Spring Cleaning

Here is the text of some writings I found on a scrap of paper while cleaning my studio yesterday:

Role of Politics in Art

Its power is subtle –opportunity to be expressive rather than dogmatic.

Once artwork is created, even a sketch or drawing, it can potentially last hundreds of years.

So much of history and culture gets re-written, re-thought (that) I feel it’s really important to freeze ideas into icons.

My Work

My work is definitely slanted, but I try to combine odd, absurd, contradictory or funny elements so it’s not totally predictable. Contradiction humbles us.

I often appropriate stuff I hear on WERU. Stunning facts, inspiring music.

Text is important. Art can be hard to access. I like the accessibility to meaning that text provides. From there I can get obscure and confused.

Love Bombing -Chris Hedges

Read Chris' article at Truthdig.com and prepare to get scared of the Christian right:
“Love bombing is a coordinated effort, usually under the direction of leadership, that involves long-term members flooding recruits and newer members with flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually nonsexual touching, and lots of attention to their every remark,” the psychiatrist Margaret Thaler Singer wrote. “Love bombing—or the offer of instant companionship—is a deceptive ploy accounting for many successful recruitment drives.”

The convert is gradually drawn into a host of church activities by his or her new friends, leaving little time for outside socializing. But the warmth soon brings with it new rules. When you violate the rules, you sin, you flirt with rebellion, with becoming a “backslider,” someone who was converted but has fallen and is once again on the wrong side of God. And as the new converts are increasingly invested in the church community, as they cut ties with their old community, it is harder to dismiss the mounting demands of the “discipler” and church leaders. The only proper relationship is submission to those above you, the abandonment of critical thought and the mouthing of thought-terminating clichés that are morally charged. “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior” or “the wages of sin are death” is used to end all discussion.

Move over Predator..

I was glad to receive an email regarding commentary on the NPR story about the new "Reaper" weapon. What has happened to our world? This is different from World War II when our nation rallied to work together to defeat the Nazis (I know what you're thinking, but that's another rant!)...now we just want to create weapons we can use from the comfort of our easy chair and when we're done with an 8 hour day of button pushing and launching Hellfire missiles upon would be terrorists (let God sort 'em out?) head on home to wifey and dinner (pork roast tonight?).