Swords to Plowshares

Last week, while walking down Valencia Street in San Francisco, I met a guy...

Noa Batle (not "Battle") is an 18 year old art student who is re-engineering his childhood toys to create a new world option - returning soldiers who adapt to domestic life where war is over.

  

These wee green people are watering plants, 

reading books,

 and vacuuming!

You have until August 27th to help fund Noa's Kickstarter campaign to build an army of "Domestic Soldiers". The link shows how he does it, and gives closeups of his terrific "War Ball" sculpture.

 

Go Do.

 

" And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. "

(Incidentally, it seems I am a long-time admirer of his father's work: graphite sculptures you can use as drawing implements.)

 

Kids Part 3 - Here comes Spring!

Long ago. Words and Pictures of people, a flower, a butterfly and a caterpillar.
The person who sent me this is at Oxford University now.

Hi Tessa. I Received your letter. It is cold here. I loved your writing. I can't...

...wait for Spring. It is so Exciting.

Kids Art Part 2

Ok, here are some of my science report covers:

Joey Reith would like this one

High School was a Difficult time

Some days were joyful, but it was still Prison.

Then came Summer.

Kids Art. The best dreamers.

From the Branford Eagle "Students Paint their Dreams":

I can relate....

A Visit to Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg Brooklyn

There are several reasons to visit Williamsburg NY these days, but there are 2 Major Reasons to go to Metropolitan Avenue this month.

#1 - The Brick This intimate theater (really...like 10 seats in each row) turned out to be airy and enjoyable and staffed by serious-but-fun theater professionals. I went there to see ex-Milford-ite Stephanie Lane perform her "dance-theater show" Lighthouse Triptych.

Lighthouse Triptych is inspired by Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse".  In three stylistically distinct acts interweaving dance, music, and theater, the show follows characters in a family living off the coast of Scotland in the 1910s and '20s, and deals with the passage of time and our perceptions of chaos vs. control.  

Really Really liked it. And I have a Dance Allergy, so that's sayin' something!
Tickets are only $15  Only two shows remain:

Sunday, 6/16 @ 8pm         Wednesday, 6/26 @ 9pm The Brick
579 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn
(take the L to Lorimer or the G to Metropolitan)

Here is an interview with Steph. She is a superior human being.

#2 - Just down the block (or perhaps Up the Block, I got a little turned around) at 555 Metropolitan Ave is a record store owned and run by my friend Nearly Normal Norman.  It is called Norman's Sound and Vision.

Here is an article from the New York Times about Norman in his previous location near Astor Place in Manhattan. High rents forced him out.

Norman is one of the first people I met when I moved to the Village from San Francisco in 1971. That was a few years ago. We have shared a few best friends, whether they knew it or not, in a location and an era we remember fondly for it's intersection of Science Fiction, Progressive Rock, Street Theater, Punk, Fashion, Jazz, Photography, and passion.

Here is a video on Norman being a curmudgeon.
He sells turntables as well as Vinyl, Blessed Vinyl.
Go buy some.

Grab Your Festive Hats!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start your Horses!

Coming Event: Love on Sunday

Come to the Milford Arts Center when M&M Productions present
A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters"
Sunday, April 28th at 2pm
Have you ever known someone who touched every part of your life?
Have you loved someone across time and distance?
Share in the story of Melissa and Andrew as they grow together through the power of the pen!

The Milford Arts Center is great! It occupies what was once a train station (the other side of the tracks still has a waiting room area). The Milford Arts Council arranges for all sorts of musical events, photography and painting shows, plays, and more. Location (you kind of guessed it): 40 Railroad Ave. Milford CT 06460
Easy access by train! Or bus... or car... or bike...

Tickets $15, Members $10
Call 203-878-6647 to reserve your seat for this fantastic show.

A Good Day for Memories

Berkeley Girls, by Elizabeth Lennard

Artist's Statement

"The teenage girls are on their way to school, Berkeley High School. The year is 1968. They are moving forward, sometimes backwards in rhythm to the music. I recovered and transferred this 8mm footage, shot with my friend Warren Franklin when we were teenagers and recently reworked the images digitally.

I often use sequential images in my photography. One of my preoccupations is the relation between the still and moving image and how it can reorganize our sense of time. I am currently digitally scanning some sequences of 'Berkeley Girls' and making blowups. Scanning the tiny 8mm frames can be a precarious process, some of the colors have been altered by time, but rather than correct this, I make the 'random captures' part of the final print. This is my own private 'search for lost time'."

Connie (Constance Rivemale) now lives in Rhodes, where she owns a hotel. Lizzie (Elizabeth Lennard) lives in Paris, making films and theater pieces, and photographic art works.  Warren Franklin, formerly of Industrial Light & Magic, lives in Canada, I believe. Willy de Ville is deceased but had an interesting life and career.

Succulent - by which I mean "moist and tasty"

All photos by Victoria Carpenter
- Taken June 2011 at the San Francisco Succulents Show

Art - Peace - and Coping with Disaster

POKETTO is an interactive installation by Artist Niizeki Hiromi. 
It is on display at

Arts for Peace:  With One Accord
June 10-17, 2011
United Church on the Green
New Haven
A series of music and art events.

She will be at the site Friday, June 17th, the last day of the event.

Japan, where I was born and lived for 25 years, has been experiencing, right now, massive natural and manmade disaster and lost huge amount of lives/things. It is not the matter of one country any more.  I would  love to hear what is valuable for us, what is reality of our life.  "Imagine here is a pocket. If you may find any you like, what would you wish?"

CMA Teaching Artist Niizeki Hiromi has conceived the Poketto art installation as a means to engage our community in a healing response to the earthquake and tsunami that occurred on March 11 in North Eastern Japan. Poketto will enable children and families in Japan and New York City to communicate with each other through a cross-cultural art exchange. We welcome participation from Japan and the rest of the world by way of Facebook and Twitter.

There are two "POKETTO" Facebook pages, one is in Japanese:
       http://www.facebook.com/pages/ポケット-poketto/205360116155261
and another in English:        
        http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poketto/151281431602544

          Statement "POKETTO"

Sixties, in Tokyo, my brother, mother and I laid down on Futon on Tatami as shape of Chinese character River, “川”. Talking how was the day in the school, classmates, Bento lunch etc, while finding snakes and faces among growth rings of wood of the ceiling before to sleep in. My brother and I wanted mom to know all what happened in the day, tried to remember every little things.

Now, 2011. Although time and situation could be different, would you feel like sharing what you want to say or know what others may want to share? Imagine here is a pocket. If you may find any you want in a pocket but only one, what would you wish?

Money? What do you like to buy with it? Why?
Camera? What do you like to shoot with it? Why?

Try to think what you really think important for you. Write it down. Draw it. Create it in 2D or 3D. E-mail it. It will be printed out and put in one of many pockets on the wall of installation POKETTO. I will be working at the site sometime, sewing pockets on the wall filled fabric tarp with needle and thread. […].

You can peek what others left in pockets.

For those looking to provide direct financial assistance to Japanese individuals and families impacted by the disasters, the Japan Society (www.japansociety.org/earthquake) is one several reputable charity organizations that may be contacted.