Portrait Series: Suzanne Farrell

Ballerina Suzanne Farrell sought dance as a sanctuary, whether she was happy or sad.  As artists like her advance in age, retirement is of course inevitable.  But life gives all of them an opportunity to do something else related to their art, particularly teaching and developing their younger brethren.  So Farrell does, and even at this point in her life she cannot listen to music without dancing.  I love it.

Portrait Series: Christoph Eschenbach

His mother died at children, and within five years of his life, his father was killed in World War II.  Certainly not the easiest of starts for any child, but it must've been fate for Christoph Eschenbach to end up in the care of his mother's cousin, who was a talented musician and teacher.  Unlike some maestros apparently, he also knew how to play music, which gave him fine empathy for what orchestral members have to perform.  It is lovely to hear that as he advanced in his chosen career, he took care to mentor younger musicians and to lend a passionate, guiding spirit when he conducts.

Portrait Series: Steven Reineke

Life without music would be a mistake.  I can't imagine a world without music. 

To hear conductor and composer Steven Reineke speak is to know what musical talent and passion mean.  To hear him speak is evocative indeed.  In his younger days he clearly had a knack for picking up the soundtrack of a film and replaying it on his piano, which, mind you, he taught himself how to play.  It is altogether delightful to see someone who loves his work so much. 

Story behind Sgt. Pepper's, by the Beatles

It was twenty years ago today
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile

So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
We hope you will enjoy the show
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sit back and let the evening go
Sgt. Pepper's lonely, Sgt. Pepper's lonely
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

It's wonderful to be here
It's certainly a thrill
You're such a lovely audience
We'd like to take you home with us
We'd love to take you home

I don't really want to stop the show
But I thought that you might like to know
That the singer's going to sing a song
And he wants you all to sing along

So let me introduce to you the one and only Billy Shears
And Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by the Beatles.

What would you think if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mmm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away
Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel by the end of the day
Are you sad because you're on your own?

No, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mmm, get high with a little help from my friends
Mmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can't tell you but I know it's mine

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mmm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Oh, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to love

Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends
Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Yes, I get high with a little help from my friends
With a little help from my friends

With a Little Help from my Friends, by the Beatles.

In the years of my childhood, before we left the Philippines for the US in 1968, I had a vague memory of a Beatles scandal in our country.  I remembered my aunts, in particular, referring to them in sharp tones and angry scowls.  So apparently that's how it came to be for the Fab Four: As their popularity skyrocketed and peaked, they found themselves increasingly in controversy and it became too wearisome.  But as in keeping with their matchless musical genius, they came up with the concept of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as a creative proxy for them.  The fact that it was lonely hearts must've spoken to the emotional toll and isolation that fame brought.  Nevertheless, this proxy allowed them to keep experimenting with their music, while avoiding what had come to be dreadful tours.

In November 1966, during a return flight to London from Kenya, where he had been on holiday with Beatles' tour manager Mal Evans, [Paul] McCartney had an idea for a song that eventually formed the impetus of the Sgt. Pepper concept.  His idea involved an Edwardian-era military band that Evans invented a name for in the style of contemporary San Francisco-based groups such as Big Brother and the Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service. In February 1967 McCartney suggested that the Beatles should record an entire album that would represent a performance by the fictional band.  This alter ego group would give them the freedom to experiment musically. He explained: "I thought, let's not be ourselves. Let's develop alter egos."  [Producer George] Martin remembered:

"Sergeant Pepper" itself didn't appear until halfway through making the album. It was Paul's song, just an ordinary rock number ... but when we had finished it, Paul said, "Why don't we make the album as though the Pepper band really existed, as though Sergeant Pepper was making the record? We'll dub in effects and things." I loved the idea, and from that moment on it was as though Pepper had a life of its own.

Reference: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

With a Little Help from my Friends accompanied Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band so often, that I thought it was all one song.  I was a thoughtful young man, and began to command and love English in my early teenage years, especially as I dabbled in poetry.  On this note, I saw that if we were to alter this song title by just one letter, that is, With Little Help from my Friends, the meaning would change radically.

Story behind 25 or 6 to 4, by Chicago

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
Twenty-five or six to four

Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should I try to do some more
Twenty-five or six to four

Feeling like I ought to sleep
Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say
Waiting for the break of day

Twenty-five or six to four
Twenty-five or six to four

25 or 6 to 4, by Chicago.

As with Smoke on the Water, by Deep Purple, I love the rock defining guitar pieces in this Chicago classic.  Chicago is one of my longtime favorite bands anyway, stretching back to their first official album when their band was initially called Chicago Transit Authority (1969).  I could name all seven of their inaugural band members.  Besides the guitar, it was the brass section that drew me in.  Theirs wasn't classic rock in the sense of ear shattering, heavy metal, but of orchestral sounds unique in rock music.  Then, too, there is the curious story behind the song.  For the longest time, I didn't know what the title meant, and the lyrics did seem as if songwriter Robert Lamm was tripping.

Lamm says it's simpler than that. "The song is about writing a song. It's not mystical," he says. Take a look at some of the lyrics:

Waiting for the break of day - He's been up all night and now it's getting close to sunrise.
Searching for something to say - Trying to think of song lyrics.
Flashing lights against the sky - Perhaps stars or the traditional flashing neon hotel sign.
Giving up I close my eyes - He's exhausted and his eyes hurt from being open too long, so he closes them.
Staring blindly into space - This expression can be seen often on the faces of writers and reporters. Trust me.
Getting up to splash my face - Something you do when you're trying to stay awake, though a good cup of Starbuck's does wonders.
Wanting just to stay awake, wondering how much I can take - How far can he push himself to get the song done?
Should I try to do some more? - This is the line that makes many think it's a drug song. But it is just as easily construed as a frustrated writer wondering if he should try to do some more lyrics/songwriting.

As for the curious title, Lamm says, "It's just a reference to the time of day" - as in "waiting for the break of day" at 25 or (2)6 minutes to 4 a.m. (3:35 or 3:34 a.m.)

I think we can take Lamm's word for the whole thing. Because, when it's that early in the morning, does anybody really know what time it is?

Reference: What does the Chicago lyric "25 or 6 to 4" mean?

Nice little allusion there at the end.

Story behind Smoke on the Water, by Deep Purple

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids out the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

We ended up at the grand hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the Rolling Stones truck thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know we'll never forget
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

Smoke on the Water, by Deep Purple

Released in May 1973, Smoke on the Water is a standout rock classic and a longtime favorite of mine.  The music and the musicians alone can make a song fly, especially the superb guitar solo by Ritchie Blackmore.  But when the lyrics tell a compelling story and do so with fine poetry, then, to me, the song soars.  The band relates this story in the music video above, but here it is in more detail:

The lyrics of the song tell a true story: on 4 December 1971 Deep Purple were in Montreux, Switzerland, where they had set up camp to record an album using a mobile recording studio (rented from the Rolling Stones and known as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio—referred to as the "Rolling Stones truck thing" and "a mobile" in the song lyrics) at the entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux Casino (referred to as "the gambling house" in the song lyric). On the eve of the recording session a Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention concert was held in the casino's theatre. In the middle of Don Preston's synthesizer solo on "King Kong", the place suddenly caught fire when somebody in the audience fired a flare gun into the rattan covered ceiling, as mentioned in the "some stupid with a flare gun" line. The resulting fire destroyed the entire casino complex, along with all the Mothers' equipment. The "smoke on the water" that became the title of the song (credited to bass guitarist Roger Glover, who related how the title occurred to him when he suddenly woke from a dream a few days later) referred to the smoke from the fire spreading over Lake Geneva from the burning casino as the members of Deep Purple watched the fire from their hotel. The "Funky Claude" running in and out is referring to Claude Nobs, the director of the Montreux Jazz Festival who helped some of the audience escape the fire.

Left with an expensive mobile recording unit and no place to record, the band was forced to scout the town for another place to set up. One promising venue (found by Nobs) was a local theatre called The Pavilion, but soon after the band had loaded in and started working/recording, the nearby neighbours took offence at the noise, and the band was only able to lay down backing tracks for one song (based on Blackmore's riff and temporarily named "Title n°1"), before the local police shut them down.

Finally, after about a week of searching, the band rented the nearly-empty Montreux Grand Hotel and converted its hallways and stairwells into a makeshift recording studio, where they laid down most of the tracks for what would become their most commercially successful album, Machine Head (which is dedicated to Claude Nobs).

The only song from Machine Head not recorded entirely in the Grand Hotel was "Smoke on the Water" itself, which had been partly recorded during the abortive Pavilion session. The lyrics of "Smoke on the Water" were composed later, and the vocals were recorded in the Grand Hotel.

Reference: Smoke on the Water.

Little Dancer (6) Artist Inspiring Artist

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

So who is La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans?

Marie Geneviève van Goethem and Tiler Peck, as the Little Dancer

Marie was a young Belgian student at the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, and apparently she was talented and stubborn.  The nature of her relationship with Edgar Degas is up for debate, but it was common for young women to seek the protection of wealthy patrons of the art.  Clearly, too, Marie inspired Degas through many sketches, paintings and sculptures.

Some of the critics of the piece, when Degas introduced it, were positively beastly (rf. Little Dancer of Fourteen Years).  But Director and Choreographer Susan Stroman, like scores of others, fashioned an inspiring character of Marie:

When Stroman, [Book Writer and Lyricist Lynn] Ahrens, and [Composer Stephen] Flaherty began to shape their new musical, they were immediately confronted by the fact that their real life subject’s story ended abruptly. Van Goethem, disappeared shortly after Degas’s sculpture was finished. She was dismissed from the Paris Opera Ballet in 1882 for being late to a rehearsal, and poof—c’est fini. Offsetting Marie’s untraceable later life, the new musical depicts a Van Goethem that is part fact, part fiction. To tell Marie’s story—“to bring her back to life,” as Stroman explained to me—the musical has invented an older Marie who narrates the story of her life as a young girl. Stroman “wanted to believe that she was different and had character,” that her life on the street had made her a fighter—an attitude that resonates in the way Degas’ Little Dancer holds her body in confidant repose.

Reference: The True Story of the Little Ballerina Who Influenced Degas' Little Dancer.

Even though Degas compensated Marie for posing, I doubt that she ever came close to becoming wealthy.  Indeed she, her mother and sister lived an impoverished life, especially her father died:

Marie was the daughter of a laundress and a tailor, who came to Paris in the early 1860s from Belgium. She was born in 1865 in the diverse 9th arrondissement of Paris. Marie's oldest sister, Antoinette, was born in Brussels in 1861. A second older sister, also named Marie, died eighteen days after her birth in 1864. Marie's younger sister, Louise Joséphine, born in Paris in 1870, adopted the name of Charlotte and died there in 1945. Her father died at some point between 1870 and 1880, leaving Madame van Goethem to fend for her three daughters on a laundress's income.

In 1865, the year Marie was born, the family moved to a stone apartment building on 'Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette' called 'Place Bréda' near Degas's studio on 'Rue Saint-Georges'. The Bréda district was one of the city's poorest and most squalid areas for prostitution. In 1880, after frequently changing their place of residence (an indicator of an inability to pay the rent on time) the family settled on 'Rue de Douai' on the lower slopes of Montmartre, a few blocks from Degas's studio, then located on 'Rue Fontaine'.

In 1878, Marie and Charlotte were accepted into the dance school of the Paris Opéra, where Antoinette was employed as an extra. In 1880 Marie passed the examination admitting her to the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera Ballet and made her debut on the stage in La Korrigane.

Marie was 15 years old on her admission to the Paris Opera Ballet, and was thus clearly an artist in her own right.  It is a little troubling that there is no record of her whereabouts, after she was dismissed in 1882, but I hope she lived a reasonably pleasant life.  Perhaps she could not have imagined how art has immortalized her in the 132 years since.

Little Dancer (5) Art Inspiring Artist

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

NYC Ballet Dancer Tiler Peck and the creative team of Little Dancer recreate the famous Edgar Degas sculpture.  They pull it off so wonderfully as to wonder, for a moment, if Peck were indeed that little dancer, whom Degas had befriended.  She herself is a very beautiful 25 year old, and from production clips we see, clearly a talent with both dancing and acting skills. 

Little Dancer (4) Art Inspiring Art

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans

This is the Edgar Degas sculpture that inspired Susan Stroman and Lynn Ahrens.  The two artists had been looking for a project they could collaborate on, and this 14-year old dancer was their creative convergence.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a collection of Degas, and on a visit there two years ago, I realized how taken I was by his paintings of ballet dancers.  They were just of performances, but as we see with the Little Dancer, they were also of behind the scenes stuff.  I took the photo above with my old iPhone, but while the clarity of shot was lacking, it was evocative nonetheless of a wonderful afternoon of art.

Little Dancer (3) Creative Process

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

Listen to Book Writer and Lyricist Lynn Ahrens and Composer Stephen Flaherty, and we see how each represents a separate thread.  We know that they collaborated in the creation of Little Dancer, and no one can blame any of us for wondering which came first: the words or the music, as if creativity were a neatly laid out sequence.



Ahrens and Flaherty are artists in their own right, and the reality of their creativity process was much more woven, that is, non-linear, than our sequential musings may suggest.  It seems to be human nature to simplify things and to believe that the world around us is simpler than it actually is.  But these two talked, and talked a lot, and wove words and music in seemingly organic fashion.

Their talk reminded me of my own collaboration with a colleague.  Fouad and I were slated to speak on Arab leadership style at a conference, and we wanted to do something very different than just one of us going to the podium first, then the other following suit.  We talked about a lot of things, not just the presentation itself but also our work and background.  So it made sense to us to present our stuff in conversation style on stage:  He was at the podium, and I was seated, sometimes standing, by a coffee table left center of him.  We recalled for our audience some of what we talked about, and they all loved it.  We were up first on that day, and when we started there was only a scattering of people in attendance.  But as we went on, it grew to about 200 people.  Late in the day, they were still buzzing about our talk, complimenting us, and asking us about it. 

Little Dancer (2) Direction and Choreography

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

Enter, Director and Choreographer Susan Stroman, speaking a bit to the inspiration behind her show and such principals as NYC Ballet dancer Tiler Peck as the Young Marie:

Stroman is the master of ceremonies at the first day of rehearsals, when the gathering of everyone involved in the production make for a truly festive, inspiring event in and of itself:

Peck acknowledges how different art genres converge in Little Dancer: painting, classic ballet, and musical theater.  This convergence is the essence of Dr. Ron Art.

Little Dancer (1) Art Work Itself

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November. 

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The trailer for the production:

Then In the Ballet piece from the production:

I wish I could be in Washington DC to see this musical ballet, as it looks to be a wonderful story and to afford stirring music and inspiring dance. 

Ballerinas We Frame in Places (3)

Kelsey

Kate

Hanna

Alessandra

Kelsey

Lauren

Keenan

Katie

Cassie

Sara

Dane Shitagi is the creator and photographer behind the Ballerina Project, clearly a popular site on Facebook with 870,000+ Likes.  There is so much about ballet, and ballerinas in particular, that are art personified.  Not only is the dance enthralling and even exalted, but also the lithe yet muscular bodies make for art.

We are accustomed to seeing ballet on stage, dancers in full costumes and musicians in the orchestra pit.  But Shitagi's photographs reverse convention on its head, and bring ballerinas to the places we walk everyday, the places with the familiar scent of steel and dust and foliage, the places where we hold on to things as a mooring.  These ballerinas bring their grace, where we seek grace, in what may be troubled, lonesome places.

Helen Reddy: Exploring Women Artists (4)

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

Oh yes, I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
(Strong)
I am invincible
(Invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
'Cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'Cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

Oh yes, I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
(Strong)
I am invincible
(Invincible)
I am woman

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long, long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes, I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can face anything
I am strong
(Strong)
I am invincible
(Invincible)
I am woman

I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

Reference: Helen Reddy - I Am Woman Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I loved this song, as a young teen, in the early 1970s, because I thought it was catchy.  There was an effeminate side to me, and I found it inspiring, too.  In this live performance Helen Reddy - 'I Am Woman' (Live) 1975, Reddy said that the United Nations had declared 1975 to be International Women's Year and had chosen her song as its theme.

The composition was the result of Reddy’s search for a song that would express her growing passion for female empowerment. In a 2003 interview in Australia’s Sunday Magazine (published with the Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Telegraph),[3] she explained:

I couldn't find any songs that said what I thought being woman was about. I thought about all these strong women in my family who had gotten through the Depression and world wars and drunken, abusive husbands. But there was nothing in music that reflected that.

The only songs were 'I Feel Pretty' or that dreadful song 'Born A Woman'. (The 1966 hit by Sandy Posey had observed that if you're born a woman "you're born to be stepped on, lied to, cheated on and treated like dirt. I'm glad it happened that way".) These are not exactly empowering lyrics. I certainly never thought of myself as a songwriter, but it came down to having to do it.

Reddy’s own long years on stage had also fueled her contempt for men who belittled women, she said. "Women have always been objectified in showbiz. I'd be the opening act for a comic and as I was leaving the stage he'd say, 'Yeah, take your clothes off and wait for me in the dressing room, I'll be right there'. It was demeaning and humiliating for any woman to have that happen publicly."

Reddy credits the song as having supernatural inspiration. She said: "I remember lying in bed one night and the words, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman', kept going over and over in my head. That part I consider to be divinely inspired. I had been chosen to get a message across." Pressed on who had chosen her, she replied: "The universe." The next day she wrote the lyric and handed it to Australian guitarist Ray Burton to put it to music.

Reference: I Am Woman.

Guerilla Girls: Exploring Women Artists (3)

The Guerilla Girls lead off Unlock Art: Where are the Women? and I remember seeing their work two years ago at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.  I also posted the following in my Tumblr blog wherever art is:

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Well said, ladies.  Gentlemen, any questions?

Lady Macbeth: Exploring Women Artists (2)

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry “Hold, hold!”

Lady Macbeth, from Act I, scene v.

Kate Fleetwood plays arguably the fiercest, most eviscerating lady in Shakespeare.  She does so alongside Patrick Stewart in this 2010 BBC production of Macbeth.  

Why do I bring up this reverberating passage?  Because as Jemima Kirke relates, in Unlock Art: Where are the Women? historically women were encouraged to engage in art, provided that they embodied such feminine traits as beauty, grace and modesty:

So long as a woman remains from unsexing herself, let her dabble in anything.

Shakespeare first staged Macbeth in 1611, so more than 400 years ago his Lady Macbeth would have none of that beautiful, gracious or modest nonsense.  I haven't heard anyone refer to her as a feminist, but indeed we may see her as a tragic heroine.

Tate Modern: Exploring Women Artists (1)

In this film, the Girls actress Jemima Kirke addresses the topic of women in art (or the lack them).

Kirke, best known as Jessa Johansson in the HBO series, looks at the changing role of female artists in a male dominated art world over the centuries - and how some of them eventually took on the establishment in the 1970s.

It is pathetic and ludicrous that history, men in particular, diminished and dismissed women in art.  Interestingly, though, while men commandeered painting and sculpting, women were left to find their own genre in media that were either somehow resonant their lot in a patriarchal society or something altogether different outside the purview of their male counterparts.  In other words, experimental art, as Kirke explains.  The point that they've led debates on art over the last four decades is important to know.

Tate Modern: Exploring Great Double Acts

Rock duo Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart, know a thing or two about creative partnership. Challenging the popular myth that art is made by solitary, angst-ridden individuals, they celebrate some of the art world's most interesting collaborators, such as Marina Abramović and Ulay, Gilbert & George, and Jake and Dinos Chapman.

It seems we live in a largely individualistic society and culture.  When we see art, we see solo artist and we think solo artist.  I was not surprised, for example, to hear that the surrealist master Salvador Dali had assistants working him, but it was news to me how formal and legal their arrangements were.  The assistants worked for him, and he took credit of course because it was his artistic concept and direction.  But what Hince and Mosshart speak to are closer, more equal collaboration, where both artists in a pair, for example, garner recognition and fame.

Hince: How many artists does it take to change a light bulb? 
Mosshart:  One, but it takes someone else to tell him when to stop screwing it in.

It doesn't mean that the pair isn't like a married couple, I suppose.

Tate Modern: Exploring the Nude

We humans can be positively ridiculous at times, right.  What constitutes nude and what doesn't constitute nude is as arbritary as we can be.  Dawn O'Porter gives us a short tour that is at once demure, a touch flirtatious, and informative.

Tate Modern: Exploring the Surreal

Surrealist art will always hold a special place within me, as I discovered it that pivotal stretch in my life, where I discovered art in the ways I have come to conceive.  From paintings and poetry, to Shakespeare and drama, to martial arts, perhaps art found me, too.  Peter Capaldi gives us a short tour that pays due homage to surrealism without doling out a surrealist homage.

Ballerinas in Places We Frequent (2)

Hanna

Keenan

Mai

Katie

Megan

Emily

Violeta

Kate

Hanna

Zarina

Dane Shitagi is the creator and photographer behind the Ballerina Project, clearly a popular site on Facebook with 870,000+ Likes.  There is so much about ballet, and ballerinas in particular, that are art personified.  Not only is the dance enthralling and even exalted, but also the lithe yet muscular bodies make for art.

We are accustomed to seeing ballet on stage, dancers in full costumes and musicians in the orchestra pit.  But Shitagi's photographs reverse convention on its head, and bring ballerinas to the places we walk everyday, the places with the familiar scent of steel and dust and foliage, the places where we hold on to things as a mooring.  These ballerinas bring their grace, where we seek grace, in what may be troubled, lonesome places.

Art has Value

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the last of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

(image credit)

A talented artist friend

When I lived in Dubai, a Filipino friend invited me to his first solo exhibition.  His paintings were astounding, both in breadth (they were huge) and in theme (they were profound).  His creative talent wasn't narrowed to painting, but extended to photography, sculpting and performance.  At this exhibition, for instance, we all wondered where the hell he was.  Two hours into it, and he still hadn't shown up.  Then he arrived, wearing exactly what he wore in a sizable self portrait, including clown makeup, and pulling the same red wagon depicted in that photograph.  He was like the Pied Piper, as he snaked through the crowd, picking up odd things on the floor, and us opening up, making way for him, and regathering behind him to follow along.  It was a tour de force show.

I was equally astonished, however, at how much he low-balled the pricing of his pieces.  It was par for the course for a lot of Filipinos in Dubai, that they hardly saw their true worth and hardly demanded it.  They smiled at whatever pittance they received, because after all they were the happiest people in the world.  But being dead bottom on the salary scale in an Arabian Business survey was emblematic, I thought, of how people and companies took advantage of their low salary expectations and how Filipinos themselves reinforced it with their acceptance and passivity. 

On the face of it, my artist friend was the same.  So a few days later, I got together with him, and asked him point black: If someone were to offer him 10 - 20 times more than the pricing he had set for any of his pieces, would he accept it?  I was glad to hear his response:  yes.  I wanted to advocate for him and to serve as his talent agent, and his response suggested that we had something to work with.  Had he said no, instead, there would have been little reason for us to go forward.

Art as the royal road to wealth

Consider the following documentary on very expensive paintings:

If this documentary doesn't take your breath away, then you may have little or no breath to begin with.  Certainly each artist may dream of a multimillion dollar windfall for his or her art.  For the vast lot of us, however, eking a living out of what we love most is a daily struggle or an impractical option altogether.

But how to determine art value?

A few years ago I spoke to a German friend, who at the time was pursuing her PhD in marketing and focusing on pricing as a specialty.  I asked her how the value of art was determined.  We chatted a bit, but mostly she just sent me a wealth of articles on the subject.  Evidently art pricing wasn't something she had looked into, as she really wasn't able to advise me.

I gathered the following were pricing determinants:

• Talent and renown of the artist
• Promotion, sales and marketing efforts
• Historical, social and political context
• Art market trends for particular genres
• Whim, ego and wealth of the art aficionado-collector

Over time, as my thinking advances and my knowledge grows, I will elaborate on these and other determinants. 

Dr. Ron Art in perspective

It took a few years to clarify the concept, create the platform, and launch it in earnest.  So when I spoke to the foregoing friends, this wide-ranging endeavor was still in its infancy.  I wanted to create art and engage others, but I also wanted to promote, negotiate and sell it.  (a) I've been posting stuff in methodic fashion, across Google+, Twitter and Facebook, and (b) writing articles like mad across several Blogger, Tumblr and Pinterest profiles.  (c) Plus I am working on specific projects, at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia.  Searching for a multimedia publisher for `The Song Poems
• Shakespeare Talks!  Staging `A Midsummer Night's Dream in the community
• Dramatis Personae.  Writing my play `The Room, as advocacy against housemaid abuse
• Art Intersections.  Planning my photography project `Real Beauty
• T'ai Chi Empower.  Teaching students and coaching leaders on T'ai Chi  

I'm not yet at the point of formulating the pricing for whatever I'm going to sell, but I'm getting there, for sure. I have struggled, admittedly, and that may continue, but for me there is little that is ennobling about struggling or suffering. I appreciate its inevitability, and I do my best to learn from it. But I plan to get past it and delve even more into art, and I plan to become wealthy at it.

Art is simply not something to dish out for nothing.

Art is Never Completely Original

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the fifth of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

The four points I've written about so far in my Art Manifesto - (a) art is cross-art by nature, (b) art is always autobiographical, (c) art is sensuous, and (d) art is synesthetic - came to me five years ago, but this fifth is a recent inclusion.  I crystallize it here.

We are all inviolably connected to each other, and we belong on long, billowing ribbons of life, since the beginning of life itself.  So while we may pull things together in a novel fashion, while we may take a radical leap of creativity, and while our work may strike others as duly original, the fact is we are never fully alone or isolated from others in the world.  Our art may be original to some extent, but never completely so. 

Literature

Consider the famous reflection by the English poet and cleric John Donne (Meditation XVII):

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

American novelist Ernest Hemingway drew from Donne for the title From Whom the Bells Tolls.  William Shakespeare, Donne's contemporary in the late-16th, early-17th centuries, drew quite a bit from his predecessors, and they from their predecessors, too, for instance, for `Romeo and Juliet:

• The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke, and Palace of Pleasure by William Painter were primary sources. 
• In turn, for his narrative poem, Brooke may have translated the Italian novella Giuletta e Romeo by Matteo Bandello.
• There are characters named Reomeo Titensus and Juliet Bibleotet in the works by Pierre Boaistuau, who translated some of Bandello's novellas into French, such as Histoire troisieme de deux Amants, don't l'un mourut de venin, l'autre de tristesse (The third story of two lovers, one of whom died of poison, the other of sadness, rf. A Noise Within).
• One Bandello story was La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amante che l'uno di veleno e l'atro di dolore morirono (The unfortunate death of two most wretched lovers, one of whom died of poison, the other, of grief, rf. A Noise Within).

So one of the most famous works in literature and theater follows quite a lineage of art.

Film

`Stoker is very stylish 2013 film by South Korean director Park Chan-wook, and in its simplest, most obvious theme it is about the coming of age of a young lady.  But it's more complex than that, and quite a lot move and shift in the interiors of this family.  The acting - led by Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, and Nicole Kidman - is simply superb. 

For the purpose of this article, I want to highlight American film talent Wentworth Miller, the screenwriter for `Stoker.  The name didn't ring a bell to me.  But because I love film, and I am obsessively curious about the background and crew, I Googled him.  I found out that he played the younger Coleman Silk in another beautiful, very curious 2003 film The Human Stain, also starring Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.

[Miller] used the pseudonym Ted Foulke for submitting his work, later explaining "I just wanted the scripts to sink or swim on their own."  Miller's script was voted to the 2010 "Black List" of the 10 best unproduced screenplays then making the rounds in Hollywood.  Miller described it as a "horror film, a family drama and a psychological thriller".  Although influenced by Bram Stoker's Dracula, Miller clarified that Stoker was "not about vampires.  It was never meant to be about vampires but it is a horror story. A stoker is one who stokes, which also ties in nicely with the narrative."  Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt also influenced the film. Miller said: "The jumping-off point is actually Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. So, that's where we begin, and then we take it in a very, very different direction."

Reference:  Stoker.  

I have been enthralled with `Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for a long time.  I watched that Hitchcock film (1943), and it too was superb.  I'm sure the inspiration for Miller is a bit more intricate than we can know, but an evocative name like "Stoker" and a conniving character like Uncle Charlie are the threads that stitch Miller to his creative predecessors.

  

Poetry

The influences to my poetry are many, but Shakespeare, and poets WH Auden and John Ashbery are prominent.  For example, my latest poem - Swan Song of Ophelia - is about one of the most tender yet enigmatic women in Shakespeare.  Auden wrote a breathtaking commentary on The Tempest, titled `The Sea and the Mirror, which in turn inspired me to write a long poem about a patient I worked with, who committed suicide.  Ashbery, along with surrealist painter Salvador Dali and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, were instrumental to the poetry I wrote in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But let's take one from my collection The Song Poems.  The idea is simple:  I take any music video I like from YouTube, then I let it take me wherever it wishes to take me.  These poems are an account of these journeys.

The following are the specific music videos that inspired me to write this song poem:

  

 

Nowadays social media, technology devices, and digital content all extend and tighten the ties that connect us to one another.  What I've captured here is just a small sampling of my argument that art is never completely original.  To come back to Donne, none of us is an island onto himself or herself.  There is no person born and raised in complete isolation, and biologically we are forever bound to our parents.   

Art simply gives us the means, the knowledge, and the opportunity to do what creative thing we wish to do with whatever and whoever came before us.

Art is Synesthetic

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the fourth of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

I have this pet idea that (a) we work at art is sensuous, that is, heightening our five senses for any stimuli around us.  Then (b) we cross the usual pairing of sense and stimulus, and now it's art is synesthetic.  Synesthesia is a neurological condition, where sense-stimulus pairings are scrambled, for example, hearing colors or seeing music.

Some synesthetes often report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them, while others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives.  The automatic and ineffable nature of a synesthetic experience means that the pairing may not seem out of the ordinary. This involuntary and consistent nature helps define synesthesia as a real experience. Most synesthetes report that their experiences are pleasant or neutral, although, in rare cases, synesthetes report that their experiences can lead to a degree of sensory overload.

Though often stereotyped in the popular media as a medical condition or neurological aberration, many synesthetes themselves do not perceive their synesthetic experiences as a handicap. To the contrary, some report it as a gift—an additional "hidden" sense—something they would not want to miss. Most synesthetes become aware of their distinctive mode of perception in their childhood. Some have learned how to apply their ability in daily life and work. Synesthetes have used their abilities in memorization of names and telephone numbers, mental arithmetic, and more complex creative activities like producing visual art, music, and theater.

Reference: Synesthesia.

That's stupid.  Numbers don't have colors, they have personalities!

Of course, synesthesia isn't the purview of art alone.  I love what Alex relates at the end: Fellow synesthetes have very different orientations to numbers, so their gatherings have the makings of a friendly fight.

I don't view synesthesia as a medical problem, though it can be, if a person is disturbed by it and it affects his or her day-to-day functioning.  By and large, though, synesthetes who may or may not be artists clearly find it pleasant and normal.  I imagine that in general established artists or would-be artists have a greater degree of synesthesia than non-artists. 

Imagine the creative possibilities

Five years ago I was at Happy Hour with a couple of friends in Dubai, and I must've mentioned synesthesia.  They didn't know what it was, so I explained it and mentioned it as a hallmark of art.  I met them in an acting class, so like me they were artistic sorts and they were duly intrigued by its being an art manifesto.

I promised to write a poem about it:

They say, true synesthesia is involuntary –

Like twitch of muscle fibers, firing of nerve cells,

Molecular activity of momentary

But frequent ringing of cross-stimulating bells.

But I do not conceive this as neurologists

For science claims too much of human mantelpiece,

Or relegate to armchairs of psychologists

(Though I am one) this cross-emotional release.

So, dear, who truly owns this synesthesic power?

The artist!  Let’s begin with sight.  For eyes have might

To hear the music in Picasso, feel the hour

Shorten upon the skin from images at night. 

Consider hearing.  Enter Mozart opera –

“The Magic Flute” singspiel that is a rousing texture

On fingertips, a harlequin to camera

Of colors from dramatic notes-and-words admixture.

Now, smell.  The fragrant hyacinths across the field

May give rise to a spread of roasted lamb, merlot

And crème brûlée – for flavor is as much the yield

Of fragrance as of succulence, tied with a bow.

Taste, then.  Cold water on the palate in the heat

Of equatorial summers is to bathe in springs

Collecting from the mountaintops, down to their feet,

Where rushing, falling is what water also sings. 

 

Last but not least, is touch.  For lovers, all the world

Is synesthesia.  Were they simply left alone

To stroke each other’s face, we’d see the cherubs twirl,

Hear oud play, breathe perfume, lap Häagen-Dazs’s cone.   

So, there, the sensual artist is the king and queen,

Whose living fully rules each momentary scene.

Synesthesia © Ron Villejo

So how about synesthesia in short film, music video, and training and education?

I love the bits about listening to fruits and vegetables, meat and eggs, then himself.  Toasting, cooking and eating books.  Herds of cats coming out of the speakers.

The lyrics and singing are terrible, but the visuals and music are catchy.  The Hindu holiday of Holi - the festival of colors - is a nice touch.

I like the notion of metaphor as seeing the similar in dissimilar things.  But imagine the work of researchers in synesthesia, applied as training and education for all art students.  There is evidence that our brain is very plastic, that is, pliable and changeable.  So we could adopt neurological applications for children, teenagers and adults, and thereby build up their artistry, creativity and innovation, and reshape their (our) brain for a meaningful good.