Amsterdam: Visions of Van Gogh

Six years ago, I had the opportunity to travel in Europe for 3 months. I had lofty visions at the time as I traveled to get clear on who I was and what I wanted to do.

I arrived in Amsterdam with one question circulating in my mind intended to provide me with a focus-- "What do I Cherish?". After visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I was inspired to create a 6 foot canvas based on his painting "Almond Blossom" filled with responses from friends to the question, "What do you Cherish?"

That became the The Cherish Tree.

I returned to Amsterdam last Wednesday and was filled with adrenaline. At the Van Gogh Museum I found "Almond Blossom" as alive and vibrant as ever. Only this time, I understood better how Van Gogh made it glow. He had studied Delacroix and Vermeer and all the masters of color and light that preceded him. He truly delved into a conceptual understanding of how our eyes mix color to create vibrancy.


Note how the tree branch is made up of bold strokes of color from the same family to create halations. As well, some of the blue, beige and green strokes are the same value thus creating invisible boundaries. These are all techniques Van Gogh had studied and that he advances in his bold and crafty style. One thing I love about his strokes as he pushes the paint around is how much fun it looks like he had.

This was the painting from which I modeled the Cherish Tree. I asked everyone I knew to tell me what they cherish and I included their text in my painting. The Cherish Tree went on to become a sculpture that was the altar for the Health and Harmony Festival and was an installation at Burning Man.

What's Going On? Some good advice.

I've been feeling stuck, wondering what I can do to ensure that Barack Obama becomes the next President of the United States. I have great difficulty relating to anyone who supports the Republican party at this point. These have helped:

1. I received an email advising how to and how not to talk to people who like Palin.

When Progressives make "elitist" attacks on Palin, they just reinforce the right wing narrative that the "Elitist Eastern Establishment" is the problem. Don't patronize the very people we are trying to convince.
From most people's points of view, the problem with the McCain-Palin ticket isn't so much that Palin is from a small town in rural Alaska and hasn't got the experience to run the country. The arguement that is convincing to normal people is that neither McCain nor Palin are what they claim to be - reformers or agents of change. Their campaign is being run by lobbyists for the biggest corporate interests in America--the same people who ran the Bush campaign. And they are committed to the economic policies that make average people's incomes drop and reward the very rich.
McCain and Palin act as though they identify with the interests of the guys in the NASCAR grandstand and the women at the PTA - but they are doing the bidding of the guys from Wall Street and the women wearing $4,500 outfits like the one Cindy McCain donned for the Republican Convention.
Our assault on McCain and Palin must never be done from an elitist perspective, but from a populist perspective.

2. Hope vs. Fear not Right wing vs. Left wing. Michael Lerner explains the new paradigm of American and global politics.

The central issue in politics, then, is not about left, right or center, but about hope vs. fear. If you want a world based on justice, peace, ecological sanity, human rights, civil liberties, and economic well-being for all, you have to elicit in people their capacity for hope and for love, caring and generosity. Conversely, to the extent that people think that love, caring, generosity and hope are all pipe-dreams that have no chance in “the real world,” they become attracted to politicians who speak to their fears and tell them that the ideologies of “domination over the evil others” is the sophisticated and grown-up way to understand the world. (more)

3. "Palin is Barack Obama's shadow side" by Deepak Chopra. Here is what Palin represents:

• Small town values — a nostaligic return to simpler times disguises a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
• Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
• Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be needed.
• Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
• Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
• ”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.
• more
  

4. Kid Rock bleeds red, white and blue. The Dark(est) (K)night by Jamey Austin.

I booed, but for the briefest of seconds wondered if someone might take offense to my response. Like they actually enjoy and support this ridiculousness. In Berkeley! I thought: it really has come to this. We're afraid to voice dissent, we're afraid to question ... (more)

John McCain is now leading Barack Obama in some polls. As Thomas Friedman said, if McCain can win this with one leg shackled by the economy and the other by the war, he should be in the Olympics.

And finally, if this isn't a wake up call from Paul Krugman:

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse. (more)

Halation Horizons in the NY Times for Obama

In this article, the writer is juxtaposing Obama's journey to the classic American outsider icon. I was amazed to see the background of the image contain the straight horizontal lines I've been obsessed with from Dick's homework assignment.

In the class, we took the colors from a matrix (groups of families of color based on four chosen outside corners) and put those colors down as straight horizontal lines. (see my many posts of halation horizons)

I am very curious if this piece was created using a matrix of colors...

Starbucks, Race and Basketball

Sherman Alexie is one of the greatest writers in the United States, in fact, he's possibly the 78th greatest writer in the United States. Luke Ridnour, according to ESPN, is the 78th greatest player in the NBA.

This article by Alexie is one of the five best articles I have read in the last year.

If you are a fan of sports, you will love this. If you aren't, you will learn something: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=101518

The background:
Seattle might be losing it's NBA team after 40 years in the city. Howard Shultz is the number one coffee maker in the world and he recently sold the team.

The Sonics have lost their last four games by 4, 6, 3, and 1 respectively.