Beth's Everything Blog

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PINKY SAYS: DAVID HOCKNEY 74 YEARS YOUNG
IT’S SPRING AGAIN

Thirty years ago, when we were all young, we spent a delightful evening with David Hockney during which he spoke lovingly of Yorkshire in the north of England. It had been his home since his birth, and his eyes were shining as he described its many wonders. He was at that time permanently living in Los Angeles painting poolside California, but Yorkshire was his English Arcadia. He told us of the beauty of the land there, its sky, its rocks, its hills. Now he has returned to this land because spring there is enough of that season to satisfy his needs while Los Angeles simply has almost no spring. It is his feeling that the arrival of spring cannot be done in one picture, and so he has completed a whole exhibition to record it.

“When you come back the seasons hit you a lot more. I realized there was something I had missed. Spring is a wonderful event to watch and I’m a very visual person.” At 74 Hockney has returned to his boyhood home to retrieve the arrival of spring. If he is painting time lapsing he is returning to the pastoral tradition as many artists have done in the past. Both Poussin and Monet tackled the seasons in old age. However Hockney’s approach is one of exuberant optimism and celebration rather than lugubrious longing. His joyous approach shows no evidence of elegiac memorial. For example, he has produced a 15 metre canvas oil painting of purple and ochre tree trunks with outsize luscious leaves twirling on the lower branches of trees. The huge oil shows the very early beginnings of spring when the sap rises and leaves appear first of all on these low branches.

All of these works reflect Hockney’s approach to 21st century landscape. He uses an i-pad to produce quick sketches of whatever interests him in the Yorkshire worlds’ vast open spaces. He feels claustrophobic in closed spaces and he needs to live near the seas. He says that in his i-pad sketches he is able to deal with the fleeting time of changing nature. A good draughtsman is interested in speed and he feels that Rembrandt could have had a ball with the i-pad. Hockney’s love-hate relationship with the camera seems to have been ameliorated and he has come to terms with what he calls “age post-photographique” digital manipulations which outweigh his distrust of the camera’s claim of veracity. He now has even placed a photographic copy of a 7 metre California work in the major Royal Academy exhibition in order to compare it to his current English works. He is also seeking new challenges and setting up a mini-cinema which records the seasons of the years in two minutes of film and he can study movement in the landscape.

If, in fact, the photograph of Hockney has veracity Hockey’s youth like that of the rest of us has disappeared. It is always a shock to remember the round faces of yesteryear, but his smile is identical to the ones of the past. Today he cannot tolerate long sessions in the Northumberland weather; he feels the cold acutely. However it is his land and sea and he cherishes it. The RA exhibition, however, brings us all back to our younger more feisty days. Hockney has written the copy on a poster for the exhibition , “All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally.” Methinks he is commenting on Damien Hirst. But that will have to wait until next month; stay tuned!

Can we just please stop all the racial profiling? Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old black teenager shot to death by a 28 year old neighborhood watch volunteer, is only the latest case. How many times do we have to kill a black (or Hispanic or Muslim or Jewish) child before we finally get it. The Sanford, Florida Police Department says they won’t file charges against the volunteer.

Here’s why.

In 2005, Jeb Bush signed “Stand Your Ground” into law in Florida. It says a person can use deadly force if threatened without retreating. George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch guy, is claiming immunity under that law. Before 2005, 13 citizens had been killed in Florida in some sort of private person/suspected criminal confrontation. After the law was passed, the number doubled and in 2009 alone,  45 people died at the hand of citizens using this law as their defense.

29 states have a form of this law, Kansas and Missouri among them, and four more are considering it. Obviously, the problem occurs in its interpretation.  The Florida State District Attorney  has convened a grand jury and The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Martin case, but that’s hardly enough. The Sanford Police Department should also be held accountable although the police chief temporarily stepped down saying he wants to ‘cool things off.’

George Zimmerman says Trayvon threatened him. Zimmerman weighs 250 pounds. Trayvon, 140 pounds. Zimmerman was driving and had a 9 millimeter handgun in his car. Trayvon was walking with a can of ice tea and a bag of Skittles in his hand.  He was unarmed. He’d pulled his hoodie over his head because it was raining. Zimmerman, who was arrested for resisting arrest and violence and battery in 2005 (who hired him to be a neighborhood watch volunteer anyway?) got out of his car, chased Trayvon, and shot him. There is additional evidence that Trayvon did not provoked Zimmerman.Instead, he ran from him.

Since January of 2011, Zimmerman has reported 46 other black people in the neighborhood. This time he killed one, a 17 year old high school honor student.

I think it is outrageous that George Zimmerman hasn’t been arrested, and I hope you do too.

Dorothy Rosenwald: We’ll miss you mightily, but especially Bob yelling, “Bring me my fishing rod,  you old bat. We need to get going. ”

Donald Brod: They’re waiting for you at the big sales meeting in the sky. Party on, our friend.

Peggy Benjamin: You used to say, “The most rewarding thing you can do is get down on your hands and knees and scrub your kitchen floor. ” Sage advice we finally understand.

THAT THING IS WALKING!

Theo Jansen? You say you have never heard of him? Yes you might have seen his work but not connected an artist’s name to it. Jansen is a Dutch artist working in Delft and he is what is known as a single name artist in Europe. Everyone refers to him simply as Theo, pronounced Tayo. For the past 22 years he has been constructing animals that can walk on the beach powered only by the wind. The works are known as Strandbeests or “beach animals” in Dutch. The best description of them is that they are many legged creatures that seem as at home on a beach as crabs or sandpipers. They seem to fit in perfectly next to the waves and the sky as the wind makes them dance. The primary art medium that Theo uses is an aggregation of stiff plastic tubes although he also uses plywood and batwing like sails. The plastic tubes are well known in Holland because all electric wiring must be enclosed in them.

Theo’s creatures have never been brought to America but there are plans to bring the work to New York. His fans have been working with the Netherlands Consul General director of art, architecture and design. The work has received extraordinary press on You Tube where it has had four million hits. In it his beests run and walk along the beach as though they were high stepping colts out for a prance. His first recognition came from a flying saucer he created in 1980. This was plastic sheeting filled with helium on a light frame which he launched over Delft. The device emitted outer space beeps and terrorized and astounded all of Delft in a performance akin to Orson Welles 1939 War of the Worlds. The piece looked and behaved as a flying saucer might with the powerful winds making it hover and then dart in and out of the clouds. The saucer then vanished in the direction of Belgium. All kinds of fears filled the citizens of Delft and Theo’s fame was established.

Theo studied physics at the university level but he is uncertain as to whether he is an artist, a sculptor, or an engineer. Theo is extremely handsome with long white hair and deep blue eyes. At 63 he is a striking figure and this certainly adds to his celebrity. All of the works continue their existence in videos that show them being created and then striking out across the beaches with their creator in full view. The strandbeests continue their celebrations in videos that record their travels. One art critic has noted that he is really a landscape artist whose works celebrate and point up to the viewer the classical dune, sea, and sky of Holland. The works are intricate and amazing and have been exhibited in Munich, London, Taipei, Madrid, Tokyo and Seoul in art museums and science centers. Theo states that he could care less in which of these places his work appears.

Theo is ambitious; he is attempting to create works that are beautiful but also depict the actual fact that the seas are rising. Holland is the lowland that has been created by dikes; it will be the land most likely to disappear first should climate change continue. Perhaps this is his commentary on the future. In a way the beests are almost wild new kinds of windmills where nature and technology and warnings meet. People who have gathered to watch an installation in Holland have been astounded and it is regularly commented upon when they laugh and shout “That thing is walking!”

The thought of sending you a photograph entered our mind, but you really must see the strandbeests moving and walking across the sands. And so for this reason we suggest that you google you tube — Theo Jansen Strandbeests and see them for yourselves. Just remember you heard it here first! =

Whatever happened to good manners?

Jan Brewer, the Governor of Arizona, demonstrated her lack of good manners when she shook her finger at the President of the United States on the tarmac of Tucson’s airport last week. Shame on her. Shame too on Joe Wilson for yelling “You Lie” at the President, during his state of the union speech a couple of years ago. Both demonstrated a lack of respect for our highest elected official. Ms. Brewer’s and Mr. Wilson’s mothers would probably be mortified, and Emily Post, (remember her?) would be deeply saddened at such conduct. During her heyday, “According to  Emily Post” was an oft heard phrase. She represented a model of behavior that governed generations of people.

Here are some common courtesies we seem to have forgotten. Feel free to add to the list.

Handwriting thank you notes.

RSVPing to invitations (répondez, s’il vous plaît.)

Saying “Hello” instead of “Hey.”

Arriving on time.

Dressing appropriately.

Standing and greeting older people when they enter.

Here’s one that I find particularly annoying: How to be addressed properly by our server in a restaurant instead of ‘guys’ (as in, what can I get you guys?)