tripling the
speed with strikes across the right progression of drums. If the right drums are
in reach, melody can be created. I wasn't always sure I should do that. The
looks on the faces of black guys who held these rhythms and skills to be theirs,
their heritage,
when a 19 year old, blondish white guy did something beyond what they ever had
hoped to do. One of the gap-bridging advantages of percussion is that if you
have developed any skill with it, any place you go where they are tapping on
things, you can probably find a way to fit in. I just wasn't sure that the best
way to do that was by what might be interpreted as showing off. In music, being
the fastest or most dexterous is not to have been the best. That might be being
the worst. Blending, supporting, building together, like you'd want any
community of humans to do, requires being in tune, in sync, attentive and
cooperative. That's one of the advantages of groups in which everyone plays a
different instrument. You never go head to head with someone to match skills.
But only drums were in this mix. How to make that harmonious and bridge-building
in spite of differences in talent and skill and heritage? Could the perspectives
and diplomacy developed to accomplish that apply to building peaceful coalitions
in larger arenas?
January 14, 2010
An
oud is the Arab lute or guitar. You can buy them on line, acoustic or solid body
electric, even in children's size. And you can take lessons here in the USA. Do
we not want some of the students who are studying music in our colleges to take a course in the oud for a year and then go to a university in an Arab country for a year to
learn from them, music, language and about their country in general, making
friends, building relationships, and all the things that happen when you are
young and learning and living in a foreign land? People with degrees in music
usually don't become professional musicians. Sometimes they find careers in the
state department - a good place for people who understand how to cooperate and harmonize.
Inviting a renowned performer over to give a concert is all well and good, but it is a distant cry from sitting down with someone and joining in creating something together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7etDp94r10
January 13, 2010
Once when I was at a clinic doing physical therapy, one of the therapists
had in her hand something designed for another purpose, but that when tapped on
resonated like a drum. A male therapist next to her reached over and tapped it
harder. She handed it to him. He started tapping out a beat. I used to play
percussion so I picked up something that would suffice and began the percussive
equivalent of harmonizing with him. Within thirty seconds he dropped what he was
doing saying, "You got me beat." He wasn't a musician. He did not respond from
the habit, from the viewpoint, of cooperating to make something happen together.
He had been an athlete. To him it was about winning and losing. Team sports are
supposed to teach people teamwork, but it is teamwork centered on conquest. Like
soldiers. If I had said to him, "Let's you and I go and show those guys who is
boss," he'd have understood. What I had said, though not with words, was, "Let's
you and I create something that might amuse those around us for a moment." For
thirty seconds the people around us had looked up and smiled. There was
something amusing about two guys unexpectedly creating music. But he didn't
speak that language. He didn't understand that way of relating to them and to
me.
When we believe that in another country there is trouble about which we need to do something, is the first, best voice to which to listen the one that speaks the language of the military, of winning, of conquest?
January 12, 2010
If you want to clean up a neighborhood overrun by crime, call some artists.
That has worked in cities around the world. Get a community of artists in the
neighborhood and wait for things to change. That is the thesis of urban theorist
Richard Florida. I personally watched that happen in Cincinnati before Florida
explained what I'd seen. But rather than make the case for that here (search on
him for that), I'd like to suggest why we should, but don't, think that way with
foreign policy.
I stumbled on a paper I wrote for a graduate course in political science. I was trying to get some boxes out of the basement. I read only the first page of it, but it was another example of how agencies and viewpoints acquire power and influence over time. When the President is worried about terrorists in some other country, military advisors explain about how many military personnel and how much equipment could accomplish what in what time frame. They have graphs and budgets and epaulets. People salute when they enter a room.
Does the President ever grant an audience to someone who says, "That Arab country has 12,000 citizens who have graduated from universities in the United States. There has not been not one citizen of our country to graduate from one of theirs. We need to get some students over there. We need to establish scholarships for them. Quick. Before the situation gets worse."
Does anyone ever say to the President, "We can deploy 300 cooks, 150 photographers, 75 videographers, 200 poets, 800 dancers, 50 rodeo riders, 8 NASCAR drivers, 50 magicians, 400 sculptors, 900 guitarists, 500 flautists, 4,000 adolescent female gymnasts (is anyone more charming and loveable than that - although the leotard issue would need to be examined), and spread them out across that country learning and sharing and cooperating with everyone possible. Once we have built relationships there, we will invite them to visit us here on the same basis at our expense. Of course it will be dangerous. Of course some will get kidnapped. Of course some will die. When they do, it will help cement our favor with the peaceful majority of their population. It will cost fewer lives than war. And ten years of this will cost less money than one week of war and do more to accomplish our goals than an eternity of fighting."
The goal is the meeting of hearts and minds achieve peaceful, cooperative coexistence, isn't it? Notice that I did not say "winning" hearts and minds, as though it is an effort to convert them to our way of thinking. We can meet to find accord, friendship and productive unions from which all parties benefit when we learn from them as well. How do they cook that flatbread in their home ovens? What could our pizza making skills bring to that? Don't we worry less about each other when we have tossed dough in each other's kitchens?
How could we get someone to try this? Would artists need to wear epaulets? Would there need to be one of them in a cabinet position? Would there need to be an Artists Corps of creative types trained and ready to be deployed?
November 14, 2009
Someone, while thinking about placing an order, was testing me about just
who I was and what my work was like. Which is legitimate. I understand that and
don't mind it. Finally, she asked if I had a peace pole in my own yard. Later I
repeated the question to my wife and we had a good laugh. I told the woman on
the phone that at that moment I had three by my front door, five around back,
several in my basement, and a few others in my garage. The problem for me is
preventing the yard from becoming overrun with them. For one thing, I make
prototypes that I want to watch weather over the years. Some I hide behind trees
where I won't see them for months at a time so that the changes will be
noticeable for not having been seen happening gradually. Others I put where I
will see them constantly. I tinker with the designs. I want to see them outside
from a distance. I want to see them at night, and in the morning before the sun
hits them, and at noon when the light is blinding. I need to walk around the
corner and happen to notice one across the yard while I'm not thinking about
them to see how they strike me. Sometimes I look up and think, "You know what
would be better . . . " Other times, "I think it was better before I . . ."
This week I figured out a different way to put Braille on a resin peace pole so that it is less noticeable to sighted people, but easier to find for unsighted people. I also came up with a Tabletop Peace Pole that doesn't need a base. So now there is a Tabletop Peace Pole in my dining room. I'm going to make another. That first one was my first without a base, a practice one. So it was made out of stock that had imperfections and couldn't be sold. The next one will be of the caliber that could. It will replace the one in the dining room. And where will I put the one being replaced? Maybe in my office, near the five-sided, four feet tall, carved wooden one that is leaning against the shelf, but higher and more front and center where I'll see it more often as I think about it.
August 27, 2009
The debate continues on about whether water boarding is an effective way to
get information out of prisoners. It doesn't matter if it is effective. It is
wrong. We are a democracy. We do not torture people.
Unfortunately, if we do not take a strong stand on this, torture will have been left as an option for future leaders. I think we have to make it clear that it is illegal and unacceptable. Is there a way to make that clear without criminal trials? We probably need to prosecute those who allowed or enabled our nation to torture.
May 26, 2009
According to P. W. Singer, an expert on robotics in war, there is a Jihadi
website you can go and, from your desktop at home, remotely detonate an IED in Iraq.
In response, should I create a website on which you remotely can have a peace pole planted someplace?
May 16, 2009
I happened to look at an entry in this blog from a year ago. Was it only a
year ago that I was experimenting with packaging to make it less expensive and
more safe for the peace poles? It seems like five years ago that I worked all
that out. In the quest to make it work better, I used to have professionals do
some of it. They never made it good enough. I figured out better solutions
myself. They seem so obvious now. It's hard to understand how it ever was done
differently.
Shipping prices stopped being volatile and came back down this year (somewhat).
May 4, 2009
Aharon Barak, past President of the Supreme Court of Israel, and considered
by some legal scholars to be the world's greatest living jurist, wrote, ""This
is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it and not all
practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must
often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper
hand."
This is from an opinion concerning balancing individual rights and security that was written on September 7, 1999. It was written in a state with a long and continual experience with terrorists killing its citizens. And it was written to explain another reason for why torture is not acceptable.
March 30,2009
In Ontario, Canada the Rotary Club of Windsor Roseland sends a questionnaire
to schools in its area. It's a self-assessment test. The schools with the top
four scores get designated as peace schools and receive Peace Poles along with
dedication ceremonies at which every student receives a jelly bracelet with the
inscription "May Peace Prevail On Earth" Each school also receives a plaque and
an invitation to a Peace Skate on February 23, which is Rotary International's
day of world peace and understanding. To transport the children to the skate,
they provide buses, lunches, hot chocolate and even skates for the rare
Canadians who do not own ice skates. The place where they skate is in a park
near their Rotary Club's peace monument.
To see the questionnaire by which they determine which schools qualify as peace schools, click here.
March 9, 2009
A
knitted peace pole? Being hugged by a skeleton? The
JafaGirls,
in England, knitted this around a telephone pole as part of their Textile Totems
project. Awareness of peace polls has grown to where random artists think to
make them. Their project wasn't about peace. That was what this one artist
brought to their project. Others knitted a Camo Barbie pole and a Poodle Tree,
along with 14 others that were not peace poles, as they wrapped signposts and
lampposts and telephone poles. One of their installations was the equivalent of
knitted wrist bands for the limbs of a tree.
November 9, 2008 - Important Peace Makers in History
Some historians, including Sean Wilentz, author of "The Age of Reagan," and
William E. Odom, author of "The Collapse of the Soviet Military," say that
19-year-old Mathias Rust had more to do with keeping peace in our time (at least
we didn't have a nuclear holocaust during out time) than The Strategic Defense Initiative and
many of the other policies, programs and efforts deployed by governments. Rust
(pronounced Roost) was the West German boy who, armed with a paper petition for
peace, rented a small, single-engine Cessna 172P aircraft at Helsinki-Malmi
Airport in Finland in the morning of May 28, 1987 and flew it to Red Square in
Russia. Rust’s flight damaged the reputation of the Soviet military giving
Gorbachev the pretext he needed to remove from the military those who opposed his reforms. The breakup of the Soviet Block and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall
might not have come about in our time without an ideological 19-year-old making
a naive, bold and virtually ridiculous public plea for peace.
All you can do is try.
* * *
Index of Blog Archive
(in chronological order.)
Artist's Blog Archive 1
Artist's Blog Archive 2
Artist's Blog Archive 3
Artist's Blog Archive 4
Artist's Blog Archive 5
Artist's Blog Archive 6
Artist's Blog Archive 7
Artist's Blog Archive 8
Artist's Blog Archive 9
