nice, nice, very nice

so many people in the same device ...

    • Edit
    • Delete
    • Tags
    • Autopost

    in the hands of an artist ...

    20090807_015_1

    Artist Vikki Cruz, co-owner of the Surface Gallery, painting during the August, 2009 "First Friday" art event in downtown Bakersfield, CA.


    To borrow a line from some poem I can't remember the name of: for me, encounters with art tend to "skip the skin and burrow straight to the bone." For example, although it was done as discretely as possible, the fact remains that I literally wept the first time I came face to face with a Degas (in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC). It wasn't that I wanted to, and certainly not that I planned to, it's just that art has always seemed able and willing to dodge my normal defenses and it has, over the years, acquired a knack for doing so when least expected.

    I should probably clarify here that not all great art gets me choked up, and it's certainly possible that had I seen that Degas on another day it would have been met with a less outward show of deep appreciation. It's also not just "great art" that can captivate me. I have a fondness for live artistic performance, for example, and a strong attraction to simpler forms of beauty (which is the reason behind me posting the above photo and pairing it with the following music). It was therefore a treat to be able to walk around the Surface Gallery seeing artists in the process of being artists—performing their crafts, so to speak—all the while aware that the whole gallery space speaks of "simpler beauty."

    I did have two regrets, though. One is that I had other obligations and couldn't really settle in to just be there. I would have loved seeing more, and  talking more. The bigger regret that I walked away with, however, is that there were so few people there (or anywhere in the "First Friday" event area). I think that in a more perfect world there would be lots of families coming out for events like this. I'd hope, in fact, that parents would be bringing their kids there with the intent of exposing them to art in all its many guises; even allowing them to get a few of their positives and negatives mixed up in the process as that is, after all, a great way of producing the kind of sparks that can ignite in them a life of active creativity—something to replace their default cultural birthright: a lifetime of passive consumerism made palatable by neverending cheap entertainment.

    Mother's Whistler by Moondog


    As with most of the other posts I make here, the intent is for you to experience the music and photograph together. Click on the play button, scroll back up and click on the photograph (to see the large version) and then sit back and see where that leads you ...


    Photo © 2009 Paul Pomeroy. All rights reserved.

    Tags » photograph
    • 8 August 2009
    • Views
    • 4 Comments
    • Permalink
    • Tweet
    • 4 responses
    • Like
    • Comment
  • Paul Pomeroy's Space

    Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park / Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

    Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen / They all fit together In the same machine

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device

    Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear / Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

    Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France / Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device
    _________________
    From "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

  • About Paul Pomeroy

    Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park / Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

    Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen / They all fit together In the same machine

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device

    Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear / Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

    Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France / Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device
    _________________
    From "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

  • Subscribe via RSS
  • Follow Me

Theme created for Posterous by Obox