In View

The action painter sought an 'over-all' dynamic and consistency, so that each part achieved harmony. Consider a symphony or the dance. In a way, it was a time when the artist was the bearer of a universal wholeness of spirit and this was interpreted by some as heroic self-sacrifice . . . . "In the 1950s art critic Harold Rosenberg described the archetypal "action painter" as an artist who transformed his canvas into a modern-day arena wherein an epic struggle between man and material might unfold. Process was paramount. With grand, heroically scaled gestures, the action painter created an art of confrontation and catharsis. Nearly half a century later, contemporary response to the rhetorical excesses that helped establish action painting as a "heroic" art form has been tempered, and the view of abstract expressionism as the triumph of American painting has fallen out of fashion. There is, however, no denying Pollock's monumental impact on the history of American art." (NGA Feature)

World of Awe -"A flat rock on the edge of the cliff made a decent seat and I took some time to compose a plan. The title was: "How to use a slippery path to get down into a canyon. . . . . . " Through a portal on 419 East 6th Street in Manhattan, a traveler passes into the sunset / sunrise --a desert terrain locked into the mindframe between night and day --in search of a lost treasure. The voyage is documented in a Journal found on a laptop evidently built by the traveler in silicon canyon --a graveyard for old computer components. The Journal contains letters to an absent lover, travel logs and descriptions of the unique navigation tools following a hi-tech / lo-tech double-sided map (EEP & MOO). - The Traveler's Journal (Chapter 2) - Commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, "Yael Kanarek is a new media artist. She has been developing her interdisciplinary project, World of Awe, since 1995. At the core of World of Awe is The Journal — an original narrative that uses the ancient genre of the traveler's tale to explore virtuality through the connections between storytelling, travel, memory, and technology . . . . Kanarek is also the initiator of The Upgrade, a monthly forum for artists who work in new media to gather and look at each other's work and present to a larger audience. At each meeting, one or two artists present works-in-progress to foster a dialogue with the group." ---- A MAZE Collab Inspiration Links - (A Hub for the Wits Digital Arts/UJ AMAZE Projects)

Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP- "For more than four decades, Richard Meier & Partners has been called upon to create dozens of urban designs in the United States and abroad, each of which has been conceived to greet their contexts with grace and usher their residents into a brighter future. It has always been our aim to create a brand of architecture that legendary architect Louis Kahn once described as the "architecture of occasion." Such are buildings that encourage public gatherings and contemplation, inspire creativity, give pleasure, and infuse both visitors and occupants with a sense of event."

QUOTES: - Smudginess of Chalks . . . . Density of Inks . . . . Fluidity of Paint . . . . Translucency . . . . . Substance . . . . . Blending qualities . . . . Changeability. . . . Tackiness . . . . Weight . . . . Consistency . . . .

Process . . . . Measure

" . . . . there is an extent of harmony in all good work much too subtle for definition; depending on the draughtsman's carrying everything he draws up to just the balancing and harmonious point, in finish, and colour, and depth of tone, and intensity of moral feeling, and style of touch, all considered at once; and never allowing himself to lean too emphatically on detached parts, or exalt one thing at the expense of another, or feel acutely in one place and coldly in another. . . ." (Ruskin, John. On Composition, pgs. 176-180, The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971. pp. 200-204 (Originally Published in London, 1857))

- - - - - - -
"Hlahla! Ufhlofan hlouly! Hlahla! Hloufish lauflings lafe uf beloght lauchalorum!" - "Khlebnikov (1886-1922) was an innovator who often resembled an American jazz performer: "He worked with irregularities, unequal line lengths, meters that varied from line to line in a single poem, variable stanza length, irregular rhyme patterns. He made use of patterns and tropes from folklore and from chants, incantations and shamanistic language. And he managed to create an entire poetics in that area of language the Anglo Saxon tradition tends to belittle as "play" - neologism, palindromes, riddles, puns." (Taylor, Robert. "Some verbal Antics from a Russian Poet: In The Boston Globe, 12/11/1985 in regard to: 'The King of Time,' poems, fictions, visions of the future by Velimir Khlebnikov, translated by Paul Schmidt, edited by Charlotte Douglas. Harvard Univ. Press. 1985.)

THE WORK FEATURED ABOVE: - Photograph of Jackson Pollock at work. "Here is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end. Sometimes I lose a painting, but I have no fear of changes . . . . of destroying the image. Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live." - (From the In depth Study of Jackson Pollock presented by The National Gallery of Art - Washington, DC -- Click on the image above). Photograph Authorized by: Pollock-Krasner House . . . . . . . AUDIO: -'I_Like_It_I_Love_It' - Tim McGraw, from Free Country Music Midi Files