SPRING GUN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Subject: Electronic Literature Call for Submissions

Call for Issue Four Submissions:

The issue 4 reading period will be from December 1, 2010 - March 1, 2011.  We accept book reviews, essays, interviews, and any form of interdisciplinary digital art year round.  SpringGun is an online journal for poetry, flash fiction, digital art, electronic literature, book reviews, essays, and interviews.  Past issues of our journal can be found here:http://wwwspringgunpress.com/journal

Guidelines

Please read/experience prior issues of the journal to see if your work is a good fit.  

Please note that all guidelines are strictly upheld. 

Poetry: 5 poems or 5 pages of poetry maximum

Flash Fiction: stories must be 1, 000 words or less, 5 pieces maximum 

Book Reviews, Essays, and Interviews: 1,500 words or less, 3 pieces maximum 

For interdisciplinary digital art, include your contact info and a URL where we can navigate and/or view the work.   If accepted you will be asked to upload your work to the SpringGun server.  All published electronic literature will be added to the Electronic Literature Directory and archived.  Artist/writer retains all rights.

We are now using the wonderful Submishmash submissions manager for all submissions

CLICK HERE to Submit to SpringGun

Erin Costello

Mark Rockswold

editor@springgunpress.com

www.springgunpress.com 

text + image

Check out Kristin Carlson's (RISD BFA Photo 2003) MFA in Printmaking (Indiana University 2010) here

Kristin describes her thesis as a combination of "poetic writings, a love of letterforms/handwriting, and both the fact and form of mailed correspondence."

Here's an abstract for a talk she will be presenting on a current research project:

Abstract for College Book Art Association Biennial Conference 2011

See Saturday, 8:30am - 10:00am: http://www.collegebookart.org/Default.aspx?pageId=761369

Words Become Images: Visual, Verbal, and Gestural Brainstorming in the College Classroom

Kristin Carlson

In fall 2009 I conducted research for my MFA thesis in Printmaking to support the notion that art-making and writing can benefit from an interactive relationship, in part because they share the possibility of drawing inspiration from gestural activity. The resulting paper compared the work of cartoonist and writer Lynda Barry—who links her creative success to an intensive practice of stream-of-consciousness writing and doodling— to some of the other contemporary manifestations and explanations of the verbal/visual process in art-making. Barry’s process is shown to share commonalities with the practice of other artists, including Cy Twombly and H. C. Westermann; with the writings of art historians and critics, including Johanna Drucker and Roland Barthes; and with successful arts-based literacy programs for elementary and secondary education. The paper concludes that “if writing can benefit from strong visual and sensory experiences—such as inking words by hand or allowing the act of art-making to suggest narratives—then the making of visual art may also benefit from the support and inspiration provided by a strong writing practice, especially if that written practice incorporates gestural activity.”

Based on this research, I propose the question: How do we incorporate the potential of a visual/verbal/gestural creative process into a college-level studio classroom? After briefly outlining the basis of this question in my previous research, I will present strategies for encouraging a more intensive creative process through combined writing and image-making. Strategies will be based on new research and author-conducted interviews exploring ways in which professors of art and creative writing have mixed visual and verbal expression in their teaching. The paper will conclude by suggesting short-term activities, long-term projects, and readings that will help students relate visual and verbal modes of expression through gestural activity. The long-term goal of this research is the development of a semester-long, interdisciplinary course that invites visual artists and creative writers to engage with the relationship of text and image in variety of ways, one of which is their shared ability to perpetuate gestural activity in the service of creative production. The strategies proposed in the paper for CBAA will be useful to teachers with an intense interest in text-image relationships, as well as to studio instructors seeking ways enliven the classroom through unconventional activity.

Detailed directions of the creation of a Francisco Moreno painting

1. Interested in identity, culture, and heritage; attempt to paint old family portrait of my father and his siblings from the 70’s.
2. Acknowledgment of failure in attempt to paint family portrait. Frustration with using old photograph as source, search for new subject matter.
3. Find old family heirloom religious cross that mother had covered with silver Mexican charms.
4. Attempt to superimpose still life of charms with family photo.
5. Fail to meet happy-median between family photo and charm still life.
6. Cover up family photo painting with painting of charm still life
7. Acknowledge lack of interest in charm still life, put down source and ponder next step.
8. While pondering, remember Susan Rothenberg talk at the Fort Worth Modern with Michael Auping. There are four requirements to making a painting: 1. Figure, 2. Ground, 3. Tension between 1 & 2, 4. Acknowledge painting as object.
9. Think about Rothenberg’s step 4
10. Draw a four-sided polygon in which the points meet the midpoints of each edge of the 48” x 70” painting.
11. Paint triangular areas outside of the polygon with white oil-based house paint purchase from the Home Depot.
12. Acknowledge a mistake was made and that the painting was interesting before whiting out half of it.
13. Feel frustrated.
14. Stress out and smoke a cigarette.
15. Feel pain in lungs and regret smoking cigarette.
16. Disregard pain and smoke another cigarette.
17. Regain interest in the idea of painting a culturally loaded image.
18. Search for new item to paint at the parents’ home.
19. Stumble across corn husk dolls mother has in the guest bathroom.
20. Think about professor and painter, Sedrick Huckaby, and how he stresses the importance of painting from life.
21. Bring dolls into the studio.
22. Begin painting dolls on top of the four-sided polygon painting.
23. Use obnoxious cheap fluorescent pinks and blue printmaking inks because you are stingy, then realize it is a bad idea.
24. Receive a plethora of comments on the pinks and the blues.
25. Cover obnoxious cheap fluorescent pink and blue marks with oil paint.
26. Worry about oil paint over oil inks being archival then soon forget.
27. Attempt to abstract dolls.
28. Realize that the abstraction leads toward an endless endeavor of relative painting. Since there is no sincere interest in this attempt, begin to render the dolls.
29. Render.
30. Sit and ponder visits to Mexico.
31. Recall grandmothers house getting marked with graffiti.
32. Think about how graffiti is intended to work on the populace to establish, in guerrilla fashion, new, engaged forms of class and state identification.
33. Think about the hip Hispanic graffiti crew in Dallas, Texas.
34. Disregard any association with the hip graffiti crew.
35. Render.
36. Think about superimposing graffiti on top of dolls.
37. Create digital collage in attempt to “deface” dolls.
38. Print collage and take it to the studio.
39. Carefully paint yellow graffiti marks on top of doll with oil paint.
40. Realize that this cautious attempt to “deface” a painting is pathetic.
41. Continue to render dolls and paint over failed faux graffiti marks.
42. Realize that in order to deface something, that thing must have some sort of value. In this project, value of time which is portrayed by rendering.
43. Render.
44. Acknowledge that the layers of the painting give the painting a sense of history.
45. Use thicker paint; render the painting with impasto paint.
46. Render.
47. Render.
48. Render.
49. Sigh.
50. Render.
51. Render.
52. Come to feel that the painting has enough work done to it to be defaced.
53. Take a well-lit picture of the painting with SLR camera.
54. Import picture into computer; digitally deface painting with Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
55. On Photoshop, play around with red, yellow, green, black, and white to see which color would look best to “graffiti” on the painting.
56. Come to the conclusion that yellow works best on the painting.
57. Print digital sketch and go to hardware store and buy yellow spray paint.
58. Return to studio.
59. Take painting outside to “vandalize.”
60. Cautiously put butcher paper around painting in order to not spray the walls of the school.
61. Analyze digital sketch carefully.
62. Vandalize painting.

fonting...

typography is a mystery to me.
fonts have, until recently, been a pesky avoidable nuisance.
i'd opt out of this chore of decision-making by
picking the standard over the odd, and the easy over the crazy.
i never learned the logic, never learned the rules.
i've used exclusively my own lazy and slightly naive
instinctual sense of wrongness or rightness.

now i stare at fonts.
trying to "get" them.
its led me to play games and look at websites such as this:

www.esperfonto.com

which promises to find you the perfect font.
just decide whether you need it to be
warm
friendly
modern
cute
cold
stylish
business-like
or wacky
and it will find one that does the job...

save the words!

use me!

http://www.savethewords.org/

I married myself to a title.
Everything was bliss until a few days ago when a feeling came over me.
It occurred to me that my title may have titled someone else's something.
Suspiciously, I googled it.

As I did this, I discovered various forms of it used to title
poems by dead poets, forgotten films from the sixties
and even to title a chapter from a manual on PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor,
a code embedded into HTML for web development.

Now I'm picturing my beloved title on this B&W movie poster
with young British actors resembling John, Paul and Ringo
and I'm not sure I can sleep with this playing in my head. I mean,
they look rather good together. That is, from a sixties aesthetical standpoint...

Knowing this, I am contemplating divorce, though I keep remembering
the quirky charms that attracted me in the first place.
Can I still continue this relationship knowing the history? The baggage?
I was committed to this. I thought we were perfect for each other.

Predict your Baby

Speaking of John Mayer's love child...this is hilarious: Predict your Baby

This is what my & John Mayer's baby would look like:



And this is what Francisco and John Mayer's baby would look like:


Oh dear.

MAIREAD!

I AM SO EXCITED THAT I AM GOING TO WRITE IN CAPS.

I WAS WATCHING THE NBC HIT TV SHOW, 30 ROCK SEASON 4 EPISODE 14, AND SOMETHING INCREDIBLE HAPPENED. TRACY JORDAN PLAYED BY TRACY MORGAN, POSSIBLY THE MOST HILARIOUS HUMAN BEING ON THIS EARTH, WAS TRYING TO WIN A TONY AWARD BY RENTING OUT A THEATER IN NEW YORK AND DOING IMPROV PLAYS. WELL, HE RAN OUT OF IDEAS AND STARTED READING THE PHONEBOOK, AND PEOPLE LOVED HIM FOR IT!

YEAH!

When

When texting people of interest, make sure you do not tell them you are listening to John Mayer.

Google Poetry Robot

Whatever next?!?

Google Poetry Robot

Walking & Poetry

This is absolutely magical in terms of a multi-layered example of walking, listening, writing, poetry, photography & sound. I highly recommend listening to Excerpt #2.

How to turn a page?

I am currently working on a book project where the content is not the primary focus. The only reason for text or image on the page is to provoke the viewer to turn the page.

So I have stumped myself. How do I place the driving force of the book (the text) as a secondary element to something more ethereal and subtle (but at the same time cause the viewer to linger and not just flip through the book).

I would love any suggestions.

Things I have come up with so far, involve the same phrase on each page..

something as simples as:

"turn the page"

or maybe excerpts from the wikiHow directions on How to Turn a Page..

http://www.wikihow.com/Turn-a-Page

Is that corny?

haha, help!

from DAWN CHORUS by Marcus Coates

British artist Marcus Coates recorded videos of people singing along to slowed-down birdsong in ordinary human habitats, then sped the videos back up to pitch. Genius.

voice

Bern Porter (1911-2004)

Bern Porter performs The Last Acts of St. Fuckyou (1985/rec. 1988) , 9:37

From the CD The Aerial #1, Winter, 1990 (What Next? )

Kenneth Goldsmith performs The Last Acts of St. Fuckyou

Recorded at the WFMU studios, Jersey City, New Jersey, September 2005

some poems for keith

Simias Rhodius, "Wings of Eros in Theocritus / Eidullia Theokritou Triakonta" ca. 325 B.C.

Hrabanus Marus "De adoratione crucis ab opifice / De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis" Augsburg, ca. 845

Giovanni Battista Palatino Sonetto "Figurato, Part I, Compendio del Gran Volume de l'Arte del Ben Scrivere" Rome, 1566

 Giovanni Battista Palatino Sonetto "Figurato, Part II, Compendio del Gran Volume de l'Arte del Ben    Scrivere" Rome, 1566

                                         George Herbert, "Easter Wings / The Temple" Cambridge, 1633

it's raining, guillaume apollinaire, calligrammes

untitled poem, haroldo de campos, 1958

Silencio, Eugen Gomringer, Switzerland | b. 1925

Wave / Rock (from Aspen 7, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Scotland | 1925-2006

 
check these out:
one toss of the dice will never abolish chance, stéphane mallarmé, 1898

a picasso sampler

philip guston's collaborations with poets

MORNING SONG

Look, it's morning, and a little water gurgles in the tap.
I wake up waiting, because it's Sunday, and turn twice more
than usual in bed, before I rise to cereal and comic strips.
I have risen to the morning danger and feel proud,
and after shaving off the night's disguises, after searching
close to the bone for blood, and finding only a little,
I shall walk out bravely into the daily accident.

ALAN DUGAN

FEBRUARY TWELFTH BIRTHDAY STATEMENT

That nameless son of a bitch of a critic who
wrote that I only wrote one good poem in
my life might be right so here's to you
future brother and sister and other poets
to drink to me and you with a shot
of bourbon and a bottle of beer
to the success of my intention on
my sixty-fifth birthday and to your
matching accomplishment.  One poem
is enough.  What have you done,
my birthday mates Abraham Lincoln
and Tadeusz-Thaddeus Kosciuszko,
to get a Loncoln Memorial and a Kos-
iosko Street in Brooklyn?  Nothing
but revolutionary activity.  That son
of a bitch of a critic has said it: I have
made one poem, not the Gettysburg Address,
and not the military fortifications at West Point.

ALAN DUGAN

ON THE LONG ISLAND RAILROAD SYSTEM

I used to hate to ride the Long island Railroad trains
to Rockaway Beach on Sunday mornings with my father
when I was an adolescent.  He'd make me fake it that
my I myself was under twelve and half a fare when I was six feet tall
and fourteen.  I didn't understand it, in my grown rage
at being kept a child in knickers, not long pants,
that he was broke and showing me his youth's way
out of his dry land life in Brooklyn and dead Queens
to the possibilities of the sometimes wild Atlantic Ocean,
pointing as a one-time sailor to the East, that there
was something going on out over there beyond the surf
and crowds of human bodies, girls! playing in it,
that might be serious, dangerous, and worth it.

ALAN DUGAN

TO A KID WHO BELIEVES IN ASTROLOGY

Those lights in the sky at night are not
from the stars as they are now.  Also,
they are from where the stars were.
Now the stars are some place else
and the stars themselves are different.

Each point of life you see is the central point
of a continuously expanding sphere of light
that the star sent out once long ago
while going away  It interpenetrates
all the other spheres of all the other stars.

I don't think that it refers to you because
it all happened so long ago.  You're too stupid
to listen to me, you beautiful astrologist, and I'm too stupid to know
what's happening out there where space is dark
and filled with interpenetrating spheres of light.

ALAN DUGAN

HELVETICA

"Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica has been shown at over 200 film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide..."

http://www.helveticafilm.com/

Speaking of cold weather...

I went thru a short stint of painting cartoons during last winter-session at RISD. My apologies for the bad image, but I was pretty discontent with the work, covered over most of them, and didn't document any except for cruddy cell-phone images here and there.

Nonetheless, the toon depicts my perception of Rhode Islanders (I know...a generalization, but it's a TOON people. C'mon! HA!...).

ME(on the left): (thinking)"Local"
RI CITIZEN (on right): (saying) "Pussy"

In the toon, I'm thinking "local" because of how he's able to brave the cold, or at least what I think is cold, and what he thinks is nothing. He's got his Dunkin'Donuts cup, cigarette, and evidence of a hard life. In addition, he's vulgar, out spoken, and seemingly a bit bitter.


(Click on the photo for a bigger/closer image.)

Very very very very telling. What would Freud say?

Thanks for participating...the responses were hilarious, thought-provoking, curious, intelligent...and everything in between.

1. What is your favorite word?
Luddite
Trust
Graceful
Lately 'gumption' and 'smarmy' have been in my head. 'Pillow' always sounds good to me
Guey
Sandwich
The exact delicious right one
Humdinger
Yo
Luminous

2. What is your least favorite word?
Functionality (really any work + -ality) except reality
Palimpsestual or Typology
Sorry
Purge
Application process
Debate
Panties
The word that is intended to deflect or mislead
Like
Like (Example: Like, you know? And then, Like, he said, like, whatever, like, I know!)
Death

3. What turns you on?
External stimulus
Tight butt; interest in microbiology
Conversation
Compassion
Boots
Possibilities
Eyeballs, clean fingernails
Having skin
Change
That's easy
My FTL (first true love)


4. What turns you off?
Other people
Perfume; entitlement
Stagnation
Red hair
Flip-flops
Reality + babies
Pushy
Cruelty
Same
Doodoo
Bad manners

5. What sound or noise do you love?
Meow
Cars driving on wet road
Sasha & John Digweed
The ocean waves
Low 'C' on a grand piano
The sound of my name
Loud rain outside
The subtly expressive human voice, funny hmms, hesitations, aposiopesis
Tennis balls being hit
My son snoring
My baby's laugh

6. What sound or noise do you hate?
Click of heels on crit day
Co alarm
The electronic bell that range every 50 minutes in grade school
Teeth grinding
The voices of those Simpson sisters
The sound of my watch resonating through my pillow
Rain on me
Any sort of motorized whining on Sunday mornings
Dry skin rubbing paper
Him [my son] whining
Anything or anyone in pain

7. What is your favorite curse word?
va funculo
Sonofabitch
Shiiitt...
Slut
Damn
Guey (dude)
Shit
Fuck
Mother Fucker
Bugger

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Indiana Jones (hero archeology)
Genetic engineering
Painting
Chef
Architecture
Jet pilot
Fireperson, handylady
Obstetrician
Writer (or talk show host?)
Musician
Vet

9. What profession would you not like to do?
Business man
Water bottle design
Construction labor
Accountant
Prostitution or telemarketing
Pen maker
Cook
Mercenary
Bungee jumping instructor
Telemarketer
Chicken plucker

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Get out
Here is your hover-board
Your hard work, not your faith, has brought you here
There's been someone waiting to see you again
About time
(Que Onda Guey?) (What's Up, Dude?)
Hi
My favorite curse word - to make me laugh!
I've been waiting for you
I hate having to say I told you so
Welcome, your family is waiting

Memos No. 3 + 4

Hey all. Love your feedback! Like, dislike, comment, yay!

http://6memos.tumblr.com/

UNTITLED POEM

I'm waiting for you, but not purely.
I'm not all waiting the way a dog
outside a supermarket is all waiting
for his mistress, doing nothing else
but waiting, having nothing else to do.
Oh I have something else I have to do,
I think, and I can make things up to do,
so that I am not all waiting like a dog,
but I am waiting for you, though not purely.
So come on, come out, wherever you are
or else my impure waiting might change
to pure waiting, or into mad waiting.
I might stop waiting entirely just
when you, as you say, say "I'm coming."

ALAN DUGAN


LOVE SONG: I AND THOU

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
    the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
    any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
    dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
    I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
    for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
    hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
    at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
    Oh I spat rage's nails
into the frame-up of my work:
    It held. It settled plumb.
level, solid, square and true
    for that one great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
    skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
    but I planned it I sawed it
I nailed it and I
    will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
  to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can't do everything myself.
  I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

ALAN DUGAN

Today.

Today, I am very glad I chose RISD for my MFA. For two reasons.

Reason number one: I took the trolley today and talked to a beautiful lady. It was brief. Nevertheless, she smiled at me.

Reason number two: Two years ago I stumbled across an article in Art Forum magazine about a painter named Josh Smith who became a great inspiration for me and my work. He's a visiting artist and I got to meet him.

The reason I bring this up is because he became recognized for his work by painting his name over and over and over. Writing as art.



www.joshasmith.com

Submissions for 'Pink Jacket'

We would love some submissions from you for the second 'Pink Jacket', risd's creative writing publication. (first one downloadable soon)

The idea for this one is:

DISLOCATION....

Anything goes, we want poetry, prose, scribbles, words, emails, thoughts or whatever form creative writing might take for you. Deadline is this Wednesday 17th. Email submissions to Phoebe or Mimi

pstubbs@g.risd.edu
mimi@mimicabell.com

yeah right

yeah right

yeah right

yeah right

yeah right

yeah right

YEAH RIGHT

YEAH RIGHT
......................
RIGHT

Word Girl

So I was watching cartoons this morning while eating breakfast, and this came on pbs.. I think I may be in love.

Here is a great interview that I found on youtube. I thought you guys could appreciate it.

Lawsuit waiting to happen??

Do any of you think there may be some conflict with self-publishing a book of over 400 mug shots I've collected for the past year or so?

They are originally published online from the El Paso Police Department's website from which I then download. I've been collecting them for some time now without knowing exactly what to do with them. There's a bunch on my website and I usually use them as an avatar.

Each page of the book will have one photo with the person's name below.

Perhaps, some of you may have some information regarding possible privacy or copy right infringements (although they are public record).

Any thoughts?



Irma Hernandez



Megan Morgan




April Martinez




Ernesto Delgado




Ricardo Ambroise




Jesus Soria

sound text excursion

Okay

Who did it!?

Famous Last Words

An idea that's been rumbling around my head for several years...finally coming to fruition this week in context of my studio practice but also this class - representations of famous last words/lines. This one is 'Frankly, my Dear, I don't give a damn".

Nothing to do whatsoever with WAAD...

...other than the haircut thing. Had >2 inches chopped off today and went blonder, which of course you probably can't tell from the photo anyway.
Sigh.
Francisco, Keith & Ian, I just can't compete with ya. Blue is not my shade, I'm afraid.

Stupid dictionaries

Thinking back to Odette's interest in definition and making up for my absence, kind of

1.

Demetri Martin. ->

---"I bought a dictionary, and the first thing I did was look up dictionary…

---it said "you're an asshole.'"

2.

Uncyclopedia. ->

---uncyclopedia defines wikipedia. ->

---wikipedia defines uncyclopedia. ->

---uncyclopedia defines uncyclopedia. ->

---wikipedia defines wikipedia. ->

Cone Cell/Photoreceptor Cells

1. "Invaginations of cell membranes that form a stacks of membranous disks where photopigments exist as transmembrane proteins"

2. Mitochondria

3. Nucleus

4. Synaptic terminal

5. Connecting cilium

6. Outer segment

7. Inner segment

Esqueleto: I don't know why you're judging me, because I only believe in science.

Less is more. more:

Sealab 2021::

:s2e24: "fusebox" (length: 10:03)

Demetri Martin + Mitch hedberg::

:DM: "If I ever saw an amputee getting hanged, I’d probably just start calling out letters."

:HM: "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too."

The Neofuturists::

:"Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind"; Time: 24:36

Counter:

:More is less is more.

:Title to the Neofuturists' show(above).

Dylan, I think you might like this

If you're not already familiar with it: an essay by Seth Price called "Dispersion". 14 pages in which he discusses conceptualism. It's a very cool example of an artist recasting the traditional roles of writer vs. designer.

Thoughts on categorization

Categorization...
1. Ultimately means inclusion vs. exclusion
2. Has a bias towards same vs. different
3. Is non linear in context of space
4. Assumes that everything has a basic 'something'
5. Relies on criteria and feedback
6. Is linked to utility
7. Assumes that space is fixed
8. Assumes that 'stuff' can be made static
9. Creates newness

Not sure how Foucault would have felt about this list!?!?!

Annoucement

i received an email today announcing a group show that my friend valerie is in..

the poetic form of the announcement struck me as something that could be particularly relevant to this class, and is really delightful.

i have placed it below..

January 2010 New Group Show At Muriel Guépin Gallery Opening Reception: Friday November 12, 2010 from 6 - 8 pm. Group Show Featuring the Artwork of: Lori Ellison, Valerie Hammond, Kathranne Knight, Lucas Reiner, and Katia Santibañez. On view from November 12, 2010 until January 2, 2011 Muriel Guepin gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition by artists Lori Ellison, Valerie Hammond, Kathranne Knight, Lucas Reiner, and Katia Santibañez. This group show was curated by Katia Santibañez. Their work will be on view at the gallery from November 12, 2010 through January 2nd, 2011. Opening Reception will be on Friday November 12, 2010 from 6 to 8 pm. One, two, three, four, five Artists Meet each other on the same road Taking cues from The world of Nature: A toolbox Brimming over Nature invites each artist to choose A path With sincerity, humility Nature makes us slow down And listen See Feel The chaotic world The cyclic world The Four Seasons With Kathranne We share her solitude We draw with her the thread, which brings us from wave to wave And we weave like the spider The endless sky Valerie is taking us back Slowly to her fairyland where roots entangle our eyes and mind The spider keeps walking Lucas spends his time with old friends: the trees of Los Angeles From the west to the east coast, we see their portraits, their posture We walk beside them We remember Giotto's, Cezanne's, and Van Gogh's Lori like a spider has captured us in her web Made of meanders, endless captivated gardens And Katia brings us in a reconstructed world The tree is not a tree anymore The leaf is not a leaf What are they then? Let's play with your imagination! Nature doesn't hide anything from us Nature is you, me, here and there and everywhere You entered the world of Freedom Leaving behind you any attachment and jealousy Nature doesn't cheat It beckons the artist to embrace its mystery with pleasure Its joy and its power wait in the shadows, ready to burst Muriel Guepin Gallery 47 Bergen Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.murielguepingallery.com contact@murielguepingallery.com 1.718.858.4535

Bank of America - my musings

I read the PDF online, since it was a piece about online banking and was produced online, it seemed the 'right' way to approach it. But reading 76 odd pages online is hard work.

To me, from the outside (the hard copy, that is), it looks like a piece of literature produced by a bank. Which is to say that it has a typical bank aesthetic. It wouldn't look out of place in a plastic holder in front of a teller's booth. But had I seen it in a bank, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. I'd have barely noticed the title.

The one thing it has that all bank literature doesn't have, content wise, is clarity. This is it's key ingredient.

I found the footnotes hilarious. Taken out of context of the book, they still make sense. They are like mini anecdotes. Very humorous. I'd like to see those in a book.

The terminology is also endearing - like 'fluff devices', for example. I actually want to see his visual interpretation of a fluff device.

I like the way he uses quotation marks outside of their traditional use i.e. he uses them on words that don't actually need them, but something about their use makes the sense change and further adds to the humor. Like "new" and "Infocenter". It's as if the quotations become part of his writing style. Ditto his use of bold and italics. (Side note: I was immediately reminded of that episode of Friends where Joey misuses speech marks when he's talking - i.e. the physical action of making speech marks).

Some of the comparisons he makes - the analogies, the metaphors - break up the content. Such as comparing online banking to the Challenger disaster (who'd have thunk?)

Additionally, some of the words he uses probably wouldn't be understood by a proportion of the population who do online banking: such as 'corollary, esoteric, disingenuousness, ubiquitous, plethora, parse, magnanimity).

And then there's the numerical count of the times he uses certain words in the book:
- mislead = 1 time (I'd have thought it'd be a lot more)
- confusing = 1 time (as per above)
- conceal = 2 times
- deceptive = 2 times
(since he seems to think that online banking is all about misleading, confusing, concealing, deception, I'd expect to see more appearances by these words)
- abuse = 5 times
- complex = 14 times
- overdraft = 160 times

My 'lines' from today

When will you start listening to me? What do I have to do?
I'm about to melt down again.
I've tried asking, begging, crying, threatening, shouting, bargaining,
none have worked.
What strategy should I employ?
You say you want responsibility, so I assign it. I give it.
But you reject it, forget stuff.
I'm left to do everything.
I'm on repeat.
Having the same conversation over and over.
It's exhausting.
I don't have anyone.
I'm lonely, depressed, anxious, tired.
Tired of being tired, tired of talking of being too tired.
Too tired to speak.
I need more.
I need help. I want to go home.
I want people around me who I can trust.
I'm stuck. I'm trapped in a dark, thick prison where everything is the same.
You're not listening to me.
I'm doing my best. I can't keep up.
I want to trust, I want to breathe, I want to sleep.
I need perspective. I need to get a grip.
It's the worst I've ever felt.
It's hard.

a veces uno se siente

the line

crossing brooklyn ferry

less is more

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

                                                                                                                                                                      

    In a Station of the Metro

        The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

        Petals on a wet, black bough.


Silencio


counter-examples

  a) William Carlos Williams

  b) There is such a thing as a poetry reading that is too short.

  c)