Artistic Surprises

Last weekend I took my mother to the Berkshires for her birthday. One of our planned-for visits was the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

My mom has always been a fan of his paintings. Most people are, I suppose, and for good reason - they are easy to enjoy. They are old-timey and nostalgic, perfect little slices of Americana. Come Christmas, our house fairly drowns in Norman Rockwell paraphernalia - books, statues, ornaments. I like them. I approve.

But as we wandered through the museum, which is beautiful and simple, a small white house set atop some rolling hills deep in the mountains, this particular painting caught my eye.

It's called Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi). He painted it in 1965, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It honors three civil rights workers who, as retribution for their work helping African Americans register to vote, were kidnapped by members of the Ku Klux Klan, driven to a secluded area, beaten, and executed at close range.

Three real men. The shadows of the killers to the right, holding their rifles. The last man standing, looking towards his death, is what I kept coming back to. The set of his shoulders, the defiance in his eyes as he holds his dying friend in his arms. The dark monotony of the colors, the heaviness of everything, all that stark light. The brushstrokes at the top are severe, almost angry. The texture of the painting was so thick, I had to fight myself from reaching out to touch it.

I kept leaving to explore other rooms in the museum, but drifted back to this painting again and again. I couldn't stop looking at it. I'm not sure I've ever reacted so viscerally to a painting before. Something about the blend of hopelessness and strength absolutely arrested me. The light in his face.

Turns out Norman Rockwell was a photographer first. He'd hire models, or more often than not, use his own family and friends as subjects. He'd decide upon a pose and a setting, take photos until it was exactly right, and then use the photos for reference while he painted. The man still standing, in the photo that became the painting, was actually one of his sons.

He painted a lot during the Civil Rights Movement, in fact. Many difficult subjects, a lot of bold and very liberal work. I kept finding myself drawn towards those paintings, the bleak, complicated ones, rather than the nostalgic stuff he is normally known for.

Prior to this I pictured Norman Rockwell - if I thought about him at all - as a sweet old man in a sweater vest. A blend of Mr. Rogers and Jimmy Stuart, maybe. I see something totally different now. And I find it a wonder that he is remembered for his (admittedly lovely) paintings of children and puppies and young couples in love, when he also was capable of creating something as chilling and dark as this.

In summary: museums are for learning!

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http://www.bethhoeckel.com

Who is this mysterious chinese man? I like him.

Terry Fan

Advice to Myself

Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have it's way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic - decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink mold will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

- Louise Erdich

If I'm reading a poem, or watching a movie or listening to a song or just taking in any sort of art, really, I like to pay particular attention to the gut check moment. The one moment, or line, or note, that reaches out through the clutter and the beauty of the rest and brands you right on the heart with its intensity.

I always note that moment for me. In this poem, it's the line: Don't answer the telephone, ever, or weep over anything at all that breaks. It might as well be written in bold, or highlighted in bright yellow, it leaps out at me with that much strength and weight. It shines. It's something to do with the rhythm of the word "ever," the sudden intensity within the whole line. The poet is remembering something particular. Something that made her want to weep, but she refused to fold into her own instincts. I makes me think of all the times I have refused myself the same moment of weakness, how many kitchens or bedrooms or backyards I might have stood in and disallowed myself to fall apart. And the ways in which that refusal to give in can mean strength, but can just as easily be a weakness. It takes strength to feel something - anything - deeply enough to cry. I don't know if I agree with this line or disagree, but either way it catches my heart, and flickers like that are always, always worth noticing.

I enjoy noting these moments to myself, and wondering about them - why that line? What is it about me that responds to that piece more than anything else? But what I really like noticing is what jumps out at other people.

Lots of people don't pay attention to the little things; they just absorb the larger whole and then move on. Neither way is right or wrong, of course. But I relate best to the type of people who chew things over, who are both attentive enough, and self-aware enough, to feel those moments, that punch in the face sensation, and to note it properly. People that wonder. People that absorb. Even if what shines for them is different than what shines for me - actually, especially then. Then I'm so fascinated by their little brains, what makes them tick and hum and spark and what doesn't, that I'm fully, fully in. I'm so in for those kind of talks.

My (current) favorite, perfect pile of strung together words on earth: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with  your one wild and precious life? Poet Mary Oliver, who lives on Cape Cod, writes about nature with a kind of cool, nearly stiff and academic regard that slips into near-religious beauty in moments that surprise you in her work. I love her.

I'm reading a lot of writer Cheryl Strayed these days (another oh-so-passionate-and-certainly-obsessive post to come), whose memoir Wild is just an assault in heartbreak and raw beauty. She quotes poetry a lot in her book, begins chapters with lines of it that meant something to her, acknowledges regularly that she chants some lines in her head every day like a mantra. Like I do. Helplessly and without purpose or plan. She quotes that same perfect line in her book, and I felt the zing of OH MY GOD YES SHE GETS IT, WE BOTH GET IT. I am so in.

My writing instructor Kerry Cohen wrote a memoir called Loose Girls. I've known Kerry for almost a year now, and finally (ugh I hate myself) read her damn book a few weeks ago. Nearing the end, she quotes the same line. And there it was, of course. That moment. That punch.

Out of all the poets, all the novels, all of the arrangements of words in all of the world that might mean something to any human, we three picked the same line. That line is a big deal, it means something to lots of people, of course. But still, loving it makes me feel like I'm a part of a circle of beauty. It makes me believe in the connectivity of art. It makes everything shine.

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Reflections

 

 

http://bradkunkle.com

I wanted to pick just one or two of these, but lost all sense of composure instead. I'd like to formally thank this week's issue of The-April-Darcy-Sunday-Night-Tumblr-Vortex for helping me find this guy.  

I mean, come on. Just come on. 

Peter Pan

I loved this before I had any idea it was paper cutting.

Skydivers

Summer Time by zhuzhu

Adrian Tomine, A.C.

Extinction by Terry Fan