Creative Thresholds

by Christopher Hutchinson

The current exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection is made up of work by 31 African American artists. It shows more than 200 works of art, occupying the entire 45,000-square-foot exhibition space of the Rubell Family Collection. The show is called “30 Americans” and is a portrait of contemporary African-American art.

The artists presented are: Nina Chanel Abney, John Bankston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Iona Rozeal Brown, Nick Cave, Robert Colescott, Noah Davis, Leonardo Drew, Ren?e Green, David Hammons, Barkley I. Hendricks, Rashid Johnson, Glenn Ligon, Kalup Linzy, Kerry James Marschall, Rodney McMillian, Wangechi Mutu, William Pope.L, Gary Simmons, Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Jeff Sonhouse, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, Purvis Young.
30 Americans. Rubell Family Collection, Miami. Impressions from the Private View on December 4, 2008

The Rubell Family collection “30 Americans” is a very impressive collection of  Black artists.  This exhibition creates a forceful statement by placing African-American artists side by side, precept upon precept, academic and folk as a collective and as individuals.  Names such as Purvis Young, William Pope.L, and Wengchi Mutu are usually separated by a selfish collective taste.  In this exhibition there is a new automatic and organic dialogue that occurs between the vast range of Blackness and its contribution to the Western canon with those typically outside of it.  This exhibition is a huge statement to the fact that Black contribution is not only relegated to Basquiat; rather, Black/African has participated and contributed to a necessary American modern art dialogue.

Many collections of Black/African art are so specific that these obvious relationships are not present and are often seen as opposing points.  The success of this exhibit lies with the over 200 pieces in one place dialoging with each other, even though some of these artists capitalize on the victimhood of Blackness.  The dialogue is more important.  This exhibition can and should be used as a jumping off point young artists/collectors/and critics.

Martin Puryear, Deadeye, detail, 2002, Pine, 58-¼ x 68-1/16 x 13-3/8”, Private collection, Image courtesy McKee Gallery, New York, Photo: Michael Korol, New York © 2007 Martin Puryear. http://arttattler.com/archivepuryear.html

This begs the question.  Why Martin Puryear was not included in this exhibition. Did Puryear’s successful transition into Western academic dialogue exclude him from this dialogue past and present of Blackness?  The Rubells would definitely know of the Yale graduate with numerous accolades.  The quote below by Rubell Family answers the previous questions.

We decided to call [the exhibition] “30 Americans.” “Americans,” rather than “African Americans” or “Black Americans” because nationality is a statement of fact, while racial identity is a question each artist answers in his or her own way, or not at all. And the number 30 because we acknowledge, even as it is happening, that this show does not include everyone who could be in it. The truth is, because we do collect right up to the last minute before a show, there are actually 31 artists in “30 Americans.”
—Rubell Family, November, 2008 – See more at: http://www2.corcoran.org/30americans/artists#sthash.g6ewfeOD.DXC4nVKi.dpuf

Collections

The RFC (Rubell Family Collection) signals a change where it is no longer acceptable to constantly reiterate and validate a collection by acquiring the mandatory Basquiat to be contemporary and acquire a Bearden as the crowning achievement of Black/African authenticity.  The RFC frees the tried and trodden “Black art” rubric to include artists present today.  Many African-American institutional collections are littered with board members that are stuck promoting antiquated notions of what encompasses the Black/African authenticity and forcing new artists to abide by developed Harlem renaissance, never truly surpassing Ernie Barnes’s “J.J” sugar shack.  That “J.J” rubric points to the main problem with those type of collections. They are mostly referential, never actually contemporary—rather, they are doomed to be dated, working backwards in a romanticized Black vocabulary.  At the time the sugar shack was created it was already dated.  The RFC proves this is unacceptable in 2016.

Ernie Barnes
Sugar shack
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/Marvin-gaye-i-want-you.jpg

Globalism & the Universal

“The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term ‘globalization’ to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental.

In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become ‘anti-globalist.’

This is simply vulgar propaganda, like the term ‘anti-Soviet’ used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum, called ‘anti-globalization’ in the propaganda system—which happens to include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions.

The WSF is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can think of, apart from the extremely narrow highly privileged elites who meet at the competing World Economic Forum, and are called ‘pro-globalization’ by the propaganda system.

An observer watching this farce from Mars would collapse in hysterical laughter at the antics of the educated classes.”—Noam Chomsky http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2016/04/wef-world-economic-forum-3340968.html

How the RFC differs from a typical globalist/universal exhibition is while globalism/universal exhibitions claim to present an inclusive art theory and methodology, they often do not, rather they accomplish the subjugation of indigenous peoples under the Western rubric of formal investigation.  If the formal rubric cannot be imposed then another artist is chosen that has indigenous qualities that can still qualify as new “discovery” under the formal elements. This “discovery” paints a “savior” view of the indigenous people in where the native is still dependent on the “discovery” of the West to be valid.

Global exhibitions are filled with artists like Martin Puryear where the indigenous aesthetic is suppressed to connect the visual language of the formal.  Globalism allows the stagnation of Western academia mastered in graduate school to spread to the globe under the pretense of advocating for the indigenous.  It is in this deceit that Puryear is muddled.

African-Americans should not edit their work to “Pass” into a Western vernacular that relies heavily on the African aesthetic.  The cost of “Passing” is too high, so high it too becomes just as dead as the West.  Do not entertain these calculated stipulations that Puryear subscribes to that has made him successful.  “Passing” constantly needs validation.

Christopher Hutchinson is an accomplished Jamaican conceptual artist, professor and contributor to the art community as a writer, critic and founder of the nonprofit Smoke School of Art. He is a Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and has been featured as a lecturer including prestigious engagements at University of Alabama and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. For two decades, Chris has been a practicing artist. His works have been exhibited in internationally recognized institutions including City College New York (CUNY) and featured at the world’s leading international galleries such as Art Basel Miami. He has always had an innate passion for creating spaces where Africans and people of African descent contribute to an inclusive contemporary dialogue—ever evolving, not reflexive but pioneering. This requires challenging the rubric of the canon of art history, a systemic space of exclusion for the Other: women and non-Whites, and where necessary he rewrites it. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.

by Freddy Kirsheh

Angelic thought – digital painting

Concentration – digital painting

Dany – digital painting

Herz-Jesu – digital painting

Horse by the sea- digital painting

Modern global sensations – digital painting

Moments of creativity – digital painting

Palettre Spectra – digital painting

Peace Dove – altered water colors

Peace of mind – digital painting

Sans parole – altered water colors

The greatest Creation- digital painting

SHATTERED SELVES – 2014 Mixed media- drawing & digital painting

What Could Be In Woman’s Heart – digital painting

Why you stone me – digital painting

Artist: Freddy Kirsheh

Place and Date of Birth:                Damascus / 19.05.1953

Lives in Vienna

Fine Arts,  BA  degree  in interior design

Working  in  Interior  Design Decoration and  graphic design

His interior design and artworks works  was in: Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Sharjah, Dubai, Athens, Paris, New York

freddy-kirsheh.fineartamerica.com

https://www.facebook.com/Freddy.Kirsheh

by Aurora Art

Bursting with Joy

I have been creating what I like to call Organic Abstract Art on my ipad now for about a year. I am self taught, and follow no rules other than the often untamed but fearless musings of my soul…

Dance of Souls

My training as a dancer and my work with textiles combine in my art and allow the creation of pieces that have depth of both texture and movement – abstracts that come organically from inner impulses – to me it is as if I am dancing when I create my pieces –I have always believed in the beauty of improvisational dance – the creation of a pure moment – and so it is when I create these pieces…

Continuous Energy Flow

Energy and Flow feature again and again in my pieces – the energy that is within us all, is all encompassing, and from where creativity flows …

Natural flow

Flow to unfold all …
Fleeing familiarity
And swiftly turn to face freedom…

Art is indeed food for the soul, which in turn nourishes our awareness and consciousness…this piece I created for my cousin Maren (meaning sea) we were very close when we were children although our meetings were few  – magical days spent by the waters edge.

Maren

See you then the world little one, from afar
Never in it, but as if from a distant plain
Take the sorrows and let them wash over your skin
Enfold in your small tiny arms each weeping joy
And every moment, devour it in your sweet breath
Innocent eyes on every beauty feast

Take the blood that runs in your veins
And run with it to the waters edge
Where you drink of sweet purity
To cleanse your inner heart
And there do rest and stay awhile
To listen to the earth singing to you
Its sweet song of life

I love discovering new textures and delve deeply with effects and layers.

Inner Elegance

I have no fixed image in mind when I start and they are often created very quickly…with swift dance like movements.

As My Soul Dances and Plays

Yooxayatangi

I am constantly surprised by the textures that can be achieved … almost like textile art.

Deepsea

Dark Matters

Being a dancer by nature, I find words often limiting and prefer the art to speak for itself…

From Where it all Comes

Cold Abstraction

Between Worlds

Vulnerable Homeless

Quiet Confidence

Justwhenyouthinkyouknow

in Harmony

Artist: Aurora Art

Learn more about Aurora and her art here:

Twitter: @Auroraart1

https://society6.com/auroraarts

https://crated.com/AuroraArt

http://www.redbubble.com/people/auroraarts1/portfolio

by Nola Kelsey

Some artist’s stories simply cannot be separated from one another or the canvas would be blank. I am not an overly emotional being. Not self-analytical, nor prone to spontaneous outbreaks of poetry, as many creative spirits appear to be. That was my mother,  artist/poet/teacher, Avonelle Kelsey (1931-2009), a diverse, unstoppable force in the San Diego area art scene for nearly three decades. Born to create, Mom lived life in full color. Much to her dismay, I was born fully dressed in dull beige Zoo Keeper garb – all Zoology, all the time. Life science was my true passion. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed great art, galleries, etc. After all, I was raised in her studios. But my life was 95% wildlife, 4.5% art and everything else (if there was anything else) blurred inconsequentially off to the sides. Such it was for 44 years. And then it happened.

Upon Avonelle’s death, I became responsible for an astronomical amount of artwork. I also had a significantly pesky oath. In her final years, Mom repeatedly made me swear to protect her creations. Along with that responsibility, I had inadvertently become the keeper of her creative legacy. Shit! This was not zoology. Yet, it was evolution. She finally got me.

My transformation from science fanatic to artist obsessive was startlingly was fast. A  year long art sale began with a growing intimacy to each of Mom’s paintings during multiple photo sessions.  Sculpture were matched to her written works and/or paintings. Questions were researched for collectors. So much packing and shipping. Lastly there was the book. That sneaky, buggery book. I was already an author. Years earlier my inability to play well with others had taken me from working with animals to writing about them, mostly in the form of educating travelers about animals within the pages of detail-heavy travel guides focused on global volunteer programs. But then came Mom’s book.

Working with all those images of paintings it hit me like a ton of clay. The formatting, creating of marketing materials, cover design–that was what I loved about writing books. I produced travel guides so efficiently because I was anticipating getting to the next cover design. Good news, I actually hated writing! Bam! I was back in college studying Graphic Design within a month. Three years later, I can’t imagine not creating every day. As an artist I admittedly am a fledgling,  still learning,  still growing. I am also still 4.5% zoologist,  communicating messages about nature and animals, care and conservation, but I have evolved to do so visually – much to my own dismay.

Deprived

Colorist

Naturalist

Honey

Songwriter

Birder

Ocean

Flora and Fauna

Crested Gibbon

Contemplating the Butterfly Effect

Asperger’s

Rift

About the Ostrich

Kanji Zen with Enso

Live Your Art

Nola Lee Kelsey is an American-born Digital Artist living in Southern Thailand. In addition to creating and selling prints from her own artwork, Nola also has a wide range of online shops where her digital images, and her late mother’s fine art paintings, are used to create a wide variety of uniquely artistic merchandise.

Nola Lee Kelsey Gallery: http://www.NolaKelsey.com

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Nola_Lee_Kelsey

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nola_Lee_Kelsey

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolaleekelsey

Avonelle Kelsey Gallery: http://www.AvonelleKelsey.com

by Christopher Hutchinson

Martin Puryear
http://www.michaelwolfsculpture.com/uploads/1/9/8/2/19823637/8987829_orig.jpg

There is a simplistic, minimal aesthetic present in Puryear’s work that is undeniably beautiful. He uses the material organically to create semi abstract pieces that have figurative quality and yet not limited by the figure itself. The figure being manipulated and molded is Africa.

To credit these objects for their aesthetic minimal qualities means one should immediately correlate African wood working practice as intelligent design, and it is unfortunate it does not. If Puryear’s work is received as Western mastery and African woodworking is his teacher, then a deeper look into African aesthetics should be noted in Africa’s contribution to modern art. Labeling of his work as post minimalist is insufficient.

The mining of Africa’s aesthetic and ritual that began with Picasso has become a standard practice in Western academia to the point where the visual language of Africa is considered Western. It is not. This pilfering of Africa still has no recompense or tax. This tax free appropriation used over and over again to make the West relevant once more. This can be seen in cubism, surrealism, and arte povera.

Arte Povera

Ar·te Po·ver·a

a style and movement in art originating in Italy in the 1960s combining aspects of conceptual, minimalist, and performance art, and making use of worthless or common materials such as stones or newspapers, in the hope of subverting the commercialization of art.- 1960s: Italian, literally ‘impoverished art,’ from arte ‘art’ + povera (feminine of povero‘needy’) https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=art%20povera

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Venus of the Rags (1967, 74)
http://www.escapeintolife.com/art-reviews/michelangelo-pistoletto-venus-of-rags/

To be a true ecologist today, one must re-establish the aesthetics of beauty within the realm of human trash and material waste. –Slavoj Žižek

http://www.escapeintolife.com/art-reviews/michelangelo-pistoletto-venus-of-rags/

Arte Povera once again acknowledges the stagnation of western academia and proposes a rail against this limit by including trash/outsider as a point of inspiration. The Zizek quote points to the inauthentic intellectual guise wrapped up in this movement. Michaelangelo Pistoletto’s Venus of rags would seem to fulfill the hope to “re-establish the aesthetics of beauty” of Zizek. Does Venus of rags accomplish this re-establishment? It does not.

Like most movements that attempt to redefine Western academia based on the established aesthetic, all that is accomplished is an affirmation of the binary. Pistolletto’s Venus accomplishes that binary where it is clear that Venus is still Venus, even if she is turned and looking at trash, and the trash is still trash. The binary is reinforced not swayed. Povera’s illustration of the binary has now become the definition of commercial or the new rubric to an acceptable commercialism.

The West’s constant search to appropriate and inject new life in the dead lineage of its academia poses a primary concern for all those wishing to gain acceptance and validation of their work from the same. Those validated by the West breathe life back into the lingering notions of aesthetics.

Black, White & Gray

This systemic issue is problematic when considering the success and politics of art makers. At times it may seem that there is no other way but to accept the terms of academia but that is simply not true. There is a way to retain ones artistic integrity and aesthetic.

https://westwardexhibition.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/mark-bradford3.jpg

Mark Bradford was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1961. He received a BFA (1995) and MFA (1997) from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into wall-size collages and installations that respond to the impromptu networks—underground economies, migrant communities, or popular appropriation of abandoned public space—that emerge within a city. Drawing from the diverse cultural and geographic makeup of his southern Californian community, Bradford’s work is as informed by his personal background as a third-generation merchant there as it is by the tradition of abstract painting developed worldwide in the twentieth century. Bradford’s videos and map-like, multilayered paper collages refer not only to the organization of streets and buildings in downtown Los Angeles, but also to images of crowds, ranging from civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s to contemporary protests concerning immigration issues. http://www.art21.org/artists/mark-bradford

Mark Bradford amongst others exist in black & white and fear the gray. Bradford exists with integrity and aesthetic. Both Bradford and Puryear have received have been featured on Art21. Bradford differs from Puryear in his clarity of and honesty of material which is then manipulated aesthetically.

Bradford uses found material from his community, not out of pity or sentiment, but an investigation of the language promoted in the community. He uses it as fuel for his artistic practice and does not shy away from its origin. Bradford’s work is also not limited by its origin, nor has it become a spectacle of Blackness. His work achieves a critique of the West without illustrating the binary and upholding its rubric.

Bradford uses found material from his community, not out of pity or sentiment, but an investigation of the language promoted in the community. He uses it as fuel for his artistic practice and does not shy away from its origin. Bradford’s work is also not limited by its origin, nor has it become a spectacle of Blackness. His work achieves a critique of the West without illustrating the binary and upholding its rubric.

Postcolonial Thoughts: Martin Puryear “Passing through the color line” continues next month with Part III.

Christopher Hutchinson is an accomplished Jamaican conceptual artist, professor and contributor to the art community as a writer, critic and founder of the nonprofit Smoke School of Art. He is a Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and has been featured as a lecturer including prestigious engagements at University of Alabama and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. For two decades, Chris has been a practicing artist. His works have been exhibited in internationally recognized institutions including City College New York (CUNY) and featured at the world’s leading international galleries such as Art Basel Miami. He has always had an innate passion for creating spaces where Africans and people of African descent contribute to an inclusive contemporary dialogue—ever evolving, not reflexive but pioneering. This requires challenging the rubric of the canon of art history, a systemic space of exclusion for the Other: women and non-Whites, and where necessary he rewrites it. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.

by K.D. Rose

K.D. would like to thank the incredible artist George RedHawk (DarkAngel0ne on social media) for permission to combine her words with his art.

What Belongs to You

Ethereal

Rides in the car
loosening in the still light,
running like a deer through God’s house.
Skywalker.
Mindbender.
A leap into the glimmering.
Traveler.
One with something like air and water but neither.
Feels like music.

Futures

He stands in the doorway
ecstatic in the book of the sun,
thinks he bought me,
so I offer him fare trade−
the luxury of commerce
on a wet night of uncertain weather.
We unbutton the horizon.

The Tall in the Small

You will never be a stone in the sky.

With both hands dancing,
you will nurse wild forests,
seek matter uneven,
holy antennas reaching,
footlights for the blind,
living candlelit lives
while ghosts rail with bad advice.

You are the naked light.

K. D. Rose is a poet and author who has books published in multiple genres. Her newest release is The Brevity of Twit. K. D.’s poetry has been published in Candlelit Journal, the Voices Project, and showcased in the Tophat Raven Art and Literary Magazine. Her poetry has also been accepted for publication in The Stray Branch Fall/Winter 2016 issue. K. D.’s book, Inside Sorrow, won the Readers Favorite 2013 International Silver Medal for Poetry.

by Christopher Hutchinson

PBSArt21

The Museum of Modern Art presents a major exhibition of the sculpture of the acclaimed American artist Martin Puryear (b. 1941). The retrospective will feature approximately forty-five sculptures, following the development of Puryear’s artistic career over the last thirty years, from his first solo museum show in 1977 to the present day. Puryear began his career in the 1970s alongside other members of the Post-Minimalist generation. Working primarily in wood, he has maintained an unwavering commitment to manual skill and traditional building methods. His sculptures are rich with psychological and intellectual references, examining issues of identity, culture, and history. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication illustrating all works in the exhibition, with additional reference illustrations of the artist’s works and other comparative material. http://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/28?locale=en

Western Bloodline

Without question Martin Puryear has secured his space in Western art as a master sculptor. He has been regarded by many as being among elite sculptors of any nationality. He has successfully transcended “race” and his work is received as purely art. Not art with an asterisk. Puryear achieved this without the implementation of overt ethnicity, sympathy and propaganda.

Puryear has lead by example the proof of how to be successful as an African American artist within the Western art rubric. Puryear is fully accepted into the Western art vernacular as if there was and is no difference between Africa and the West at all. He is neatly included in the “Post-Minimalist generation”. This is the smoothest transition into the Western academia by an African American artist to date. This rarity of smooth transition deserves an inquiry.

Martin Puryear. Bower. 1980. Sitka spruce and pine, 64″ x 7′ 10 3/4″ x 26 5/8″ (162.6 x 240.7 x 67.6 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.Chttp://www.moma.org/d/assets/W1siZiIsIjIwMTUvMTAvMTQvMm80ZjF2dHg0b18xMzU2MS5qcGciXSxbInAiLCJjb252ZXJ0IiwiLXJlc2l6ZSAyMDAweDIwMDBcdTAwM0UiXV0/13561.jpg?sha=aa0796293d9d8397

Passing as an Artist

Passing: African Americans and other minorities were historically discriminated against in the U.S., so the fair-skinned offspring of whites and people of color often pretended to be white to take advantage of the opportunities that would’ve otherwise been denied to them. This practice is known as passing or passing for white. It often required individuals to leave their hometowns and family members behind to ensure that they’d never come across anyone who knew their true racial origins. http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/g/Definition-Of-Passing.htm

Many young minority artists wish for the anonymity of Whiteness when it comes to their work. These artists crave a world where the artwork comes first before skin tone. Many of these artists will inevitably hatch a plan to make a beautiful exhibition and hire a White person to pretend to be them during the exhibition to attempt to get an honest response to the artwork, not skin tone then response and then eventually assumptions.

Many of these artists that begin down this path end up with work that no longer reflects them. They end up ghosts that produce pretty objects, objects that are manufactured by IKEA. Only focused on commercial success. Wanting to “pass” is a dangerous proposition that could consume your entire artistic practice.

Puryear’s work begins at an authentic African place and has succeeded in “passing”-Why and how? YALE’s Master of Fine Art department along with an impeccable mastery of craftsmanship go a long way in that smooth transition into the Western credence. Puryear’s new canon’s first stipulation is to educate yourself. You must know where your work fits in the analogs of history. The second order is to make the work impeccable. These mandates immediately remove your artwork from the category of folk, primitive, street, naïve and outsider art-outside of Western academia.

Contemporary artist Martin Puryear carefully considered the site requirements before designing and fabricating That Profile , the large-scale sculpture commissioned for and installated on the Getty Center’s Tram Arrival Plaza. In this video, Puryear’s comments about the design process accompany footage of the sculpture being made, transported, and installed.

Avoidance of Africa

African Mende carved wooden Janus mask, Sierra Leone. Double sided figural visages. 17″H.http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/217/70217.jpg

Mr. Puryear’s experience with wood, his signature material, has a long history. His father was an amateur carpenter, and he made guitars while in college. As a member of the Peace Corps, he learned “old world joinery” from local woodworkers in Sierra Leone. While attending the Swedish Royal Academy, Mr. Puryear spent three weeks in the studio of furniture maker James Krenov https://mnaves.wordpress.com/tag/contemporary-sculpture/

Stipulation number three, avoid directly addressing Africa, race, ritual, and identity. To do so would pull the work back into the realm of folk. This avoidance is crucial to the commercial longevity of an artist that has “passed”. The need to distance oneself from Africa preserves the Western rubric. This reasoning leads to this acceptance of Puryear’s work as Minimalism and Formalism first primarily. These mandates allow his clearly African practice to be in a visual limbo.

This visual limbo presents itself as the “universal” or “global” aesthetic where any quasi-indigenous people could possibly make it. In this global/universal dialogue the work can and could be applied and credited to many different art movements, all of which use Africa as a springboard to become Avant guard or relevant again while Africa remains primitive. It is easy to see how could be linked to post-minimalism.

Often associated with both Minimalism and Formalist sculpture, Puryear rejects that his work is ever non-referential or objective. The pure and direct imagistic forms born from his use of traditional craft are allusive and poetic, as well as deeply personal. Visually, they encounter the history of objects and the history of their making, suggesting public and private narratives including those of the artist, race, ritual, and identity. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Puryear-Catalog-from-show-Art-Institute-of-Chicago-Neal-Benezra-/252222144694

This inquiry leads us to this topic. If Puryear is only using Africa as a point of appropriation and inspiration, then how is he any different than Picasso? And if he is acting like Picasso, operating from a colonial view of Africa then he should also be held accountable for that as he continues subjugation of Africa to exalt the West. Herein lays a major problem with attending any institution. If during the process of receiving your desired degree one actually reinforces the Western canon.

Some may say Puryear is not actually avoiding anything; rather he is very subtly and subversively handling such divisive topics as race, identity, and ritual. Those who entertain this thought should be reminded of Puryear’s other stipulation…every opportunity one has to speak about his/her work, make as many references to iconic Western art history. He is not subtle about the West.

Christopher Hutchinson is an accomplished Jamaican conceptual artist, professor and contributor to the art community as a writer, critic and founder of the nonprofit Smoke School of Art. He is a Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and has been featured as a lecturer including prestigious engagements at University of Alabama and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. For two decades, Chris has been a practicing artist. His works have been exhibited in internationally recognized institutions including City College New York (CUNY) and featured at the world’s leading international galleries such as Art Basel Miami. He has always had an innate passion for creating spaces where Africans and people of African descent contribute to an inclusive contemporary dialogue—ever evolving, not reflexive but pioneering. This requires challenging the rubric of the canon of art history, a systemic space of exclusion for the Other: women and non-Whites, and where necessary he rewrites it. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.

by William Michaelian

Am I truly limited by my senses, or are they, too, imagined? Can I prove my own existence? Is such proof desirable, or even necessary? What of my childhood, and everything else I am in the habit of believing I remember? Is memory a thing of the present? Is it a story told, and then countless times retold, changing and continuing of its own volition and accord? Drawing and writing; waking and dreaming; fiction and reality; life and death — I simply feel no need to know where, or if, one ends and the other begins. Does that make me strange? And yet what is strangeness, but the very delight of a beautiful, unaccountable world, ever the more vivid once we have learned to let it go?

Going Home

By firmly gripping a pencil in grade school and beyond, I developed a callous on the middle finger of my right hand. It’s still there, to the left and just below the nail, despite the fact that I’ve been typing almost exclusively for decades.

When I was small, my father found a clump of white asparagus growing in the vineyard. He dug it out and planted it by our house well. It fed us faithfully each spring.

I remember my father
walking on the hard dirt avenue
at the end of the vineyard
rows behind our
house,

the cuffs turned up
on his jeans, the dust and sticks
and weeds, his impatient
stride, having to run
to stay beside
him

that hot July when I was four
and he was thirty-seven,

but I don’t recall our destination,
or what he did when we
arrived, what I said,

or his reply.

Once, on a hot summer evening, I aimed a BB gun at our old wooden basketball goal and fired. The shot bounced back and hit me in the forehead. I fished it out of the dust and put it in my pocket. I don’t remember what I did after that.

When I was about ten, I took nine snails from the irrigation ditch that ran alongside the east end of our farm and put them in the aquarium on top of my chest of drawers. A few weeks later, the aquarium was teeming with snails.

My first car was a bicycle. My first bicycle was a scooter. My first scooter was a tricycle. My first bus ride was in a dusty red wagon.

One night, my mother’s Aunt Mildred took out her teeth and showed them to me.

In the kitchen during a family get-together, with my mother looking on, I ate a piece of uncooked marinated lamb intended for shish kebab. It tasted good and I didn’t feel ill at all, but I never did it again.

We grew all of our tomatoes back then, and bought all of our onions and parsley.

Same as now, there were stars in those days that had no need of names.

If I were a lizard on a woodpile, I would still be able to write, but I would do it differently.

If I were a pumpkin on a vine, I would want to face east so I could watch the sun rise.

If I were a faithful old hound, my name would be Bill.

Late one night, driving home with some friends from the mountains, I pulled off the road, stopped the car, and told everyone to get out and look at the stars. They did, in amazed silence. I wonder if they remember that now.

I still feel thrilled when I find a marble.

Back in his heyday, Willie Mays lived near my cousin’s house in San Francisco. We rang his doorbell. No one answered.

My father used to chase them when he was a kid, but I myself have never seen a roadrunner.

The first thing I smoked was a nickel cigar.

To this day, I feel funny referring to myself as a man. A man was always someone older, someone responsible. My father and grandfather were men. I am still a boy.

I cannot blow my nose using my right hand. It has to be the left.

I always tie my left shoe first.

I kick with my left foot.

The first poem I remember reading is “O Captain! My Captain!”

When I first started piano lessons, I used to sing with every note. The teacher told my mother I had perfect pitch.

There are some things I will never write about. That, too, is how you will know me.

William Michaelian is an American writer, artist, and poet. His most recent book is the Tenth Anniversary Authorized Print Edition of his first novel, A Listening Thing. He lives in Salem, Oregon.

Website: http://www.william-michaelian.com

by Lita Poliakova

Artist: Lita Poliakova

LITA (Life Is Torturing Awesome)

**.**.**** – **.**.****

Created from restless remains, void-originated, Lita is an intrusive person, yes, she cares! She
prettifies her carnal residence by digestion and contemplations. Trances daily and composes,
carves, paints, and tears to shreds. Recklessly destroys order, desperately creates meanings,
and painfully broadens the track. Lives afield. Ecstatically respects alive!

http://www.litapoliakova.com
https://www.facebook.com/litapoliakova
https://www.instagram.com/litapoliakova/

On December 21, 2015–Winter Solstice, the day with the longest night of the year–a dear friend and an extraordinary human being said goodbye to life on earth. His name is Walt Pascoe and many of you know of his very human, honest, luminescent, and soaring artwork–artwork that matches his spirit completely. Many of you also knew the man himself–and, if so, feel the loss keenly.

Walt wrote an essay, accompanied by artwork, for Creative Thresholds three years ago–it ran December 21, 2012 (this is uncanny, perhaps fitting)–about his struggle with colon cancer. A searing, poignant, and brutally honest account of his experience. I’m choosing to run it again in honor of this amazing human being and friend.

We miss you, Walt.

Melissa
Curator/editor

Savage Uncertainties On The Road Home

by Walt Pascoe

And but so yeah.

Having recovered nicely from the insult of surgery to resect 10 inches of my large intestine, I was more or less happily bobbing back up to the surface of my murky little emotional pond. It had been disappointing to learn that cancer cells were already frolicking around my lymph system like unruly children, and that the tender wisdom of western medical modalities dictated a course of prophylactic chemo. But after a brief time for contemplation and acceptance I’d come to terms with “stage 3” and prepared myself accordingly. There was the relatively minor surgery to insert a semi-permanent, sub-cutaneous port in my chest for easy access to a major artery, and the inevitable institutional waltz w/ the doctors office and insurance company to pre-approve this gold-plated poisoning. And finally a couple more visits to the various scan-masters for more complete head to thigh reconnoitering of my tender corpus, in order to be doubly sure there were no other cancerous redoubts hidden under a rock somewhere. All this transpired in a relatively compressed time-frame, the doctors and staff proceeding w/ an admirable, if not entirely reassuring, sense of professional urgency. And so it came to pass that my oncologist only received the latest reports the night before I showed up to begin chemo infusions.

The six-month course of chemo for my particular cancer goes by the vaguely militaristic sounding acronym FOLFOX. Essentially it involves kicking back in the coolest recliner you’ve ever seen while various anti-nausea meds and the main chemical arsenal are deployed sequentially for a few hours. (What is it with all the battle metaphors?) One of the meds is more effective if administered in small bursts over 46 hours, so before you’re allowed to leave a pump is hooked up to your port and you wear this home. Its a robust little programmable squirt machine that looks more or less like the FedEx guys’ scanner, and you get to wear it on a belt around your waist or over your shoulder. So much for any shred of sartorial hipness I might have been clinging to in the waning years of middle age semi-decrepitude. On the bright side, the pump makes a rhythmic clicking sound which, while lying on the bed next to me at night, is not without a certain comforting intimacy…

“Incantations on the Road Home” 48”x64” Graphite on gessoed panel

Wait… what?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Turns out there was in fact a further metastasis. Stage 4. Another decent sized tumor wrapped around a bronchial tube near the entry point into my left lung, snuggly nestled next to my heart; a weirdly poetic location given the stressful mid-life transitions I’d been enduring of late, but one that rendered it inoperable. So a second biotherapy (a monoclonal antibody called Avastin) was added to the FOLFOX chemo regimen, all to be administered over a 6 month period…

“Raven Gets In” 48”x60” Oil on canvas

“I always put lime on the people I kill. Wait… are you calling 911?” ~ Drunk guy in a Mexican restaurant, as related by my friend Melissa Johnston.

And so it seems that cancer has created the mother of all liminal spaces in my life. And it is from this strangely pregnant territory that I peer out into the… I want to say abyss… but like so many words now it seems inadequate, overused, and worked to within an inch of its word-ly life by the incessant hype culture hum we wallow in. The title of some crappy movie, complete with cross-licensed plastic action figures free w/ your next Happy Meal. And seriously, how many of us ever reach beyond the tremulous shadow of the concept and endeavors to actually process this deep down inside our whirring, buzzing lizard-brains? It crouches at the center of your chest like a cold rock, pulling you down through the turbid water more effectively than the finest cement shoes. Who the heck would want to go there voluntarily? Who…

“Fatal Shore” 48”x64” Acrylic on canvas

Blaise Pascal wrote in “Pensées,” “We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.”

It’s amazing how emotions flow just like weather.

I can go along doing what I think of as “well”: feeling optimistic, comfortable being alone, celebrating the liminal, accepting the transitory nature of things, handling the chemo, sensing health and wholeness on a walk in Whites Woods, meditating, reading, feeling a measured enthusiasm for the future w/o treating the present like just something to be got through, the master of silver linings, counting my blessings, deeply grateful for the love and support of my friends and family, acquaintances at the Post Office saying “hey, you look great”, relieved by the fact that I haven’t yet assumed the grayish-blue pallor of the wasting.

And then there will be this slow creeping intimation of unease, like a little darkening on the horizon. Just a few clouds on an otherwise sunny day…

Stillness and solitude in White’s Woods, Litchfield

Willem DeKooning referred to himself as a “slipping glimpser”.

As the storm gathers and starts to darken my interior landscape I can feel the slipping; the accumulation of tension in my heart and body. Fear, longing, and worry… a somatic ache that fluidly transmutes into a profound and painful spiritual dread if not checked quickly by some distraction. This is where it gets tricky being alone. It is so much easier to distract yourself from it when you are with other people. Just ignore and bury it in the cosmopolitan joy of human culture and friendship. Or loose yourself engineering a life.

“[…] almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of ‘psst’ that you usually can’t even hear because you’re in such a rush to or from something important you’ve tried to engineer. ”
~ David Foster Wallace in “Infinite Jest”.

I guess this terror has always been present, and is for every human being. We do with it what we will. Tune it out. Turn it into art or literature. Transmogrify the brutal fact of our inevitable decay into infinite varieties of work and the illusion of progress. Am I thinking too much?! This is not always true. There are times when laughter and joy come in solitude and I can revel in it. But the laughter is hardened and forced when you are filled w/ grief at the prospect of loosing all you love… threatened in such an immediate, tangible way… I’m attached to my attachments! A lousy Buddhist if ever there was one! It’s amazing how I can go along feeling buoyant about the possibility of remission… and oh the delirious possibility of “durable remission”, held out there like the most seductive of outcomes. And then just tank for awhile… fall into the dark… gazing up into a night sky perversely ornamented with PET scan constellations of cancerous cells awash in radioactively tagged glucose, collaged all over my chest and neck, blinking out an inscrutable code… exhausted from the grasping after some more universal, ever-present , capital “L” Love. God. Some hopeful bulwark against the immensity of the void surrounding my fearful and trembling self. A glimpse perhaps…

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(Collected Poems)

And so it goes. Alone with the Alone. It is a choice. A pseudo-monastic exile, punctuated by genuinely caring and helpful visits from my loved ones and the logistics of the chemo rhythm. Simone Weil said “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”…

“Exile Study No.4 ~ Perdita” ink and graphite on paper, 22″x 30″

And what exactly is it that I am attending to now?

Seeking Now through mindful solitude. That word, though: seeking! Seeking itself one of the most seductive of attachments. After the briefest foray into the silence, I flee back into the endless loop of intellectual and aesthetic dialogue w/ the dead. With those I’ve chosen to valorize as artistic mentors for 30 years: David Smith and Charles Olson. And into the radiating web of endlessly fascinating threads that fan out from their volcanic productions. Back into yet another painting or drawing, searching searching searching, always searching… wading through a rich but terrifying uncertainty…

“The Secret Life of Wind” 48”x64” graphite on gessoed panel

“Sometimes when I start a sculpture, I begin with only a realized part, the rest is travel to be unfolded much in the order of a dream. The conflict for realization is what makes art not its certainty, nor its technique or material.”
–David Smith

In Alex Stein and Yahia Lababidi’s wonderful conversation, “The Artist as Mystic”, Yahia quotes Heidegger: “Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant.” This resonates now. Not just a little! The words vibrate in my chest as if I were standing alongside a huge, beautifully wrought bell being rung. Small pieces of the rock crouching there begin to fall…

“The Chain of Memory is Resurrection I” 30”x40” graphite and acrylic on bristol board

Writer and artist: Walt Pascoe

Please check out more of Walt’s art at http://www.waltpascoe.com/.