Cyfford Still Museum, Denver

Yeah, it has been a long time since I've posted on my blog.  It's weird, I think I've fallen into the trap of not posting for a bit, then not posting 'cause I haven't posted and will need an extra special post to re-instigate the posting.

Well, my need to rant has won out.

I've been meaning to post this rant for a while, since the a trip to Denver where I stuck my head into the Clyfford Still Museum.

Why the need to rant?  Well, I've had a history of being severely conflicted by my experience of museums, the role of museums in our society and the history of museums.  Of course, as an artist, I've had some amazing experiences of learning and epiphany in museums.  But, sometimes...many times, museums just suck the soul out of art and life.  The Clyfford Still Museum takes the cake, in my book-along with the Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston (Cy Twombly=warmed up cow turds!)

History:  sometime in the recent past, some foundation went looking for a spot to house the works of this Still guy, somehow they chose Denver.  So, they built a truly beautiful structure, quite a nice modern, concrete shell to house art-good 'chit.  Then they filled it full of paintings by this Still guy and call it art.

I have to admit, there is some nice art painted by Still, but, my beef with the Clyfford Still Museum is: why make an entire museum that is a frozen dedication to one mediocre artist?  (Ditto with the Cy Twombly Gallery, without the caveat of quality art being involved in the equation)

Make a museum with rotating exhibits of artist working in the modernist, color field aesthetic, or whatever the art books call it.  Make it a museum showing kindergarteners being inspired by whatever made Still high enough to paint what he painted. But, don't just freeze art;  let it live, let it fail, let it fly, let it make coffee and stand around the kitchen talking about the canvas they just built.....

FYI:  the whole impetus for this speel is the DenverPost.com has an advert for the Still Museum:  "Until You Go, You Won't Know!"  Ha, Ha Ha, Ha!  That's soo funny

"Combine: reap, thresh, winnow"

"Combine: reap, thresh, winnow"
Gery Henderson
JoLea Arcidiacono
Peter Arcidiacono

on view through April 14th, 2012 at the Live Oak Art Center, Columbus, Texas
Hours:  Wednesday - Friday: 11-5.  Saturday: 10-2pm.

Please join us for the reception:  April 7th, from 5-8pm

"Limestone Markers" 2011, by Peter A.

"Tracing Back"  I know, I know, the image sucks.  This piece was finished 

   just in time to install.  Gotta love the tag on the   

         "nose" of the piece.  Ha.  The piece is 
     cedar elm in the body, oak dowels, pecan and   

            mesquite nuts.  Most of the

      wood is my locally milled stock.  Tracing back 

       my family's heritage on my maternal side

 The following pieces are JoLea's ceramic work.
Most are new pieces, with a couple from 2011

Gotta go old school, below is Bison Cart, Bison Boy, Starve the Beast, by Peter.  The bison/buffalo is milled spruce culled from in front of the Forney Mansion in Fort Collins, Colorado.  The rider is chip-board.  Originally exhibited in the exhibit "Hollow Copse-Golden Husk."  Bison cart needs a home, "can I be your friend?"

Studio Fabrication

Sculpture studio is up and ready for finishing out and up!!!

Check out a time-lapse on youtube.  http://youtu.be/qJumjEIKynI

Gotta say props to the fabrication company that put up my new sculpture studio, Sullivan and Son Construction, Seguin.

Grad School work, 1996-ish

Going back through the past, through old image files on my lappy.  Found some great memory shots of an old sculpture as it was laying, in a pile of rotten wood, about to become full bore compost and recycled metal scraps.

The piece is "the perfect son-rabbit boy."  A performance prop that I made for a class at UNM in grad school, around 1996.  I gave it to my mother, who lives in Houston.  Well, the wood that I collected and milled for constructing the artwork was pine from the mountains of New Mexico.  It didn't stand a chance with the Houston humidity and prevalence of wood munching insectums.  So, a couple years later, the wood is dust to dust.

And, I have to add a  couple more gems from the ol'days of grad school. 

Just speeled about these fellows whilst teaching at TX State, 

rant rant rant...poor student folks, ha!

These are the "Sheep Car" (4wheeled) and the "Sheep Cart"

telling the deep moving of logs, of log jams, of logs floating to the mouth of their river

the life is already gone from the sap which runs up and and down their legs and their cavities 

which connected the earth to air.  

the fire and soil are being denied what is their's and are screaming in pain and frustration

the life force is unfamiliar with the route, the routine has been displaced and the waterfall 

has run dry

 

post-holiday reflections

where has time gone?  the holiday season sounds like a plethora of time and "to-do" actionablilty...and then you turn around, wake up from a food and libation coma and it is gone.  what 'append?










a time of extraordinary beauty-sublime rainyness with friends

while at the same time

a time of potentiality, a new studio is on the horizon...super.  the argosy is being birthed, el capitan is awaiting his new appointment