Gay Poodle Stalker

by Drew Martin

Perhaps the heavy metal chains of slaves and beasts of burden have been broken but people still want ownership of and obedience from humans and animals. Some roles have changed only in name; maid to cleaner. Sometimes all it takes is a possessive pronoun. My favorite is "My architect..." instead of "The architect who designed the addition to my house..." because it is exclusive and establishes a hierarchy. This pyramid is constructed every day by everyone...the toy dog as a living accessory, the gay friend as supplemental mate who really listens. The problem with all of this is that the singular focus and one-way attitude flattens the dimensions and limits the possibilities of the other.

The newest of these is the "stalker." Originally coined for a harasser with sexual intent, the term is now overused for anyone who randomly says hello on the street, emails twice without receiving a response or shares a schedule that increases the likelihood of
crossing paths.

The trend is that everyone is supposed to have one. Social media makes the occasion quantifiable, identifiable and recordable (and even encourages it to a certain degree) but the real modern twist is not the action or the new tools of the initiator but the mind of the receiver. Assuming the role of the one who is stalked establishes that one is uncontrollably desirable...a fine balance of egotism and paranoia.

“A secret admirer is the same as a stalker... with stationary.”
Demetri Martin

“I've only done it once or twice every week”
Oscar Wilde on stalking

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time

by Drew Martin

If you like the work of Andy Goldsworthy then you should see Rivers and Tides, a documentary about him and his work, which is directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer and accompanied by the music of Fred Frith.

I streamed it on Netflix this weekend and was surprised to note that it is from 2001. It is a timeless film because his artwork is timeless.

Goldsworthy talks to the camera, which functions as the narration. In one moment he suggests that the filmmaker make himself useful and put down the camera to help gather stones for a piece he is creating on the beach. It is a sculpture of flat stones he stacks in the shape of a pine cone. Four early attempts collapse while he is working on it due to the loose sand. He shouts a sharp, frustrated "Shit!" which reminds me of myself in such a moment. Finally the work is topped off and the rising sea engulfs it. The stone sculpture disappears under water. He speaks about how it is a gift to the sea. The tide recedes before sunset and exposes the sculpture again. It is beautiful to see it back in the open air after being embraced by the water, as if it has undergone a rite of passage and understands what the sea is about, with all of its creatures.

I have seen Goldsworthy's wall at Storm King Art Center and a lot of his work in photographs but the film captures the cycle of his projects, which is not possible without the ability to record time. His stone walls last years but some of his projects only last a brief moment. For one of these, he spends hours grinding a reddish stone, by hand. In the end, he holds a ball of red pigment and throws it into the river, where the stone came from. The river turns red for a few minutes and then dilutes itself as it moves downstream. During the preparation of the pigment, Goldsworthy speaks about his pursuit of the red. He comments that the red in the stone is from iron, which is the same reason our blood is red. This piece is about making the stone alive again, as it once was in its volcanic birth.

In the end of the film, the camera pans rock cliffs, which seem like unmovable walls and Goldsworthy offers that the stability of stone is undermined by its fluidity. With much of his work, Goldsworthy likes to take it to the edge of collapse. This is perhaps one of the treats of the film; watching Goldsworthy work on something and have it fall down around him. He deeply cares about his work and such a setback is often met with utter frustration but then he sets to rebuilding the structure. He is tireless.

Goldsworthy started documenting his work with photographs in order to show his teachers what he was doing. He mentions Constantin Brâncuşi who asked why should he have to talk about his sculptures when he can show pictures of them.

Much of the film is shot near his home in Scotland. The moist, green hills are full of sheep, stone walls and an exposed nature. Goldsworthy surveys the land and says that people say it is pastoral and pretty but he remarks there is a much darker side because of the history of sheep and how people were displaced and all the trees were cut down in order to accommodate the animals. He also means that there is a life cycle with decay. He comments on how we think of the signs of Spring on the surface but the evidence is below ground, where the heat and moisture blackens and rots the previous year's growth. This is a theme in Goldsworthy's work...what lies below something, affects the surface.

Goldsworthy speaks about his process but his most insightful comments are about life. He explains how he has lived in different places and how five years might seem like enough time to get to know a place, but it is not. He says you need to see children at a bus stop for years and watch them grow and have children of their own. Goldsworthy recalls a conversation he had with an older lady in his village. After mentioning all the people he knew, she remarked "You see only births and I see only deaths." He says it in a way that he was humbled by it and remarks that he tries not to forget this.

The title of the film, Rivers and Tides, seems obvious enough but Goldsworthy explains that the river is about many things, not just water. There is a river of animals and plants. It is all about flow.

One thing I learned from the film is about Goldsworthy's involvement with his projects. We see him throughout the film, piecing together icicles, reeds and scraps of stone but for a more ambitious piece, such as the wall at Storm King, he worked with wallers, who were often removing the pieces he was placing, for the sake of integrity of the wall. For this project Goldsworthy's role was primarily to define the direction of the wall. Although he was on foreign turf, America, the project was close to home because the Center's property was once farmland and what Goldsworthy found at the site where great stretches of derelict walls made over a hundred years ago by Europeans, possibly Scots. What interested him was how trees took shelter near the walls and grew back around them. Goldsworthy says the wall at Storm King "has a line in sympathy with the place through which it travels."

Although Goldsworthy engages with people and has a wife and several children, you see that he is content by himself, comforted by his own silence. Towards the end of the film he says "Words do their job but what I do here says a lot more."

My favorite comment by him is a line that you feel in his work,

"I am so amazed at times that I am actually alive."

The Triathlon and Human Metamorphosis

by Drew Martin

Last Sunday I did the running leg of a triathlon in Croton on the Hudson. It was a "Toughman" half Ironman, which means a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a half marathon (13.1 miles). The half Ironman is the longest triathlon you can race as a team. Our team was well balanced and took first for the coed relay.

Croton is a beautiful part of New York and the annual event takes advantage of this. The course starts down on the Hudson River (actually in the river and this year it was very murky after Hurricane Irene) and climbs up above the spectacular Croton Dam (pictured here).

The bicycle and running courses are difficult because of the extreme elevation changes and a lot of the running is on trails through the woods. That being said, it is one of my favorite places to run and the event is well organized. At the bottom of the dam you are greeted by a band and cheerleaders before entering an uphill battle in the woods. There are other cheering sections, lots of cow bells and even a rock band along the way.

At the turnaround in the woods there is also a waist-high statue of a gorilla or a yeti. It is all quite a surreal experience because you are trying to run and stay focused and yet you are a bit delirious from the exertion. Most of the other athletes had run and swum, and I had fresh legs, so it was very dreamy because everyone was really tired and I was apologetically flying by them as if they were in slow motion.

I have written quite a bit about the arts and running, how they overlap.* The triathlon culture is more diverse and has its own visual cues and aesthetics. For one thing the hydrodynamics of swimming and the aerodynamics of cycling influence what we look like and how we make things.

These dynamics inform shapes and surfaces. It is amazing how the eye picks up on this. We instinctively know what is lighter and faster. Aerodynamically and hydrodynamically engineered shapes look cool. I think that one reason we gravitate towards streamlined objects is because they appear simple; they are smooth and without complicated and frivolous details. Perhaps it is an association with examples from nature.

Aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are disciplines of efficiency. Just as there is beauty in symmetry, mathematics is also stunningly eye-catching when we witness the tangible results of its formulas for speed and resistance.

A triathlon is the most metamorphic of all sporting events. The athletes start on the beach in tight black neoprene wetsuits looking very fit and aquatic. When the swimmers emerge from the water, they have to run quite a bit to their bikes for a transition, which involves stripping down out of their wetsuits. In this event there was a place where volunteers peeled the suits off the athletes for them. (Pictured here, is our swimmer leaving the Hudson River after a 1.2 mile swim)

In the cycling portion, the participants mount their bikes and take off for a long haul. Some riders wear tear-drop helmets and have low, extended handlebars, which morphs the rider and bike into one streamlined force and a hybrid of human and machine. The shaved legs of the riders and the sleek carbon fiber surfaces are equally smooth.

In the final transition, the bikes are abandoned as are the fancy helmets and stiff shoes. Everything is left behind including the previously shed rubbery skin, and the participant begins to run. It a significant moment, born from water and beyond the assistance of technology. It is the human running free.

For someone, like myself, interested in visual identity and graphics, the event is a real treat. Aside from the numerous logos and the rainbow of colors that adorn bikes, helmets, wetsuits, and running shoes, such an occasion is rich with graphs and charts.

Below, is a map from the Toughman website, which shows the running route. It is not something you could actually use to navigate the course but at least you get a sense that it is hilly and that it is, for the most part, an out-and-back run. Personally, I like running big loops, preferably clockwise.

The next chart is interesting. It shows the elevation changes of the running course. For the kind of runner I am, this is like finding a treasure map. It tells me more explicitly just how hilly the course is, the number of climbs and when they occur in the race. I can also reason that the best runners will stay away from the event because their times would be ravaged by such topography.

Immediately after the first waves of athletes finish, the results are posted on a board. Each triathlete wears a chip around one of his or her legs with a wide, rubbery and Velcro strap. For teams, the chip is passed from swimmer to cyclist to runner. The chip is read by mats at the entrance and exit of the transition area and at the finish line. Theoretically you could cut corners, or worse, and the computer would be none the wiser. In fact, in our race I was ranked with the seventh fastest running time. Naturally, I wanted to see who was quicker but the fastest running time was listed for a woman in 413th place. The only reasonable explanation is that she cut out the few mile loop above the dam, thus placing her with a running time more than four minutes ahead of the elite male who won the overall event with a time two hours ahead of her, even with her shortened course.

These results look something like the chart on the right, which was shows our team on the top line. It has fewer columns than the overall standing chart, which details the duration of each part of the triathlon as well as the transitions times.

Finally, the best visuals of all are the pictures taken by professional photographers (for sale), like the one of our swimmer (above). My pictures are odd to behold. I do not even remember the outside of my body during the run. I do recall some internal cramps and focusing on my lungs, telling myself I was one with the air around me as I ran like the wind. I would not post an image of myself here because I am too pale and skinny. Despite all of the previously mentioned visual elements, I think the most interesting aspect of such event are the body types. Triathletes are perfect. They have swimmers' arms and cyclists' legs. As the mercenary runner, I am all legs and weigh as little as people a head shorter than me. It was a bit of a joke at the event, people asking me if I was the team's swimmer.

Even with all the visual reminders of the day, nothing can compare with the memory of participating in the event...the body moving through space and going into a zone.


*Other posts by me related to running:

Born to Run: A Do-It-Yourself Marathon
Recalling a do-it-yourself marathon inspired by the book, Born to Run

An Out of City Experience
The "third man factor" while running

Find Your Strong
Gladly brainwashed by Saucony's "Find Your Strong" campaign

Running with Music
The analogy of running and music, comparing a runner's body to a musical instrument.

Running the Media
Running as a means of communication

Murakami...About Running: A Book Review
Comments on Haruki Murakami's memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"

Cause & Effect
Running as performance art

Racy
Comparing Neal Bascomb's "The Perfect Mile" (about Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile) with Anaïs Nin's seductive "Delta of Venus"

Frost Nixon

by Drew Martin

If you do not like politics and movies about politics, and you could care less about Nixon, his administration and Watergate then a good film to see is Frost/Nixon because it is about all of these things but from a very different angle. I watched it last night and found it well paced and captivating.

The movie jacket reads:
When a disgraced President Nixon agreed to an interview with jet-setting television personality, David Frost, he thought he'd found the key to saving is tarnished legacy. But, with a name to make and a reputation to overcome, Frost became one of Nixon's most formidable adversaries and engaged the leader in a charged battle of wits that changed the face of politics forever.

I just now realize it is a Ron Howard film. Although I also liked A Beautiful Mind, I still have a hard time accepting him as a director because he was burned into my adolescent mind as his Happy Days incarnation, Richie Cunningham. Knowing this however, makes it easier to see this film as a blend of the media cues I understood it was referencing: The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, All the President's Men and Rocky.

Rocky, because the series of interviews, which take place over several days, are treated like a boxing match. From the very start the reference is offered, suggesting that Frost, despite all of his training and hype, is left slack-jawed by the defending champion's first punch. Each session is treated as a physical round of sparring. Between recordings, each "fighter" is coached in the corner. There is not any visible blood, spit or bruises but these breaks mimic the "get back in there and show him what you are made of" ringside pep talks.

The interesting thing about the interview is that it substitutes for a trial that never happened because incoming President Ford pardoned Nixon. This is the most interesting concept because a trial is only a means to an end and what America really wanted was not so much that the truth be told but a real confession and admission of guilt; the truth was already out there. It is stated through one of the supporting characters in the end of the film that the fault of television is that it reduces things and dumbs them down but in this case, the closeup of Nixon's troubled and regretful face was the perfect use of the medium.

Autism: The Musical

by Drew Martin

A couple of nights ago I watched Autism: The Musical (2007) directed by Tricia Regan. The documentary follows Elaine Hall, her adopted autistic son and a true cast of characters through the rehearsing and staging of a musical with autistic tweens. They are tweens because they are between being kids and young adults and are also somewhere between being brilliant and challenged.

All the people in the movie are impressive, especially Hall who tirelessly navigates her son's world and, if that was not enough to exhaust most single parents, takes on a dozen more autistic kids and interacts with their loving but worried parents to put on a show.

The kids are unique. Henry Stills, the son of Kristen Stills, one of the movie's producers, and Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) and is an Asperger keen on paleontology. One of the most touching scenes is when his super-articulate friend Wyatt tells him that he is very smart. Henry sincerely responds that he had always wanted someone to say that to him. Such moments make the film special because they catch you off guard. You see the kids doing things that simply are not normal. They run around wildly or have a tantrum or contort themselves and you assume these actions are the manifestations of what is happening inside them but then they pause for a moment say something incredibly lucid that makes you to realize there is a very calm and intelligent person inside.

At a therapist, Neal (Hall's son) seems uncomfortable and fidgets. He is nonverbal so they are trying out a texting machine he can use to express himself with written words. His first stunning sentence is that he wishes his mother would be a better listener.

Wyatt speaks like a person twice his age, asking himself why he and others go into their own worlds. He yearns to be around people and to interact with them but explains that sometimes he is alone and therefore retreats to a closed-off place. He also has an issue with bullies and clearly sees his dilemma of being placed in a school program with others like him. He complains his class is "100% retarded."

The parents' concerns are also expressed. The father of the only girl the documentary focuses on, Lexi, says the one thing he has nightmares about is what will happen to her when he and his wife are gone, suggesting she is the perfect potential victim for sexual abuse because she does not have the capacity to report such a violation.

He and the father of a musically inclined boy named Adam independently discuss the friction there is with their respective wives. Lexi's father walks out on her mother during the film, Adam's father had an affair prior to the filming. From the outside, the transgressions would appear to be escapism due to the inability to accept their lot but they are both very clear what happens: the mother becomes so obsessed and consumed with her child's autism that there is nothing left for anyone else. If the apple does not fall far from the tree, the parents have to face and overcome their own quirks and limitations to do the best they can. Stephen Stills is the first to admit that he was very much like Henry when he was a boy.

One of the most interesting comments by the parents is from Lexi's father. He keeps trying to solve the impossible riddle of parenting a disadvantaged child and how to plan for her future. He thinks it over and over but the solution is never right. His wife, by contrast, in an earlier part of the film blurts out that she could take her own life.

The film shows troubled moments and starts with the alarming fact that in 1980, autism was a relatively rare disorder, diagnosed in one in 10,000 children in the United States. Now it is one in 150.

What you discover by the end of film, however, is that there is so much joy in the lives you witness and that you could love each of these kids as much as the parents if they were in your own home.

Pictured below: Adam, Neal and Elaine Hall, Lexi, Henry & Wyatt.

Passion and Purpose

by Drew Martin

I recently watched Philippe Séclier's documentary An American Journey in Robert Frank's Footsteps (2009). What I found most interesting was the discussion of how the actual title of Frank's photography book The Americans (1958) caused a stir.

Photo historian, Stuart Alexander explains how many of the same images appeared in US Camera 1958 and were accepted as Frank's personal experience but by using the title The Americans, his capturing of uncomfortable truths seemed judgemental.

I wish the idea/motif that it takes an outsider to show an American what the country is about could have been better balanced or expanded. This is true of every place, not just America, is it not? It is also inherently false, which is why the French filmmaker's retracing of this expatriated German-Jewish-Swiss' footsteps first comes off as presumptuous and as annoying as an American abroad digging deep for genealogical records. What saves the film from estrangement for a US audience are the candid and quirky Americans who are interviewed and guilelessly come across as good natured and nonjudgmental.

In the film, photographer and acquaintance Wayne Miller recounts a talk Frank gave at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956, where he discussed how good photography can only come from a combined sense of passion and purpose; one without the other does not work. Miller explains that part of Frank's purpose was anger. The most interesting thing he noted about Frank was that he would edit his negatives. This means that instead of cropping the exposure of an image in the darkroom, Frank would cut the actual negative before making prints and throw away the rest. Miller was in awe of this method, which he said took courage and conviction. He added that he was envious of his servitude and insurance.

His printer, Sid Kaplan, speaks of the challenging prints, which "took a lot of time and paper." In his creative relationship with Frank, he likens him to the architect and himself to the engineer. This relationship sounds hand-in-glove but he is also saying "he could not have done it without me." He shows a famous picture by Frank of people on a trolley car and he explains the under- and over-exposing that was necessary to make it work. Hearing him and seeing the final print is not validated until the same photo is shown at another part of the film on a contact sheet. It is a completely different image; flatter and washed out.

Peter Galassi, a curator at the Museum of Modern, explains that during Frank's time New York, the magazine aesthetic completely dominated photography; photography had a strong tradition as independent art, but was buried under weight of magazine world, in which Frank worked to make a living. He goes on to say that the photographers had to create their own place in the art world, which included the idea that a photographer could be an artist. It seems hard to believe, but according to the film there were no galleries in New York City at that time that showed photographs.

The Americans is hailed as a landmark book and a landmark view of the United States. Ed Ruscha said Frank brought together the American dream and American nightmare. Art critic Vicky Goldberg said Frank created a rent in the fabric that the nation had constructed.

Fellow photographer, John Cohen said Frank created the biographical photograph and photography teacher Jno Cook said that Frank made serial images that are cinematically related, which refer back to previous frames and make you wonder what is going to come next.

Frank's publisher, Barney Rosset lumped him together with Kerouac and Ginsberg because like them, Frank was able to connect with ruffians and "come away alive." Rosset explains that although it may not have been obvious in that period, "things come out in different arts but it takes a long time to make the connection."

The first appearance of The Americans was as Les Américains. It was published in Paris by Robert Delpire. Curiously, instead of using one of Frank's images for the cover, Delpire chose a drawing by that other great visual genius in exile, Saul Steinberg. Frank asked Delpire if it was too weird, to which he replied that is was complementary.

The film ends with Séclier's reflective narration offering that before Frank settled down in his adoptive home, he made this visual tour of America, covering 15,000 miles: He saw the land as it is, passed all the tests and felt the real pain of loneliness. He must have thought "I like it" and America responded "Ok you can be one of us."

Making Sense: A Library for the Blind

by Drew Martin

Although most artists are "visual" artists, art is not made with eyes. Most artists are guided with their eyes but the process is usually performed with their hands; a tactile process. Oddly, the experience of the art by the audience is typically visual, sometimes audio, but rarely involving touch.

What a shame. We would experience so much more by running our hands over great sculptures and brushing our fingers across some canvases. The art world would be quite different if this were the case. It would probably be much more authentic and the untouchable prestige would vanish with human touch. Of course, there are preservation shortcomings to fondling art, but what a tease that is.

I was in Philadelphia yesterday for a photoshoot and was fortunate to start the day off in the same building as the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Part of the Free Library of Philadelphia, this library provides services for people with visual impairments and physical disabilities that would prevent someone from holding a book or turning pages. Available to check out in person or to receive in postage-free containers are audio books and magazines; braille books and magazines; described videos; and, large print books. The audio book stacks are pictured here.

Pennsylvania's two Regional Libraries have over 75,000 titles for circulation. The library includes a public Talking Book Center with audio navigated computers that can convert printed word in braille, large print, or synthesized speech. With the cooperation of authors and publishers, books and magazines are recorded on cassette and produced in braille.

The idea of the audio book actually came from Thomas Edison who recommended that his invention of the record be used for the blind to hear their books.

The interior, opposing walls of the entrance to the library are flanked by relief sculptures with braille titles and were designed to be touched as much as looked at. One of these is pictured above. A plaque next to them reads: Main Line Center for the Arts, Sculpture Classes for the Blind and Sighted.

The Middle of Somewhere

by Drew Martin

A couple of weeks ago I took a midday train home. The typical evening rush-hour professionals were absent. In their place were random suburban day trippers. Two elderly, platinum blondes boarded with a small boy, who I did not see before he was slipped into a high-backed three-seater.

The train left Hoboken, passed through a long, dark, old tunnel in a rocky hill and emerged into an overgrown slice of northern New Jersey.

The boy chirped in a tiny, high-pitched and concerned voice, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?"

He must have been only four or five years old and he sounded so sad and lost. The train continued on to the marshy and wide-open Meadowlands. He asked even more desperately, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?" He was so anxious that he might as well have been abandoned in the wilderness.

He repeated the troubled question, over and over. Each time, my heart sank. Finally, our train pulled into Rutherford, which has a town center and signs of life. The boy's voice did not change its tone but this time he asked with a glimmer of hope "Are we in the middle of somewhere?"

Illustration by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

Pow Wow

by Drew Martin

Before the wayward and speculating Europeans arrived in North America, art on this continent was decorative and ceremonial craft, which was very much a part of everyday life. Aspects such as tribal identity and preparation for various occasions had visually aesthetic details but more abstract ideas such as opposition to enemy oppression and the questioning of bloody sacrifices were not expressed in art.

The Spanish occupation of Mexico and the English settling of the East Coast of the United States created and fueled a new kind of inhumanity, which over the years has been responded to with emotive works in literature, music and the visual arts.

The difference between the histories of Mexico and the United States is enormous. The Spanish were conquistadores and from the beginning mixed with the natives. The situation up north was more complicated. The English "adventurers" did not want to be so roguish; they naively thought they would win over the natives and yet the end result was much more devastating to the indigenous population.

The profound divide was that the English not only oppressed the natives but also imported and dominated a completely different culture at the same time, the enslaved Africans. I am not sure if such an international human disaster with so many atrocious consequences has ever occurred in this tight a timeframe on one scrap of land: the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 obliterated "Indian" culture, slavery in the US started there with the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 and between those years tobacco was introduced to Western civilization, which stoked the plantation system and launched the most addictive and deadly habit of all time, smoking.

The dominant tribe of Tidewater Virginia, the Algonquins, were surprised by how submissive the first Africans were but could not comprehend their state; having been swiped from their own continent then packed on slave ships for the harsh transatlantic journey. The Africans had already lost everything and were all but dead on arrival.

The Algonquins skirmished with the English but also tolerated them to some degree, especially after the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe, (ironically) the father of the tobacco industry. Shown to the right is a portrait of Pocahontas and their son Thomas Rolfe, painted during their trip to England, shortly before she died in 1617.

Following her extremely premature death, which contributed to increasing tensions with the English, the natives staged a massacre in 1622, which resulted in the wholsale slaughter of hundreds of colonists in a matter of minutes. England responded by sending over troops to comb through the woods of Virginia and kill every native in sight. Those who fled, moved west while the African slaves were left alone to bear the brunt of the English and their stifling labor system.

What followed was the worst of slavery and yet not only did the spirit of the slaves endure, it flourished like no other. The contributions to the arts by the descendants of the slaves is immeasurable and priceless. Much of the music, literature and artwork has a continued theme of struggle and opposition to established America, and rightly so. What might be felt as threatening is still the backlash of having been threatened. Likewise, Mexican artists have had a lot to say about the Western invasion. The first works that personally come to mind are the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco.

But what about native Americans? When I try to think about art that expresses their struggle I completely draw a blank. The images I connect to the "new world" atrocities are European, such as this hand colored engraving by the Swiss artist Matthäus Merian, from 1628, depicting the 1622 Massacre. For lack of anything else, I even gravitate back to the most obvious stereotypes of their art...beads, totem poles, headdresses, etc.

Why is this? Is it because so many of those tribes that would produce protest art were simply wiped out? Are there a lot of native artists that are dismissed by a trendy art world? Or is it something much more philosophical...that these cultures without written languages at the time or art beyond patterns and symbolic forms were not culturally positioned to express their woes in art. Or, even now, by doing so...by putting on a show for the art world, would mean the kind of submission and compromise they have so ardently fought against for the past 400 years? Perhaps it is also because unlike the one-way fate of the Africans, the native tribes were already fragmented and locked in power struggles (which is why many of the lesser tribes aided the English because they feared the Algonquins) and much of the demise was due to their own immune systems, unable to cope with the diseases brought over by the Europeans.

Before the 1622 Massacre, the natives for the most part lived independently of the newcomers but would "show up for work" on the colonial one hundreds (precursors to plantations). They had breakfast with the English and then went to the fields...this is why the first attack was so successful, it was orchestrated to happen at the start of breakfast on Good Friday of 1622, at point blank.

Although the natives were fascinated by the phenomenon of writing they had no use for it with generations of codes and communicative nuances in place. On the other hand, the African slaves lived closer to the English/Americans. The English language was under their noses and their being denied its power made literature an explosive medium for telling their story in slave narratives and all the great novels that evolved from them...mainly because it entered the quiet reading rooms of the early Americans with a bang.

Language played a big part in slavery. The multitude of African dialects meant that there was no unified African language, so any hope of solidarity required a lingua franca, which had to be English...but first and alternatively it was song; invisible, free and undeniable. The visual arts took the longest to develop. The slaves' tools were just for labor. Art is obvious and hard to conceal. Additionally, art at that time was a leisurely pastime and reserved for the privileged documentation of pedigree.

Writing has a visual identity but you need to be close to fine print to understand the message and it takes time to decipher a passage. The message of a graphic radiates from its source and is immediate. This is where Kara Walker comes in, and is why she had such an impact with her early work. It was all thought, sung and written before but never so visual. It was an expression in hiding that did not come out until it was safe. Now it is applauded but if it were made in the time which she references it would have had fatal consequences.

I know there must be many native Americans who have written, sung and created art about their own injustices but where are those with the status and recognition of Orozco and the Walker? A disadvantage the native American artists face is that people really love the stereotypes. The image of the native warrior holds a special place in the world's mind. It is romanticized even when adulterated by European influences, such as with horses...pre-Columbian native Americans had never seen horses and did not know what to make of them at first sight; sometimes mistaking a mounted rider and his steed as one monstrous creature.

Most people around the world think the natives all wore headdresses and lived in tee-pees and ran around with tomahawks in their hands. Not only do they think this, but they believe they know it so when something disrupts that image, they do not want to accept it. Such images are popularized by the movie industry as well as staged photographs from the beginning of the 20th Century and are quite different from the original concepts of native Americans. At first, the imaginations of the old world were fed by the images of Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (1533–1588) a French artist who traveled to Florida, mapped the region and made a series of botanical illustrations and depictions of the Amerindians. Le Moyne eventually returned to Europe after relationships with the natives soured and he escaped a Spanish invasion. The torch was then carried by other European artists such as the Belgium artist Theodorus de Bry (1528 – 1598) and his sons who never visited the Americas and whose works were often adjusted to please buyers.

Shape Shifting

by Drew Martin

In the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, René Auberjonois plays the character Odo who is a shape shifter/changeling. The natural state of this metamorphic species is a shimmering, goopy liquid. Amusingly, his kind refers to humanoids as "solids."

In the Star Trek tradition, Odo is the in-need-of-a-hug show outcast, as was Spock in the original series, as was Data in Next Generation. Unlike these predecessors, ornery Odo is not a logical counterweight or friendly android; he is cantankerous and dismissive.

Not only is Odo the least human of these pivotal characters but he knows nothing about his origin. He serves as the constable on the station and transforms himself in order to spy on suspects and to access areas undetected. He can be a mouse, a bag...even a framed painting.

In the episode The Search, Odo finds his home on a rogue planet and meets others like him. After a brief introduction, he is left alone in an arboretum. When he is rejoined by a maternal figure, she asks him if he has made good use of his time in that garden. He is confused and asks her what she means. She comments that he has been among the "solids" too long and that he should take the shape of the various plants around him in order to understand them better; to assume the form of something is to know it.

This idea has a wonderful extrapolation to art, especially sculpture. I imagine Odo wandering around museums emulating Rodin, Canova, Oldenburg, Calder, Moore and Kapoor.

Michelangelo said he was freeing the human forms that already existed in the blocks of marble. If this sounds a bit too romantic now, it was a conceptual leap at the time.

With Odo in mind, perhaps a great sculpture could be viewed as the transformation of the artist himself or herself into a three dimensional object for our benefit. Additionally, it would be an interesting way to interact with a sculpture. Put aside the analysis, art history and any attempt to figure out what it is trying to "say" and just imagine yourself taking on its properties.

Shattering Boundaries: Grace Hartigan

by Drew Martin

I just watched Grace Hartigan: Shattering Boundaries. It is a documentary about Hartigan, who was one of the first artists to recognize the quality and vitality of abstract expressionism and was part of a community of poets and painters in New York City that went beyond collaboration. Her own work merged figuration and the methodology from abstract expression.

Hartigan (March 28, 1922 — November 15, 2008) claims in the film, that the large scale of American abstract expressionist paintings came from movies...seeing the large heads on the silverscreen, which she recalls as early as 5, had a profound effect on visual artists.

Hartigan posed nude for 95 cents an hour at the Art Student League to make ends meet but stopped because she said it was difficult to discuss and defend her work while naked.

Hartigan contacted and visited Jackson Pollock after his first drip show and commented...

There was then that tremendous feeling that there wasn't just that activity, and you weren't just making an object. That whatever it is in the unknown in the self is deeply involved with the work.

Hartigan was very much a part of that tight knit artist community in New York City. It was said that there was a struggle of ego and insecurity. Ego, because these artists had stolen the art world fire from Paris and felt as if they were changing the world. Insecurity, because they wondered if it really mattered.

When asked in the more commercial era of Warhol how she would like to be called the mother of Pop Art she replied...

I would rather be the precursor of a movement that I hate than a second generation of a movement that I love.

Form & Light, Inform & Delight

by Drew Martin

The film Helvetica is a must-see for any graphic designer. A movie about a font may sound painful to sit through but it is captivating. This weekend I saw another film, which I think is even more important for young designers to watch: Milton Glaser, To Inform & Delight.

The title of the film comes from the 1st Century Roman Poet Horace's statement that the purpose of art is to inform and delight. The opening credits introduce the words form and light before changing into the Horatian title: the play on words is perfect for what follows.

If you are not familiar with Milton Glaser, you just do not know it. He is the artist who came up with the logo for the I Love New York slogan.

As Glaser explains, the project was conceived during a time in the mid 1970s when New York City was going downhill, fast. The new, upbeat saying contributed to the reverse of the decline of morale. The success of the logo, he offers, is because it is a visual puzzle, which makes the person viewing it remember it better than being told directly. Simple as it is, the combination of text and the symbol has to be figured out.

Glaser was one of the first designers to part with the Swiss-informed commercial art world. His post-modern sensibilities embraced previous styles and made them relevant again. He helped found New York magazine and was also behind Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine. His approach to the press was that of service journalism.

As a designer, his first love is drawing, which he explains, is a way of understanding the world and of thinking. He speaks about the balance between solitary creation and collaborative work, the latter preferable...like having a dancing partner. I especially liked one moment when he was talking about a poster he did for the School of Visual Arts. He tossed together a bunch of stickers he did for the school. The edges curled and because he liked the effect, he had them photographed this way. He explained that he could have reached a similar effect on the computer but he would not have stumbled upon it as a physical act.

It is a comment that seems appropriate for other interests he enjoys as much as creating graphic art. He loves music and feels that his visual nods to music and musicians can evoke the response that music does. Likewise, he loves food and compares preparing meals to having the same kind of joy as drawing.

A well known graphic artist referred to him as the total artist. A friend explained that Glaser's hands have no resistance and his drawing is automatic, immediate, complete, unmediated and instantaneous. Glaser is just as well known and admired for his articulation. He speaks about the role of artists and design as a way to interact with people just as certain cultures participated in gift giving in order to pacify each other. Similarly, as with the presents, the absence of the gifts of art results in conflict and "people killing each other."

It makes sense that Glaser created the I Heart New York logo because he is perhaps one of the greatest and most authentic New Yorkers. He was educated at the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts as well as Cooper Union. While he reminisces about what a great education he received he is also quick to point out that New York City is one of the best places to be educated simply as a citizen because of all the free events and lectures and the wealth of the museums.

A Beautiful Mind

by Drew Martin

A picture in a magazine caught my eye a couple months ago. It was of a boy lying on the grass with a vacuum cleaner hose arced over his head. He holds one end at his mouth and the other end at his ear. It is an intriguing picture because of his tranquility and the soft, echoing sounds it creates in your mind when you look at it, but it also a little unsettling.

This picture accompanied an article about autism and is part of a New York Times article with a slideshow that focuses on the boy's condition. The pictures were taken by the father, a professional commercial photographer, of his son. The father approached the project as a way to understand his son's quirks and the young boy contributed to the planning and executing of the shots.

The Aspergers and Autism community blog, thautcast.com, shares my thoughts on the Times' piece that it...

"... is a little more "autistic children are trapped in a cruel world of darkness" than I would like to see in this century..."

The inherent stillness and isolation of the photography has a lot to do with this and the formality of the shoot reinforces a clinical label. Unfortunately, most media representations of unique minds tend to either exaggerate, caricaturize or elevate them to a genius/savant level.

While it is true some autistic kids are cognitively years ahead of their peers and make brilliant musical and artistic connections, I would hesitate to join the camp that proposes autism is a sign of human evolution. I believe that people who display autistic tendencies have greatly contributed to the advancement of civilization and culture with their insights on humanity, arts, sciences and engineering but we are not witnessing the birth of a new species.

The idea of autism as a kind of mental superiority has been criticized as neurelitism, that is, the view that autistics are somehow superior to neurotypicals. This discussion focuses on the individual character blazing new neural paths. If there is progress with our species it is perhaps more about the social aspects that require more parenting and schooling and better parenting and schooling. An autistic child who is diagnosed early should receive much more attention and more of an education than the average kid. This would seem to be consistent with the progress our mammalian bonding and childcare. After all, we do not lay eggs in the sand and then scurry back into the sea. The emotional ties of our kind are forged through long gestation and rearing periods.

So what does autism creatively look like? While Stephen Wiltshire is well known for his detailed cityscapes, I think it should be emphasized that these sophisticated works are the final product of someone with a great visual memory but they do not shed much light on his thought process.

I find autistic sensibilities more accessible in the work of an artist such as Piet Mondrian. The artists most commonly assumed to have been autistic include Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol but I do not think it would be too far a stretch to say that every famous artist, as well as noted scientist, inventor, writer and musician is somewhere on the spectrum.

Autistic and artistic seem at times to be interchangeable.

If you listen to an autistic person explain the singularity and focus of the moment, it sounds familiar to not only how you feel when you are absorbed with the inner world of creation but also when you are immersed in someone else's work and your connection to real-time is severed.

The most common state of art is the finished product but we also can talk about art as a process, an experience, a concept and a performance. All of these are intentional. Even the per-chance dada-ists and their successive action painters were intentional. So are the l'Art Brut creators: they all set out to create.

To understand autism and art, it is important to consider the unintentional: associations made simply to establish relationships and order, which, to an observer may be received as a higher function.

In my long, narrow closet is a stretch of colorful banded carpet made by my aunt-in-law in the Tatra mountains of Poland. I came home the other day to find my three year old's cars lined up by color along the stripes. It was a subtle, beautiful gesture and yet it had nothing to do with an idea of art or decoration. It simply seemed like the right thing to do. I think this example is a nice play on being "on the spectrum" because it is indeed a colorful experience.