The Self in the 21st Century...3rd section.

...Section 1&2 may be read on Facebook if you are a friend.

I wanted to move to Galisteo, New Mexico when I grew up and live the life of a recluse. Now it seems, this century makes a recluse of all of us as we no longer need to interface, literally, because we can intercyber instead. Alone with my gizmo’s I can relate when I want to. I hear when someone wants me but I don’t have to respond, the message will be waiting when I choose to view it. I can post a birthday greeting on YouTube for my best friend who will love it because it is so publicly declarative, and I didn’t have to leave my warm cup of coffee sitting on the dining room table to make and send it. I’ve connected and reclused myself simultaneously. 

This simultaneousness is the heart of living in this 21st Century, and its illusions are as solid as the little rectangular flat devices we carry in our pockets enabling us to access them. I don’t believe in accessibility, however it seems I rely on it around the clock and participate in its machinations just the same. As an artist I have made myself accessible in more ways than I care to intellectually or spiritually recognize, and as such have given way to faith over disbelief that the accessibility I invoke will be the same ones that enable a gallery to find and promote me and my ideas. Twittering like millions of other birds as we nest on invisible lines perched in our iPhones, we read and dismiss information that was carefully crafted in under 144 characters with speed freak like distraction. Distractions once reserved for the meth addicted or ritalin needing grade-schooler, now embody most of the people I know, myself included. Fed by a constant need to know what is happening in the world around us, I’m certain however I know less about the world than I did in the previous century even as news sources and their reports are IV fed into my devices. 

I no longer feel as if I inhabit a world, taking up my little space in it, but that I am inhabited and what space I did have is no longer filled by me, as I seem to exist less and less. 

I think this feeling starts with my work and awareness as an artist. As more and more people move into the realm of being 'artists,' regardless of creative ability, understanding, or thought, my art world and its space diminishes. I may be a part of the generation possessing its last artists, as actual art making has been dissolved and replaced by the idea of art. Even the idea is appropriated so no longer is an idea required to produce. The artist will no longer be necessary and the world will have digitized all of it. Printing an oil painting, xeroxing a sculpture, and gif’ing a moving image from several still ones; all amateur crafted through technology. Even Garageband makes music for you and Soundcloud publishes it, and that feeds into Twitter and gets shared on a blog that hundreds of followers reblog. A regular blogjam of regurgitated regurgitation. RT’ing has become the last bastion of individual thought. You no longer have to have a thought, just RT one. Worst of all the creation of Rap, as it proves to be the final sound of music made. There was a time when artists wrote songs, and a generation later that song was re-recorded by another artist. Royalties were paid, as was homage to the original source, and a new artists’ insight through their era’s eyes was shared. Now a rap artist writes and records a rap, but who is going to re-record Bitch N****z by Snoop Dog? No one. Once artists like Joni Mitchell could think of the royalties coming in from re-records, but Snoop can’t imagine this kind of financial dividend as his work begins and ends with his own efforts. And efforts that may have been lifted in a riff written by Miles Davis, or a loop digitized on GarageBand, anyway. 

This is what it means to be living in the 21st Century. The previous century’s beginnings was an open field of artistic and industrial innovations and progress. Diseases were eliminated or contained. Methodology was crafted and educationally implemented. Real estate was ergonomically planned and cities grew enriching their space as the inhabitants filled them.

The beginning’s of this century were birthed out of the Y2K scare, which proved to be unfound. Yet a few years later as planes flew into towers in Manhattan, we were forced to re-boot in a new era we may not have been psychologically ready for and the shock of that crash was much the same kind of shock re-booting implements. Anti-terrorism tactics of searching the elderly in airports before plane boarding, and reporting suspicious persons and activity vetted anyone in their biases toward those unlike, birthing internet bullying their ugly offspring.  Welcome, 2013.  

True Story:

Riding my bike home from my best friend’s house. Mom said be home by midnight. 

The field between our houses was a couple of acres. Old crops of wheat still sprouted up, but what was once farmland was now a field. This field would soon be new homes and a street connecting his neighborhood and mine would be in its place. I thought this field was pretty special. I didn’t want homes being built there. It felt sacred to me. Should be left alone. Sometimes I got scared riding my bike home through the field at night, down the dirt beaten path so many kids used. Used mostly during the day though. Sometimes I rode my bike all around the acreage even though the distance was triple, because I didn’t feel like crossing the field alone. This night I had to hurry to get home. It was getting late. 

Late summer night. Quiet. Beautiful and very still. Growing up in a town so silently silent, especially in the summer when everyone vacated to go to the lakes. I loved it. No one around. Listen for the train whistle from the tracks a few miles away just to be sure you aren't the only one left. Someone else is up. Someone else is awake. someone else is here.

Whistle blow. Blooow. Bloooow. 

A mourning dove in the evening as sun was setting would do the same thing to me. Remind me I’m not alone. Another being is near. 

Coo. Coo. Cooooooo. 

This night no train. Doves asleep. Just me. Soundless. The field. The dark night sky. The beaten dirt path. Somewhere a clock was ticking warning me to hurry. My bike metal chain and spokes banging as I rode shot home. Getting close to the street, closer to the homes and something catches my attention. A sound. A drone. A buzz. What is that sound? Like a garbage truck in hydraulic lift. Louder. More condensed. A sound I can’t place. What is that sound? I’m nearing the end of the field, almost to the street. Our house is across the street, second one from the corner. Always struck me as an odd location. Available. Exposed. Just off the edge, but not far enough in. Sitting silently in the dark of the night. A streetlamp on the opposite side lit the driveway. A small tree on the verge not moving. No wind. No one on the road. Just me, my bike, this sound. 

Squinting as I near the house, trying to orient the sound with my eyes in the dark. I’m starting to ride faster now this sound urging me. I see something. Noise coming from the end of our driveway. Something I can’t identify. Something is at the end of our driveway. The sound tells me it could be a garbage truck, but this is impossible. Not this late. Not on this day, not even close. I am looking at it trying to identify. It is smaller than a garbage truck, and my mind is trying to orient what I’m looking at. The sound confuses what the object could be. Not quite a truck, smaller. I am thinking a man with a shopping cart. A shopping cart? No, that is too small. Shopping cart doesn’t make that kind of noise. Doesn’t make sense. Mechanical electrical vibrating sound noise. So I think it must be, truck.  But no, what I see is too small for that. Smaller than a truck. As tall but not as long and more dense. 

I flash on the sound which is so loud now I wonder why no one is coming out of their front doors to investigate. This small college town where nothing ever happens. People leave their doors unlocked at night. Yet no one comes out of their front door. No one turns on a porch light. This sound. This shape of noise mass and a person behind it at the end of the driveway. Why isn’t the man in the garbage truck driving? It isn’t a garbage truck. He isn’t in it either. He is behind it. He is pushing it? I think of Mad Max. It isn’t necessarily a man. 

Something not from this time is at the end of our driveway and I have to pass it up our driveway to ride my bike into the garage. How do I know it isn’t from this time? From the space I live in? I am terrified, I am out of my body. What the hell is that. I want to cry. I’m scared. I can’t look at it any longer. That sound is near deafening. A male being with a shopping cart the size of a truck full of stuff making a horrible noise at the end of our driveway. I’m alone. I have to get home. 

I ride my bike up and over the curb diagonally across our lawn to the far side of the house where I know the gate to the fence is always open, otherwise I couldn’t get into the backyard. I ride around to the back door of the garage, connected to our house. Jump off my bike and throw myself at the backdoor to the house which is unbelievably locked. I can hear him. It. That. The sound is getting closer, right at our front door. I am banging on the back door with my fists, and miraculously mom appears. I am stammering. That sound. That sound. What is that? In the driveway. Mom! My mom doesn’t even respond. She looks out the window of the front door and nothing is there. No sound. Nothing. She doesn’t acknowledge my hysteria and says goodnight and walks upstairs to her room. I run downstairs to my room, which has windows on ground level facing the driveway.

Don’t turn on your bedroom light. You don’t want to be seen through the windows of your room.

I look out. Nothing is there. No sound. No man. No noise. No truck. Nothing is there.

Mapplethorpe. X, Y, Z @ LACMA and Getty

Condensed for an earlier blog post...I felt this was important to underline with the new shows of Mapplethorpe's coming to Los Angeles.

This past week (earlier in Spring of 2012) I was finishing up my finals for my second quarter back in school at Antioch University. In Academic Writing I was to turn in a research paper, on a topic of my choice. I thought it would be interesting to re-investigate the whole NEA/Mapplethorpe/Helms controversy, and decide for myself how I felt about government arts grants. I worked on this paper for a month. Twenty pages in length, it covered the topic in depth, and I was happy with the work I had accomplished.

On our final day in class we were to share a brief presentation on our paper, our topic. I volunteered to go first, and stated that I would read the first two paragraphs of my paper. It outlined in a personal format my experience with this show, and examined the NEA, and Helms' agenda.

To the class I read:

"On a thursday night, I went to the Whitney to see this obscene Mapplethorpe show, The Perfect Moment. Thursday evening's were free at the Whitney, and I was grateful for the sponsorship so I could view Robert's works. I was a young artist and I was about to have my mind blown by his vision."

Surprisingly, tears began streaming down my cheeks as I continued:

"I didn’t have much money in my pocket, and was grateful for this free evening of art, made available through the generosity of the museum and various sponsors. I was aware of Mapplethorpe’s flowers, his pictures of Patti Smith, and of celebrity portraits. I slowly made my way through the museum. Roberts works silently held their place, adorning the walls." 

I stopped reading. Tears ran down my cheeks. I had no idea what was happening to me. I offered my apologies to the class, expressing embarrassment and exasperation for the emotional response to my story sharing. I continued reading: 

"Glorious prints, with such deep intense blacks, it appeared you could slide your fingers into their depths, trailing ripples into black water at night. Soft luminous bodies, their physical perfection matched in how he captured them. And his flowers. Deep religious visions. Reverent, and also containing an occultish air, tinges of unspoken mystery floating within their folds. Satanic shadows played off their form, as they were expertly lit."

I stopped reading again. I was having difficulty as I tried to hold back my gentle sobs. What the hell was happening to me? I told the class that I was confused and stunned as to my tearful reading, and apologized. They kindly reassured me I was doing fine, and their encouragement allowed me to feel safe in our space to continue: 

"I wasn’t sure what part of the pictures to focus on, my eyes were drawn deeper and deeper into his work. These images, as they grew on me one after another lining the museum’s walls, brought me into his world. My artistic spirit was plateauing, and I wondered how high it could ascend. What I wasn’t prepared to see were all the partially nude black men. In business attire with enormous cocks hanging out of open zippers, or white mens genitals held fast in some kind of trap, barbed wire encasing it all. Finally, in all his glory, was an incredible photograph of Robert himself. Standing with his back to the camera, clothed in nothing more than a leather vest, and leather chaps covering his thighs, Robert looks over his shoulder and stares down the viewer. One leg rests upon a sheet covered riser, his legs spread wide as he crouches, revealing the handle of a bullwhip shoved into his ass. The tail of the whip hangs out and down, past his legs, slithering on the floor. It is incredibly disturbing to me, and I am nervous looking at this picture, with many others around me at the show looking also. Lastly I see Robert in close up, holding a cane adorned with a skull at its tip. You see his hand, the cane’s skull, and his head. All the rest is black. He stares into the camera lens, and beyond. This is the last self portrait Robert would produce. Looking into the eyes of this brilliant artist, I am moved outside my comfort zone. I am grateful to be here, at the Whitney in NYC, to see these works. To be exposed to these ideas. I wonder at the world, art, Robert, AIDS, the NEA, Jesse Helms, and where it all is going to go. The future and my life before me, what is left?"

     I finished reading. Tears streaked down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes, and looked down into my lap. Stunned, shell shocked. I felt like I just had an earthquake inside.The class applauded my efforts, and our professor spoke of the power of the written word. How even when we are writing, at times we are ourselves unaware how deep into our subconscious we are accessing, and what results will play into the stories we share. He commended me on my willingness to finish, and the beauty of my choosing to do so.

     I realized on a profound level the impossibility of Mapplethorpe's work being obscene. The response I discovered I contained inside my artistic soul after seeing his beautiful show, The Perfect Moment, had silted down into me. It became a part of my being, as have so many other great artist's works I've seen and resonated with, even if unaware. What I had understood about his work was now a part of me, even though I had not ever articulated it, until that moment. And I had to read it aloud to a class for the discovery.

     This is the power of art.

     This is the beauty of an artist leaving something behind.

The LA Times writer Jori Finkel on October 19, 2012, articled questions wondering if the re-newed shows at LACMA and Getty will strike again the chords of controversy.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-robert-mapplethorpe-lacma-20121020,0,4121613.story?track=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=175674

The current air we are living in seems not so unlike the ones breathed nearly 25 years ago. I like to imagine we have moved on. I would hope all could see in his works what I saw, and how they touched me so deeply all those years ago. They raised my consciousness; my understanding of myself and the world I find myself living in, and those I share it with, and still do.

Tag

This summer I found many large printed photographs laying on top of the garbage container by the freight elevator on the floor of the building my studio is in. There is an agency-rep/management company of some sort also on this floor. They keep the door to their offices open all the time, something I find irritating as every time I pass their door coming or going from my studio I have that, "I need a hall-pass, why is the hallway monitor so mean," feeling I used to get back in junior high school. Like they are surveying the activity of the hall. Like they are in charge of this area outside their door, and have a need to know what everyone on the floor is up to. At any rate, they clearly dumped the photographs of one of their clients, or photographers, including the very expensive clear portfolio sheet liners they rest in for showing, out. But not carefully were they trashed, wrapped up inside a garbage bag. No, they were just casually disregarded on top of the garbage container for anyone who happened to pass, find. I thought they were great. Large semi-glossy prints from various photo shoots. Semi dressed young men selling towels, or jean jackets, or cologne. The kind of photographs created for a large fashion company print ad campaign. The one you would flip past in Vanity Fair magazine as you hunted for the index. Searching for an article by Christopher Hitchens that will be forgotten when you discover Rick Floyd no longer is the art director for Annie Leibovitz, and Tommy Hilfiger was busy at a charity event in the Hamptons, again.
What? Christopher is no longer with us? Rick Floyd has moved on? Hilfiger isn't charitable? Well, clearly it has been some time since I flipped through a Vanity Fair, or worked an editorial job with Annie Leibovitz and Rick Floyd.
Nervously fumbling through the thick pile, not wanting my "dumpster diving" to get caught, I thought about the photographer whose work was being tossed. I wondered if she or he was an ex-client of the "Hall-Pass Agency." I imagined how she or he would feel if they would come across the work I saw in my mind I was about to create, using their work as my base media of choice. I grabbed them all and walked the long route back to my studio, avoiding the Hall-Pass Agency.
Once back in my studio I spread them out all over the floor. I picked up my black oil stick, and without thinking wrote the first thing that popped into my head on the printed materials, Basquiating them fairly rapidly. I always wonder when I make new art who will see it, and what they will think. It is almost as if I imagine who the object is being created for, and this unknown entity whispers in my ear, "me."
Once completed I carefully hung them to dry, using paper tape and lining them up along a separate columned section of one of the walls. I would be able to look at them over the next two months as the oil stick slowly dried, and I would think about how I felt about them. Like I have mentioned here in the blog before, new works take some time getting used to, and the uncomfortable-ness with which I viewed this collection wasn't much different than any other new form I have rendered. Some of the images I loved more than others, as always happens in a series, but all in all they seem to sum up what I was feeling at the time. A kind of Rorschach, ink-blot response.
A picture is one thing, and asks the viewer to handle it in a specific manner. The written word is another thing and requires the same, but different, handling. Forced together, especially if the viewer were to read out loud the written words, would cause a third function of the art to be created. First being the work, second being the viewer, third being this combination of the two, taking each out of their self, and producing another entity entirely. This is the actual work, and something I am learning and dealing with as I continue my series The Word.

From the forthcoming series Tag, as yet not on my web-site:

Fags For Sale

Oil Stick on Photograph Paper

18" x 14.5"

2012

I Will Never Grow Old

Oil Stick on Photograph Paper

18" x 14.5"

2012

Thinking About Myself

Oil Stick on Photograph Paper

11" x 14"

2012

The Interview

Having a visitor to the studio exposes many things, all of which the artist has absolutely no control over. It is like when hanging a painting on a wall for viewing, the artist has nothing to do with what the viewer takes away even though their entire life has moved them to create the very thing which is now viewed in an effort to say something specific. What can you do? It is my job to be creative. It is my job to communicate something ineffable because the words needed to necessarily express this have not yet been created.
Words are created to pinpoint and express a certain reality. If these words don't exist yet then neither does the reality of it or the understanding...only the artist knows of it and like a shaman has to bridge the gap between these existing and non-existing worlds; conveying the illusive, magical thing into a kind of reality.

I am an artist. I am a shaman. I am that bridge, and not having the words I speak my information with pictures; these imperfect but elegant tools of communication.

Discussing and sharing work can be fun with the right person. I had the right person in the interest of Pauline Adamek, who came to my studio recently to interview me for ArtsBeatLA, her online journal and resource for all things arts-related in Los Angeles. She and her cameraman came to my studio located downtown Los Angeles in the Spring Arts Tower, to see for themselves who I am and what it is I do.
Preparing the studio for this, like any visit, is fraught with a kind of anxiety that goes beyond having a visitor into your personal space. As a working studio, it is filled with work. Work not specifically up for view as it most likely is in various stages of prep and duress, and so you refigure the space to show what you are working on, finished or otherwise, hoping it conveys where you are with ideas. Building an impromptu bridge for this visit and hoping you are understood in some context, and the variety of alchemical items strewn about as any artist will have as items of witness and inspiration, don't distract from the works that are dedicated for the visit. One never knows what a visitor will lock on, and I have had many visitors who find that one odd out of the way piece long forgotten or relegated to a quiet spot, and want to know all about it. Not bearing any relevance to where you are now, the need to find correlation and relationship to the works specifically out for survey takes over and can sidetrack the visit in many ways.

Ever as a teenager had your mom come into you room? This isn't necessarily unlike that. It can be a great visit and chat and lead to great things, or she may want to suddenly move your furniture around out of some unidentifiable boredome and odd desire to connect with you, impossible to understand until you have your own kids one day, and then  during this redesign who knows what may pop out from underneath your bed when least expected...
...but I digress.

I shared new works with Pauline. She beautifully created a dialogue that put me at ease and allowed me room to speak of my experience with these works without judgement, but a pure interest and an openness that any artist wishes for when sharing. We discussed the specific paintings I set up in a manner aimed to express the path I have been on in making them, with my alchemical items and witnesses around quietly holding the space and giving of their silent secrets. We talked for 35 minutes, and this was edited down to little over 7. All in all I feel it conveys a good sense of me, my work, how fast I talk, and cracks a light into the ideas that formulate the bridges I make I call paintings.

ArtsBeatLA Michael Gardner Interview

The Word

The challenge of the artist is to see the world anew. To branch out, to explore, to question, to learn, to evolve. Creating new work is sometimes an accidental procedure, sometimes specific, sometimes daring or silly depending. Taking it all too seriously, or forgetting to keep your tongue in your cheek can imply a kind of narcissism that pushes the viewer away, instead of inviting them closer. I take all my work very seriously, but seriously enjoy just as much the light that all seriousness contains, and hope for the viewer to have the same experience.
I was asked if I felt these works were: religious, political, or biblically-specific. I was asked if they were about my beliefs, or if they were based on other religious ideas or faiths, or more spiritual in nature. I was asked if they would offend anyone.
I responded that no, they are not religious.
Yes, they index religious texts with similar but not contextually religious works such as: Stephen Hawkings, A Brief History of Time. Sandra Bernhard's, May I Kiss You on the Lips, Miss Sandra. Shirley MacLaine's, Out on a Limb. Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Kabbalistic text, The Zohar, astrological texts, The Bible, The Qur'an, The Bhagavad Gita, and, The Complete Book of Tarot...so far.
I do not focus on any specific areas of text or book, however my awareness of each drives me to specific contents within each book, and I weave seemingly disparate ideas and ideologies with one and another.
I imagine some will be greatly offended.
I imagine some will be greatly inspired.
I take them very seriously, as seriously as I take great humor and delight in their weave and seeming contradictions because I view them all as so similar. As similar to one another as when one tries to see identical twins as unlike the other.
I view them as paintings, and call them such even though they more closely resemble in technology photographs than anything else, as photographic processes are used in their production.
They are all self-portraits.
They are all portraits.

http://www.michaelgardnerart.com/GalleryMain.asp?GalleryID=120146&AKey=CE893GNT

The Word_0023

Ink on Transparency Film, Matte Photo Paper

8.5" x 11"

2012

Circles in Life...

Last night was Sandra Bernhard's birthday. She is busy with her new show, Sandrology, performing at REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Technically part of the Music Center, so she is down the street from where I am at The Ahmanson Theatre working on the Broadway show Follies, here from New York. It makes me feel good she is nearby, schticking it to the crowds that come to hear some sense and sensibility from the one and only who gives it to 'em fresh and sunnyside up.
Would you like juice with that?
Oh she's juicy. The original navel orange.
Twenty four years ago, she was performing Without You I'm Nothing. I would be moving to NY in two months, although I didn't know this at the time as it happened so fast. I arrived in August. A hot, sultry, stinky, crowded, saturday night. Sandra was performing to sold out crowds downtown at the Orpheum Theatre. I desperately wanted to go, but didn't have a dime for extras. Hanging out in a bar when late one night I see on a tv she and Madonna on David Letterman. I think I told people to shut up so I could hear what she was saying. She looked great. NY summer city simple downtown cool. I'm certain the next day I fashioned myself from her example in a simple Hanes tee-shirt, short cut-off jeans, and boots, too.
     Meanwhile in another part of town, Robert Mapplethorpe was laying in a hospital bed from complications due to AIDS.
     Jesse Helms was on the NEA warpath declaring Mapplethorpe works were obscene, and fought to clamp down and eliminate government spending on the arts.
     On a thursday night, I went to the Whitney to see this obscene Mapplethorpe show, The Perfect Moment. Thursday evening's were free at the Whitney, and I was grateful for the sponsorship so I could view Robert's works. I was a young artist and I was about to have my mind blown by his vision.
     In 1998 I met and worked with Ms. Bernhard, as I was the wardrobe supervisor for her Broadway show, I'm Still Here Damn It! A friendship developed that I am grateful for, as she is one of those rare birds whose compassion and concern is matched by their sense of justice while possessing the willingness to stand up for what they believe in. And she can wear designer off the rack. What's not to love?
     This past week I was finishing up my finals for my second quarter back in school at Antioch University. In Academic Writing I was to turn in a research paper, on a topic of my choice. I thought it would be interesting to re-investigate the whole NEA/Mapplethorpe/Helms controversy, and decide for myself how I felt about government arts grants. I worked on this paper for a month. Twenty pages in length, it covered the topic in depth, and I was happy with the work I had accomplished.
On our final day in class we were to share a brief presentation on our paper, our topic. I volunteered to go first, and stated that I would  read the first two paragraphs of my paper. It outlined in a personal format my experience with this show, and examined the NEA, and Helms' agenda.
I began reading from my paper, and when I got to the part where I went to the Whitney, able to see this show for free, I started to cry.
Tears began streaming down my cheeks as I read:
"I didn’t have much money in my pocket, and was grateful for this free evening of art, made available through the generosity of the museum and various sponsors. I was aware of Mapplethorpe’s flowers, his pictures of Patti Smith, and of celebrity portraits. I slowly made my way through the museum. Roberts works silently held their place, adorning the walls." 
I stopped reading. Tears ran down my cheeks. I had no idea what was happening to me. I offered my apologies to the class, expressing embarrassment and exasperation for the emotional response to my story sharing. I continued reading: 
"Glorious prints, with such deep intense blacks, it appeared you could slide your fingers into their depths, trailing ripples into black water at night. Soft luminous bodies, their physical perfection matched in how he captured them. And his flowers. Deep religious visions. Reverent, and also containing an occultish air, tinges of unspoken mystery floating within their folds. Satanic shadows played off their form, as they were expertly lit."
I stopped reading again. I was having difficulty as I tried to hold back my gentle sobs. What the hell was happening to me? I told the class that I was confused and stunned as to my tearful reading, and apologized. They kindly reassured me I was doing fine, and their encouragement allowed me to feel safe in our space to continue: 
"I wasn’t sure what part of the pictures to focus on, my eyes were drawn deeper and deeper into his work. These images, as they grew on me one after another lining the museum’s walls, brought me into his world. My artistic spirit was plateauing, and I wondered how high it could ascend. What I wasn’t prepared to see were all the partially nude black men. In business attire with enormous cocks hanging out of open zippers, or white mens genitals held fast in some kind of trap, barbed wire encasing it all. Finally, in all his glory, was an incredible photograph of Robert himself. Standing with his back to the camera, clothed in nothing more than a leather vest, and leather chaps covering his thighs, Robert looks over his shoulder and stares down the viewer. One leg rests upon a sheet covered riser, his legs spread wide as he crouches, revealing the handle of a bullwhip shoved into his ass. The tail of the whip hangs out and down, past his legs, slithering on the floor. It is incredibly disturbing to me, and I am nervous looking at this picture, with many others around me at the show looking also. Lastly I see Robert in close up, holding a cane adorned with a skull at its tip. You see his hand, the cane’s skull, and his head. All the rest is black. He stares into the camera lens, and beyond. This is the last self portrait Robert would produce. Looking into the eyes of this brilliant artist, I am moved outside my comfort zone. I am grateful to be here, at the Whitney in NYC, to see these works. To be exposed to these ideas. I wonder at the world, art, Robert, AIDS, the NEA, Jesse Helms, and where it all is going to go. The future and my life before me, what is left?"
     I finished reading. Tears streaked down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes, and looked down into my lap. Stunned, shell shocked. I felt like I just had an earthquake inside.The class applauded my efforts, and our professor spoke of the power of the written word. How even when we are writing, at times we are ourselves unaware how deep into our subconscious we are accessing, and what results will play into the stories we share. He commended me on my willingness to finish, and the beauty of my choosing to do so.
     I realized on a profound level the impossibility of Mapplethorpe's work being obscene. The response I discovered I contained inside my artistic soul after seeing his beautiful show, The Perfect Moment, had silted down into me. It became a part of my being, as have so many other great artist's works I've seen and resonated with, even if unaware. What I had understood about his work was now a part of me, even though I had not ever articulated it, until that moment. And I had to read it aloud to a class for the discovery.
     This is the power of art.
     This is the beauty of an artist leaving something behind.
     After this presentation, my tearful emotional response to an experience I had so many years ago in NY, surfaced into my life. Reminding me of where I have been, what has happened, and where I am now.
     The following evening of this class was Sandra's birthday. A tweet from her told me of a friendly gathering and she invited me down to her theatre after our mutual shows bowed. 
     So here I am in Los Angeles now, celebrating the Lady with a sweet group. Toasting, sharing, laughing, and giving it up together. I was reminded of the full circle of things in life. Reminded that where you start is sometimes near where you finish, as one aspect of my life has completed its round. Making way for another to begin. Love and enjoy the road you are on, pay attention to who is with you. If you give the love you receive, those who matter most will be with you along the way.

Happy Birthday Sandy!

David Wojnarowicz

Dear David,

I feel like I know you. I’ve seen your picture of buffalos stampeding off a cliff and wish I owned a print of that. It would hang on my wall, but where in there is the story of you being raped unconscious? Where are the black beauties you ingested that kept you up for days? Where is your positive test result the clinic gave you? Where is the glorified You the Art World conveys whenever you and your work are mentioned? How can I feel like I know you from a work of art compared to your experiences in a car, at the pier, in a booth in a porn shop, in a dark alleyway, in your bedroom as a young boy before you understood who your parents were and were not for you? As a child you walked alone for the first time through the big city streets learning what you needed to make that work of art of buffalos stampeding off of a cliff one day...and you must have thought of me too.

David Wojnarowicz

Untitled (Falling Buffalo)

Gelatin Silver Print

10" x 13"

Edition of 100

1988-89

Semiotics: A Self Portrait

ADOPT: To expand, enrich, grow. A blessing.

APPERCEPTION: Process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole. Descartesian creation.

ASCETIC: Lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures with aim of pursuing spiritual goals.

BASE: Resoundingly simple, unseasoned, bland. That which a thing stands upon or rests. Fundamental principle.

BRIDGE: A connection between two things impossibly separated from the other, thereby connecting them. The closing of a gap. A plan of escape.

BUDDHA: 

CAUSAL: System where the output depends on the; past, and present, but not future, input. Relationship between cause and effect.

CHTHONIC: In, under, or beneath the earth. Earthy deities or spirits of the underworld.

CORPOREAL: Of a material nature, tangible. Relating to body as opposed to spirit. Undead.

DAEMON: Good or benevolent nature spirits. Supernatural beings of some nature between gods and humans.

DIDACTIC: To teach, intend to instruct, convey information. Educate can be for entertainment and pleasure as well as edification.

DISPARATE: Unrelated, essentially different in kind. So unlike as no basis for comparison.

EPHEMERAL: Lasting a very short time, transitory.

ETERNAL: Infinite duration, perpetual, existing at all times. Simultaneous.

EVOLVE: To develop or achieve gradually. Doing gods work. 

FACILE: With ease.

FASHION: The past, the illusion of dreams. Fashion ruined Fashion for me.

FLUID: A substance that continually deforms under an applied stress. A substance that has no fixed shape and yields easily to external pressure. Ability to flow easily. 

GENESIS: Origin

GOD: Refers to the concept of Ein Sof: Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain; However concerning Ein Sof there is nothing there to search or probe; nothing can be known of it for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of nothingness.

GOLEM: Adam was the first Golem. An animated anthropomorphic being. A monster made of clay who comes to life when Truth is breathed into its breast.

HEDONISM: School of thought that believes pleasure is the only intrinsic good.

HEGEMONY: Preponderant influence or authority over another. Indirect form of imperial dominance.

HOMOEROTIC: Erotic attraction between like.

ICON: A religious work of art. Art. Image, picture or representation of the imponderable. 

INTERSTITIAL: Empty space or gap between spaces full of structure or matter.

ITERATIVE: Involving repetition. Aim of approaching a devised goal, each repetition is its own iteration. The results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.

JARGON: A confused, unintelligible language. A hybrid dialect or language simplified in vocabulary and pertaining to its specific group of understanding.

JASPER: Spotted or speckled stone. Traditional birthstone for March. Favorite gem of the ancient world.

JUXTAPOSE: To place together closely such that the disparity between the two becomes exponentially larger ad infinitum. Creating contrasting effect by the placement of each disparate object, a difference that is known as the result of its juxtaposition to another.

KEY: That which opens.

KINESIA: Condition caused by erratic or rhythmic motions in any combination of directions, exemplified by nausea, vertigo, and headache. Disagreement between visually perceived movement, and vestibular system’s sense of movement. Revelation of a Spiritual Truth.

KINETIC: Pertaining to motion. Energized due to an objects natural movement and motion result. The energy of an object due to its motion.

LACONIC: Brief, succinct. Involving a minimum of words, concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.

LATITUDE: Freedom from restriction. Angular distance of a celestial body.

LINEAR: Pertaining to or represented by lines. Having only one dimension.

MACHINATION: Crafty action or design toward a specific end result, the result of which can only be achieved through the specific method employed by the machinator. A Design towards an end more interesting than the end achieved.

MEDIEVAL: Unenlightened. A construct rooted in pre-Renaissance dogma and design, and relating to an alchemical lost art or process. Of castles, wizardry, and alchemy. Barefoot.

METEMPSYCHOSIS: The transmigration of the soul.

NEUTRAL: Free from sides.

NOMINAL: Existing or being something in name or form only. Trifling, insignificant, base.

NUANCE: A subtle shaded meaning or indicator, which in turn almost indicates nothing but the nuance implied. More interesting than the referred. Indicating a sophistication of subtlety, Sandra Bernhard.

OEUVRE: The expressed explicit average of a totality specifically in art, the outstanding sum of the body of evidence of a total work.

OMNI: Combining form.

OSMOSIS: Process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas.

PARADOX: A statement or proposition that seems self contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. Thomas Jones.

PATCHOULI: Plant: the scent of which opens doors to magic, unimpeded perception, and elevated sensual awareness of past, present, and future, simultaneously.

POPPY: Flower; harbinger of dreams, the activator of unconscious creativity. Sleep. Unconsciousness.

QUANTUM: The smallest possible unit of any physical property such as energy or matter. Nature and behavior of matter on the atomic and subatomic levels.

QUILT: To weave. A construction of smaller parts into a unified whole larger than the individual sum of parts, but inexistant without said parts. 

QUOTIDIAN: Belonging to each day, commonplace, ordinary. Base.

REDUSE: The process by which the smallest consolidation from the largest still retains its entirety expressed.

ROAD: Sign indicating life, passage of time, and the space in its use. Existing in past, present, and future.

ROPE: A base tool without which nothing else technical or technological could be constructed or utilized. The most base and explicit technological invention. 

SANDALWOOD: The scent-ual effleurage of an angel, recognition of which draws it closer.

SINGULARITY: An unlimited dense point without any volume. A quantity which approaches infinity as another parameter goes to zero.

SYNCHRONICITY: Simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but having no discerning  causal connection.

TANGENTIAL: Diverting from a previous course in line.

THEATRE:

TRANSIENT: Short lived, passing quickly into and out of a locale, temporary.

ULTIMATE: Being or happening at end of a process, final.

UNIVERSAL: Worldwide. Known, recognized and understood by All. 

URBANE: Suave, courteous, civil.

VACUOUS: Empty.

VANGUARD: Leading position.

VISCOUS: Thick, sticky consistency.

WARP: Pervert. Twist meaning of. Change. The juxtaposition of itself into another is to warp.

WONDER: To be filed with awe.

WROTE: By implicit repetition, and capability, expressed in action.

X: The spot. The end, or indication of locale.

XX: Deceased.

XXX: Pertaining to or of a pornographic nature. Poison, and/or alcohol in a child’s reference. 

YARD: A measurement of distance as defined by 36 inches.

YELLOW: A representation of sensual power.

YOUNG: Untested.

ZEALOT: Radical, fanatical, specifically towards a religious or spiritual idea and movement.

ZENITH: The highest point reached by a celestial or other object. The Acme. Absolute end or final, expressed to the Nth degree.

ZODIAC: The signs, symbols of individuation within each sign; of the Heavens.