Landscape Re-Mix at the Walker Art Center

Last weekend it was possible to drop off electronic waste at Indiana University to have it hauled away to be recycled. I read one comment about how someone dropped off an overhead projector: "I hadn't seen one of those in years."

Watching this very charming video, made by the landscape design studio ROLU, of a Designing Play! event at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, made me want to acquire an overhead projector of my own. In the hands of artists, the old technology tools can be remixed to very useful, beautiful, and contemporary effect. The tool is always only what we make of it.

The music is called "Coloring" by Lullatone. Lullatone "makes loopable lullabies for babies (and adults)" and has an album called Songs that Spin in Circles. If you click here to go to their Raindrop Melody Maker, you just might get lost in a splish splash of happiness and bliss.

This event look place last February, so there is snow outside those windows. Viewed through our windows today, the redbuds and apple trees are blooming. But who wants to be inside, looking out? Spring escapes into the landscape, the Earth having spun its birth circle again.

Many thanks to Nina Hale for tweeting this link.

Watching the "Olds" in a Slow Election

To be honest, I haven't watched the news a lot lately. I've been paying attention to other things, averse to the stream of teabag-and-tax outrages over on the telly, where the headers sound more and more like tabloids.

Andreas often calls the news "the olds," and I sometimes have to agree, especially in the case of that molasses-slow election over in the great state of Minnesota.

Here's a firsthand look at the recount, by Jay Weiner (normally – and formerly – a sports writer) from back in December, in the MinnPost. Daughter Number Three, who brought the piece to my attention, describes it like this: "Weiner shares his thought processes as a reporter who's a neophyte at campaign coverage, but an old hand at reporting and covering the Twin Cities." She also posted a link way back in November that lets you see the ballots for yourself, to consider the issues involved in accepting or rejecting them. I've been impressed with the due diligence effort in Minnesota on this, the determination to get it right. (Uff da to all of those archival boxes.)

Give it up, Norm. This is a case of diminishing returns, in which Coleman looks less impressive with each passing day. Millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of dedicated human energy have already been spent on the recount. At this point, polls indicate that the majority of Minnesotans wish Coleman would concede. Time to pack away that archive – perhaps at the Walker Art Center, as an installation of paper that people can walk through, shred, and make into origami peace cranes? Put this particular election to rest.

Don't Take the Diet Too Seriously: John Cage's 27 Sounds in the Kitchen

My brother's birthday two days ago got me thinking about the composer John Cage. There are quite a few good videos of Cage on You Tube, and after watching a few, this is the one I selected for you: 27 sounds manufactured in a kitchen. Cage was an early Western adopter of a macrobiotic diet (following John Lennon and Yoko Ono) and he talks about that here, in an endearing way.

(No matter how many times I watch this, it always makes me laugh at the end. Whatever diet you follow, don't take the diet too seriously... and pay attention to the sounds you manufacture in the kitchen!)

There's also a 9:22 video of Cage on the tv show I've Got a Secret in January 1960, performing "Water Walk." At the time, he was teaching Experimental Composition at New School in New York City. He uses 5 radios in the piece, but wasn't able to turn them on because of a labor dispute about which of two unions should be allowed to plug in the radios (a detail that seems to please him, and he adapts, slapping the radios instead). The very end of the spot has some fun graphics advertising a companion show of that era, What's My Line? (I have to wonder if Betty and Don Draper, from Mad Men, caught John Cage on I've Got a Secret. My guess is that Bets would find it silly, or annoying – those damaged radios! – whereas Don might be intrigued, taking a long draw on his cigarette before wincing and smiling and packing some idea away in his ad man head.)

There's also a very cool film clip, from Dreams that Money Can Buy, a movie by Hans Richter, with a Marcel Duchamp film fragment (complete with a nearly-nude descending a staircase) and music by John Cage. Somehow these early avant garde pieces still seem relevant and compelling today. It's that uncanny mix of nostalgia for something that happened before my time (so that I missed it at its "moment") and the discovery of how fresh and forward-thinking the experimentation still feels. It's interesting to think about how artists keep playing with the same tropes and obsessions, in various media configurations. For Duchamp it was (partly) the nude, but a "new nude," a very conceptual one.

If you click on the Duchamp link above, you'll find a timeline that includes his Rotary Demisphere, the device used for the optical spheres in Dreams that Money Can Buy. You'll also see the 1941 Box in a Valise, the portable museum of Duchamp's works, reproduced in miniature as if for a salesman's briefcase. 20 copies were created; I saw one at the Text/Messages: Books by Artists show at the Walker Art Center last December. There's also a preview of The Quick and The Dead exibition (next spring) with an interview called "Simon Starling: Tiepolo and Duchamp."

Want to Subscribe?
Sign In or Sign Up now!




Bambi in the Christmas Tree

We went to Minnesota for Christmas, as we always do, for a few all-too-short days with my parents at City Bella, framed on either side by that 12-hour drive. A bit of ice, but not too bad this time (last year was terrifying).

We had a wonderful time – a whirlwind, a pause, a gasp of fresh cold air, a van packed to the max with stuff, a trudge through the snow, a trip to IKEA for lamps (one of them, on my desk now, cost only $2.99), a visit to the Walker Art Center to see the Text/Messages art books show, a visit to TMORA, The Museum of Russian Art, to stand in awe in front of the icons, a Christmas morning brunch with Grandmother Boo and her Christmas Box Theater, in an audience of many children, a visit with Thea and Sandy and Jenny, and one with Rose, and a trip to Wedge Co-op with Wally, our Bush Tucker man (patient, reliable gatherer of food), where we got watercress, clementines, fair trade tea, seeded wheat bread, free-range chicken, bath salts, and everything else. Meals, did I mention the meals? My parents are fabulous cooks.

When we returned, we came into the house to find a Christmas tree (we'd skipped all decorating this year), left by my dear friend Deb from Kensington, Maryland. She adorned it with the gas station stag I found on our visit to her house at Thanksgiving (she's keen to my Bambi obsession). Under the tree were some beautiful presents from the Freer + Sackler Galleries, home of the magnificent Garden and Cosmos Show. It was such a joy to walk in to find this enchanting tree, which I moved into the dining room, next to Sav's drawing of the trip to Minnesota, and the wooden bear with girl on his back from TMORA, that my mother gave me for Christmas. The sweet tree is still there a week later, but most of the candy has disappeared.

Happy Birthday, Roger!

Writing a shout out to Roger Hale is not an easy thing to do, despite the fact that he has enjoyed so many accomplishments and been honored on many occasions. He takes all of these honors in stride, it seems, remaining balanced and averse to pride or avarice.

Now known as "Big Daddy" to his many grandchildren, Roger inspires because he lives a full life of civic engagement. Long before there were 1-Minute Managers or people learning how to Now, Discover their Talents, Roger was a successful businessman, heading a global company known for innovation, workplace quality and manufacturing excellence. He did this while also serving on many other corporate and non-profit boards, learning French, getting his exercise, and maintaining strong connections with family and friends all around the world. And he has a great sense of humor.

One of the things I'm most grateful for has been Roger's work with the Walker Art Center, where he served on the capital committee and was then board chair during the recent, most extensive expansion in the Walker's history. I can't even begin to imagine the full impact on the arts of his determined, dedicated effort. Roger also applied that drive to Public Radio International, broadcasters of "This American Life" and other outstanding global radio programming. He is now the chairman of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization begun during the Cold War that resists weapons of mass destruction.

I also find it to be incredibly cool that his undergraduate major (at Brown) was in English. When talking with my son Jack recently about college, Roger recomended getting a liberal arts degree before focusing on business or a profession in grad school. He brings that broad awareness, as well the ability to be influenced by great books, to his perspective on many topics: politics, the environment, business management, and the arts.

Like everyone else in his orbit, I'm very honored to know Roger and to send out this shout for a fantastic birthday!

Love of Theater Cements Marriage

I know, doesn't that sound like an Onion header? But there is truth to the name of this post.

My parents were just here for two days, a quick trip to see Sav in the Sounds of South High School performance of Carousel. Here is one of my favorite photos of them, taken on the rocks on the north shore of Lake Superior near Tofte, Minnesota.

We had a wonderful visit. The weather was beautiful and yesterday we drove to Brown County State Park for a walk in the woods. The terrain was a bit more challenging than predicted, but they are experienced hikers and did just fine.

Only few years ago they made a September camping trip around the edges of Minnesota, pitching a tent in the woods and prairie of the state they migrated to after childhoods in North Dakota. I was impressed.

My parents met in a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Or What You Will) at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, when my mother played Viola, the lead, and my dad was Sir Toby Belch (–Sir Toby Belch? I used to think apprehensively, hearing this story as a child).

A love of theater has been a constant in their lives together, and in our experience as a family. When I was a kid in Albert Lea, Minnesota, we would drive up to the then-new Guthrie Theater, where we were season ticket holders. Many of the plays were beyond my comprehension, but I loved the ritual of attending them and trying to follow along as best I could. I remember the thrill of meeting Sir Tyrone Guthrie once, too. I liked that Mondrian-like modernist exterior of the old Guthrie, and its proximity to the Walker Art Center. (The new Guthrie is cool for other reasons, and the Walker still – and always will – rocks my socks.)

When Joyce and Wally get back to Minneapolis, they'll be going to a production of Twelfth Night by an all-female cast, at Ten Thousand Things Theater Company. It's just the latest of many productions of this play they've seen, but I think it's the first with an all-female cast.

Carousel was really terrific. It got us talking about various theatrical themes and adaptations, and thinking about that song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". If you click on the image at the left, you go to a futbol and culture site by Jennifer Doyle with lots of good info about this song in the soccer arena. There's a link to a photomontage of Fellowship of the Ring images, too, with Judy Garland's just-try-to-keep-a-dry-eye version of the song. Doyle even explores the song's history in relation to folk music! (And isn't that a very groovy Carousel poster?)

Bambi Obsession

I am totally into Bambi these days. Maybe it started when that snarky Maureen Dowd began to refer to Obama as Obambi: I needed to know again just who Bambi was. Then I became obsessed with Hillary, seeing her as a mother and mentor to Obama, even as he took his distance from her. So clearly this is a bildungsroman, the story of a young (boy's/fawn's) maturation, and of his relationship to his mother. Not an Oedipal drama, but a Bambi one, about the Death of the Mother. Interesting.

Then I was at the "junk in your trunk" flea market, prompted by my DIY friend Nicole. I went there to buy some of her jewelry, and on route to her booth I met a woman who is a semi-retired therapist (I could just tell). She sold me, for a song, many valuable things. Among them, a 1931 edition of Bambi, by Felix Salten, with gorgeous illustrations by Kurt Weise (50¢). It was very musty, and needed to sit in the sun for a few days. Never underestimate the value of the random possession, or of the (not-so-random) obsession. Possession/obsession: perhaps the same thing?

Where do obsessions come from? I often wonder, as I experience them so frequently. If I was a curator now, I would be planning Walker Art Center 'Bambi' installations. If I was a full-time artist, with feverish days to spend in a studio, it would be Bambi all the way. Especially because the Weise illustrations are a beautiful burnt-orange burnished color. And the language in the book – well, we will return to that topic another time.

So, to satisfy my new obsession, I am beginning a Bambi mod-podge. (If all else fails, artistic friends, remember that you can still come down to Mod-Podge!) Pictured here is the beginning of a Bambi glass container. That's Bambi on the bottom and his mother on the side panel. (And Neil Young on the newspaper beneath them.)

Bear with me as I ride out my Bambi wave. You can follow this story with the Bambi tags. For another take on Felix Salten's Bambi, click on the Disney image on the left.