Category — INTERVIEW

 © John Tierney

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Meet the professor:

At the end of the day,

Art wins 

by Mike Foldes

John Tierney is a British painter whose subjects are most likely to be scenes from places where his three sons live, Los Angeles, New York and Helsinki, than his home in Durham, nearer Edinburgh than London. It’s the light and the way it plays off his subjects, as much as anything, that determines what he paints, with subjects ranging from natural rock formations in the desert, to flamingo-pink buildings under clear blue skies of Los Angeles on a perfect day, to the sun-soaked streets of Brooklyn, if you can imagine that, with neighborhood backdrops of theaters, bridges and streets, in ways that capture both the eye and the imagination. Tierney’s working background includes a long career as a university-level criminology professor whose “retirement” has allowed him to nourish a lifelong interest in art. Not only is he engaged as a painter, he’s an accomplished musician who can jam with the best, and – when in L.A. –  does. When his L.A.-based son Ben asked if we might be interested in featuring his father’s work in Ragazine, it hit a sweet spot – largely because we wanted to know more about this cat who does indeed appear to have nine lives. You can make what you like of the art, as many have with comparisons to David Hockney and Edward Hopper; but in other terms, what he sees and what he paints are as much derivative of his existential approach to “nature vs nurture”.   Read what the professor has to say.

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Ragazine: I’m as interested in your career path as where you are today as a painter, so if some of the questions seem to come out of left field, I’ll leave it to you to answer as you like. As an aside, our politics editor Jim Palombo has studied and taught criminology internationally for many years, and has written a couple of books including From Heroin to Heresy and From Criminal to Critic. I just completed a book, Sleeping Dogs – A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. See the connection… So, how did you happen to take the criminology career path, as opposed to studying art and teaching art at the university level?

Tierney: I was born into a working class family in the industrial north west of England. There was no history of further or higher education in my immediate or, indeed, extended family. Everyone had left school at the minimum legal age. When I was a boy this was 15 years. I did, though, show some aptitude for school work and stayed on at school for an extra year, gaining some basic qualifications. The education system reflected the class system: the vast majority of working class kids were ‘selected’ at 11 for the type of secondary school that I attended. These were called secondary moderns and, in fact, around 70% of the population attended these. In general, they prepared pupils for manual jobs. I was quite good at, and enjoyed, art at school and would have liked to have pursued a career in, for instance, commercial art. However, at 16 I received little encouragement for this and believed that I wasn’t talented enough for a career in art. So, when I left school I began an engineering apprenticeship, which involved attending a local college for one day a week. I continued to paint and read about art and artists, but I also developed a keen interest in social and political issues. Sociology seemed to offer an opportunity to explore these things in depth. Thus at 23, and by now a qualified draftsman, I decided to apply to university to study for a degree. Although I didn’t have conventional entrance qualifications, my engineering qualifications (and perhaps enthusiasm) convinced a couple of admissions tutors that I was worth taking on. The rest, as they say, is history. I got my degree, followed by post-graduate qualifications, and entered into, firstly, further, then later on, higher education as a lecturer. By the late 1970s I had developed a particular interest in the sociology of crime and deviance, and this became my specialist field. To me it was inherently interesting and as a field of study appeared to incorporate all of the major sociological debates and issues. I retired from Durham University in 2010 and this provided an opportunity to engage with my painting in a more serious way than previously. Throughout my life as an academic I had continued, on and off, to paint. 

Q) Did you ever paint or draw in another style than the one you’re working in today? Was there ever a time abstract expressionism had an appeal?

A) Over the years I explored a variety of ‘styles’ and techniques (including abstract expressionism!). However, what I am doing now is, I suppose, my ‘default’ mode. 

©John Tierney

Red Car in the Valley of Fire, NV | 12″ x 9″ | Oil on canvas

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Q) If you paint from photographs, do you ever manipulate the images, or do you remain pretty much true to the “visual events” you work from?

A) While some painters are reluctant to admit that they use photographs, for me they are the basis of the work I do. It it not my intention, though, to simply reproduce a photographic image. I work on these images. Sometimes this means manipulating them in the simple sense of moving things around, but more importantly, ‘manipulation’ occurs through the use of technique and colour. Looking at my paintings, the viewer is obviously aware that they are seeing a painting and not, say, a textured photograph. Most of my work is based on the urban landscape of Los Angeles and the desert landscape of Joshua Tree National Park (I’ve visited each on many occasions – one of my sons and his wife live in L.A.). I’m attracted by the light and shade, the architecture of L.A. and the sharp delineation of sky and buildings/mountains. Some of my paintings, though, are of New York and Helsinki – where my two other sons live. Two major influences are Edward Hopper and the earlier, L.A.-based paintings of David Hockney. Edward Hopper said that he was fascinated by the chance events found in nature. I am fascinated by the chance events captured by the camera – in the broadest sense a sort of serendipity. This involves, for example, light, reflections, and the deportment of people. To illustrate, one of my paintings is of the Cobble Hill cinema in Brooklyn, N.Y. I took a photograph of parents and their kids following, I presume, a morning show. Only when I began to draw out the scene on canvas did I notice a girl in a flamboyant red dress, and with one of her arms in an odd position. She became the focal point of the painting. 

Q) Do you spend a lot of time searching for images or scenes to paint, or is choosing your subjects a more casual undertaking, where you engage in customary activities like going to the grocery store and suddenly are taken by what you see?

A) I usually take my camera with me when I’m in the US and out walking, and I’m always on the look out for interesting images. My three sons have also been important sources – they know the kind of stuff that appeals to me. 

Q) I don’t see any paintings of London on your website. Don’t you like painting in shades of  gray, or are these stored somewhere?

A) At the moment none of my paintings are of locations in the U.K. I suppose that one dimension to this is that I visit L.A., New York or Helsinki as an ‘outside’ observer who is fascinated by the differences between these places and, say, London.

Q) Do you have more than one studio, meaning, in L.A., or in London or New York? Where is most of your work (painting) produced?

A) I have one studio and it’s in the UK.

Q) Have you spent considerable time in the museums in London or elsewhere in Europe? Which is your favorite, if one can have a favorite?

A) A ‘considerable’ time would be an exaggeration. However, when in a European (or U.S.,  for that matter) city I do like to include a visit to the major galleries, or a minor one if something has caught my eye. I live some distance from London, so I’m not able to routinely visit the many galleries on offer there. I don’t have a favorite, but when in London I like to visit the usual suspects: The National Gallery, The Tate Modern, Tate Britain and (for its Summer Exhibition) The Royal Academy. One gem I’ve discovered outside of the U.K. is the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland.

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Q) You’ve written at least two books about criminology. Do you still have a desire to write, and if so, is the subject the same? Do you see yourself analyzing art and artists in the same way you drilled down into criminology? Is it environment or DNA that makes men artists? Criminals?

A) To a large extent writing has been put to one side since I retired from the university. I do enjoy writing and have various ideas, though none are in the area of academic criminology. One project, roughly sketched out, is a novel dealing with a crime theme – I quite like the idea of writing in a genre that frees me from any concerns with evidence and footnotes! While I’m happy to respond to questions such as these, it would be presumptuous of me to embark on a project aimed at a serious engagement with art and artists. The last question you’ve included in this section is (to put it mildly) a big and complex one! However, it is an interesting one, so I’ll respond, albeit in broad terms (and I do discuss it in much more detail in my book Criminology: Theory and Context). Basically, you are referring to the long-standing debate about nature vs nurture. Stated simply: does someone become a criminal (or artist, which I’ll return to) because of a genetic predisposition, or as a result of social experiences? It thus lies within a context of debates about the so called causes of crime. To begin with, any reference to the ‘causes’ of crime based upon a simple A causes B model should set the alarm bells ringing. Over the years a steady stream of politicians, journalists, criminal justice personnel and academics have apparently tracked down the causes of crime. As a result we have a bewildering galaxy of causal explanations, taking in bad genes, chromosome deficiencies, deformed personalities, trendy parents, lone parents, trendy lone parents, simple greed, deprivation, blocked opportunities, peer group pressure, status frustration, too little money, too much money and artificial coloring in fish fingers. The corollary of these has been an equally bewildering galaxy of treatment/punishment packages: offenders have been incarcerated in hulks on the River Thames, transported from Britain to Australia, hanged, pelted with eggs in village stocks, tortured in dungeons, given short sharp shocks in detention centers, sterilized, injected with mind-altering drugs, made to face their victims, sent on wagon trains across America and (nowadays especially popular in the U.S. and U.K.) locked up in prison. To illustrate the complexities raised by this debate, you refer to ‘men’ in the question – though I assume you include women. Most crime, especially violent crime, in the U.S. and U.K. (and many other societies) is in the main committed by men. Thus gender – masculinity and femininity –defined as socially constructed understandings of maleness and femaleness, is one of myriad factors that need to be taken into consideration. I’m skeptical of the idea that criminals are predisposed towards criminal behavior because of their genetic makeup. No ‘criminal gene’ has ever been tracked down. As a social scientist I have always been more interested in the social, though I am critical of social (as well as genetic) explanations based upon deterministic causal relationships. Thus the notion of ‘bad’ genes or ‘bad’ environments propelling some individuals into crime seems to me to be far too simplistic. Clearly, the relationship between genetic make-up and social experiences is extremely complex. Furthermore, the concept of social experiences is shorthand for what has to encompass a vast range of social structural factors, social interactions, cultural, political and economic considerations, subjective understandings and creative responses on the part of individuals. People are both shaped by, and help shape the social world. Where and how one is brought up, one’s opportunities in life, how one is treated by others, how one sees oneself and one’s place in society and how one subjectively understands and gives meaning to the social world, etc., etc., all have to go into the mix when attempting to explain criminal, or any other, behavior. And, when focusing on specifically criminal behavior, it is important to note that ‘crime’ covers a huge range of activities. There is a danger of conceptualizing crime simply in terms of so called ‘conventional’ crime, such as burglary and street robbery, and ignoring the significant amount of white-collar and corporate crime that exists. In some ways it is more productive to approach these debates about criminality from the opposite direction, that is, by recognizing that ‘crime’ is a relative, not an absolute concept. No activity is inherently criminal. What is defined as criminal depends upon the criminal law, which varies from one society to another, and in one particular society changes over the years. The fact that nothing is inherently criminal makes any attempt to construct a universal explanation of criminal behavior highly problematic. Similar issues (based on the notion of relativism, rather than absolutism) are raised if we turn to ‘artists’, as referred to in your questions. I’m not at all sure what an artist is. Anyone can call themselves an artist. One thing they do, though, is produce what they consider to be ‘art’. Therefore, I think it is art, not artist, that is most relevant to the debate you have raised: is genetic endowment the key factor explaining an individual’s ability to produce what is defined as ‘good’ art? The problem here is that just as no behavior is inherently criminal, so no piece of artwork is inherently good. Whether or not it gets recognized as such is contingent upon many evolving factors: for instance, taste and expectations vis a vis ‘good’/’legitimate’ art during a particular historical period, social, political and cultural contexts and the nature of a specific audience who have the power to define a piece of work as good. What is defined as good, marketable art varies enormously in terms of type of expertise, technique, materials and intention – think of cubism, abstract art, abstract expression, videos and all sorts of installations, for example. Obviously, an ability to produce accurate representations of things, as conventionally understood, is not a prerequisite for the creation of ‘good’ art – nor should it be. Therefore, if we cannot pin down a specific ability necessary to create good art, then searching for the source of good art in an individual’s genetic make-up is a chimera. If I may, I’d like to make a final point regarding genetics and criminality. During the 1920s and 1930s the eugenics movement achieved a significant following in continental Europe and the United States. Essentially, it was concerned with ‘improving’ the genetic stock, which meant devising ways of preventing those defined as ‘degenerate’, of low intelligence, or otherwise judged as deviant/criminal from having children (through sterilizing them, for example). This mission to ‘purify’ the genetic pool, however, was somewhat sullied by those who during World War 2 took the arguments to their logical conclusion in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Q) Have your interests, including art and music, rubbed off on all of your sons?

A) It’s difficult to say with certainty what has ‘rubbed off’, but my middle son is a social science professor at an American college. All three have dabbled with painting and drawing over the years, though none, so far, has engaged with these seriously. They all, though, have a good eye for photographs. My eldest son, in fact, is a very accomplished photographer and has produced work commercially (he provided the image for one of my books, for instance). 

Q) You’ve gotten a lot of play for the painting you did of the Paul Smith Store in Los Angeles, and his hallmark scarf. How did this experience come about?                                                                                       

A) I gave Paul Smith one of my paintings of his store as a present and he thought that it would provide an interesting image for use on a limited edition silk scarf. My forthcoming exhibition at the store in May is a knock-on effect.

Q) If you had to do over, would you have been an artist first and a criminologist second?

A) I have no regrets about entering into the field of criminology. However, if I could go back and do it over, I’d probably choose art, simply because I would have already experienced the world of criminology and would like to try something different.  

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 Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted via e-mail in February and March of 2012.  For more information about John Tierney, including links to his music, visit http://www.john-tierney.com.

Éducation | acrylic on canvas  | 40” x 30”  | 2012

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Garbage Pail Kids

come of age in Montreal 

 By Michael Foldes

Ragazine: Xavier, thank you for contacting Ragazine about featuring your work, and for agreeing to this interview. We trust our readers will be as intrigued by what you are doing as are we.

Landry in his studio in Montreal.

You’ve done a wonderful job of updating Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. Your paintings are poignant commentaries on, and painful reminders of, what contemporary culture is doing to us. Would you say this is an accurate appraisal?

Landry: Definitely. It’s about the creepy nature of men forged by our cultural experience. It is contemporary by the references I use but at large, men have always the same problems and wills.

Q) Your Christophe Colomb image is very disturbing in a direct way (he looks to me like someone who came out of a leaking nuclear power plant); Exode,  La patrouille s’amuse and Manipulation are more frightening in the sense they combine readily identifiable and common imagery with nightmarish qualities. Where do these “dreams” come from?

A) I dream a lot. As many of us, I wish. Some themes are more than others forced to fit with an aesthetic that I want to show, but usually the images just come by themselves. The brain is a bank filled of all kind of souvenirs that make our personal culture. I mix those feelings and personal fantasy with real events or popular behavior. Then in my case, the image left depends on the way the ideas were interpreted. It could be soft but I don’t feel things that way.

Q) Your commentaries on fast food in Hotdog and La passion de Wendy, and ‘fast shopping at big box stores” in La Patrouille s’amuse, get right to the point. Are you a vegetarian? Do you shop at the local grocer’s?

A) I don’t go to McDo or that kind of fast food restos, but I like the way they look. They popped out from an acid trip. That’s a hook that works. Even their food looks like toys. I’m not a vegetarian. I eat vegeterians.

Fuckoshima! |  acrylic on canvas | 2011

Q) I am totally amused by the title of your painting, Fuckoshima!, but obviously it’s nothing to laugh at when an event scares the crap out of you. You appear able to turn anything, including censorship, into biting satire. How long have you been painting in this mode?

A) I prefer to show things different as they are. I imagine the marriage of Kate and William as a total mess with a negative issue. As far as I can remember I do it that way since college.

Q) Did you draw much as a child? I noticed the pack of crayons being thrown from the helicopter in Liberation figurative. Why crayons and not sticks of dynamite?

A) When I was a child there were color crayons everywhere. Some uses bombs, some don’t. I use crayons and brushes and I bet I could blow up myself with it. It’s a painting about the destruction of abstract by figurative art. Figurative has the advantage of weapons; intention, meaning, story telling, etc… That makes culture.

Q) What prompted Le Roi? Does this reflect your personal belief, or lack of it, or what the church often seems to have become?

A) It’s more about the shaken baby syndrome than a religious critique, but what about those child molestor priests?

Q) Xavier, where are you living now? Do you have a live/work studio space?

A) I live and work in a semi-industrial neighborhood in Montreal. It’s a nice and quiet place. It is also pretty funny because it’s situated between a metal shop and a high class commercial street. There are skunks and racoons everywhere that share our barbecues, and finally, there is the absurdity to have one of the biggest art gallery for next door neighbor and get f***king cold in winter nights. It’s really cool. Plenty of artists around here. But they will pull down the entire neighboorhood to build luxurious condos.

Q)  Did your work receive positive support while you were studying at University of Quebec, Montreal?

A) When I was at Université du Québec à Montréal, I was on an exploration path. I knew art was the only solution but I had to try some techniques. At first I did paintings because I already did some since I was a child. But teachers told me that I was doing illustration. Figurative is not welcome in Montreal. Then I did some almost life size sculptures of whitetrash characters and finished my BFA that way, which was much more appreciated.

Q) Who would you say had the most influence on you becoming an artist, or in expressing yourself as you do?

A) My father who is a graphic designer, my uncle who was a painter and maybe Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.

Q) I can see you merging Goya, Bosch, Bacon and Freud. Any favorite artists, living or dead?

A) I took back the brushes a few years ago after seeing the work of those in the famous American lowbrow magazines. By now I can’t say I have favorite. It depends on many factors but I like it figurative for sure.

Q) Is your favored medium acrylic? oil?

A)Acrylic. I have no patience for oil. Especially for cleaning brushes. Some think “I work with oil because the result is slick,” but I don’t.

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Q) How much of your indelicate worldview was shaped by your being a French Canadian growing up in a disputed ‘territory’?

A) Hum… I didn’t see the time when the anglophones and the francophones was fighting and living in distinct neighboorhoods. Nowadays there are relics of it. The rich buildings and English university are on the Mount-Royal and the working class public French factories surrounded it. But now English-speaking students are poor, too, so we all mix in the slums. I’m influenced by what is surrounding me so since I evolve in the “bad” sides of town, my inputs are prostitutes, drugs, drunken guy that crap in public at 10 am etc… I could paint the portrait of an old rich English lady suffering of many neurosis and it won’t be better.

Q) I am familiar with the catacombs in Paris, but not the catacombs in Montreal. What is the provenance of the show you are in that began in March?

A) The Katacombes is an alternative cooperative bar downtown. We were a dozen local painters to interpret the novels of Patrick Sénécal, a horror writer. He is a kind of Stepen King in Quebec. It last only one day. We had fun!

Q) I am still intrigued about what kind of childhood you had that you are meticulous enough to paint visions that are so disarming. What were – or are – your parents’ professions? They seem to have imparted to you a strong social conscience that one might say makes you an activist painter for your social commentary.

A) My mom is in the death industry and my dad is retired. He was a graphic designer. I played a lot with his markers when I was a kid. That’s where the visions come from. I’m not calling myself an activist. I’m just a cynical guy.

Q) What kinds of things do you enjoy doing when you’re not painting? Do you work in other visual media?

A) I really love cooking! Really! I try to make everything myself. I almost get sick by eating my own bacon and cheese. There’s some things I’m better at. I don’t do other visual art seriously. I did a few stupid drawings and some crazy teddybears for children.

Q) What do you think of the Occupy Movement that has spread from the States to many other parts of the world?

A) Some occupied with intelligence and some not. Some homeless people that were already occupying the park were kicked out by well-equipped activists that have bank accounts. Just nonsense.

Q) What do you think of the Occupy Canada Movement that is starting in the States, much the same way that the Occupy Iraq and Occupy Afghanistan movements started? I think they call it the Keystone Pipeline, because it’s the keystone to the U.S. controlling all of North America.

A) I don’t know. Here the movement is dead. I think it’s a fashion. Utopia or civil war, I don’t know.

Q) I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and work with us. Good luck to you for a most promising career!

A) It was a pleasure.

Editor’s note:

The interview above was conducted via e-mail from January 2012 through April 2012. 

Visit: xavierlandry.com/

TSUNAMI God all covered | 63.8×51.3in | Acrylic Linen 

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Breaking with tradition:

The Art of Tuten

In a correspondence with Japanese artist Tuten, the one thing that resonated most was his adherence to a traditional Japanese introspective expressionism. Simple, direct, and with an effort to understand Self. Importantly, his work appears to be anything but traditional, with dazzling colors pushed around to reflect the internal recollection of his subject matter. Of the painting above, “Tsunami God,” he added this comment: “In this picture, to build a discovery (Earthquake/Tsunami), a new soul when facing the crisis.”

With several international shows to his credit, Tuten says travel is not on his present agenda. Satisfied with painting, and the creative pursuit, he is satisfied to work daily in his studio in Chiba City Japan.

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Ragazine: How long have you been painting and was there a time you worked in another style?

Tuten: 58 years, a ray picture. 

Q) What is a “ray picture”?

A) My input is just a mistake, I’m sorry.

Q) What influences did you have as a child that pushed you toward art? Were your parents or siblings artists?

A) I was a child of nature.
My parents, my brother are not artists.

Q)  Did you have formal training in art, or are you self taught? Where did you study, and what teacher’s assistance did you find most helpful? Why?

A) I do not have formal training in art. The painter Kanjirou-Ikeshima saw my work and said, “You are a genius.” 

Q)  Kanjirou-Ikeshima died in 1980. You were about 33. How long did you know him?

A) The relationship lasted 11 years. Before I was acquainted with the painter Ikeshima, I was acquainted with the master painter Kajino Satoru. He is the first person to discover my talent, and is virtually the matchmaker of my marriage. The painter Ikeshima is guardian of my marriage.

Q) What is a “guardian of marriage?” And, do you and your wife have children?

A) Guardian of marriage in the Japanese system is referred to as “to ensure humanity” of a person. His house is in Kansai business community where shochu and mirin are manufactured. (Note: Schochu  is a rice vodka; mirin is a rice wine similar to sake, but with sugar added. It has a lower alcohol content than sake.)   …  I have one son.

Q) What do you think of Anime? This Japanese style has a great influence around the world?

A) Anime is not art that stirs the soul.

Q) What part of the Japan do you live in today? Where is your studio, and have you always lived in this area?

A) I have always lived in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, and worked in the same studio.

Q) I would imagine that, as an artist, you were not always able to support yourself. What other things have you done to make a living while you pursued your art?

A)  I sold paintings from the beginning.

Q)  In the beginning, where did you show and sell your work? When did you find a gallery? How did you find your market?

A)  At my solo show at Gallery Inoue in Osaka 1981, I sold my works. I found my market in my friends.

Q) Your poetry has a meditative quality that feels different from your paintings, which have an energy that wants to make order out of chaos. How do you see the two relating?

A) The picture is brilliant but, the spirit of poetry has been inherent in it. In fact, I was said by several people in the U.S. and Japan, “Soul emerged from this picture. Terrible”.

Q)  Traditional sumi-e is evident throughout your work. What is the greatest modern or contemporary influence you’ve experienced?

A)  Sumi-e is the first time I wrote.

There is no effect from the beginning,  only through heaven, that comes from self …

Q) Who are among your favorite artists, Eastern & Western, and why?

A) No one.

Q) So, then, you paint entirely from inside yourself, no outside influence? What about your mentor, Kanjirou-Ikeshima ?

A) Depicts the soul leave my heart to cut off the outside.
To broaden the scope of discovery and that of the soul.
Until now, there is no world that drew everyone
Leading to heaven while still alive and
Means, TUTEN is.
JUST ONLY TUTEN

Q)  Do you prefer painting in acrylic or oil, and why?

A)  I prefer acrylic, because acrylic dries fast. And, depth of color.

Q)  You have had several shows in New York, the most recent, I believe in 2010. When will have another?

A)  2009 was the most recent. No, I don’t plan another.

Q) So, for what reason would you not show again in New York, or is it a matter of timing?

A)　It takes money to do one-man show, about 3 million yen. I was told the market for my painting is alive, and the prices are high. $12,000.00 (24×28 inches) to＄75,000.00 (72×90 inches).

Q) Chiba City is a modern port city not far from Tokyo.  Have you spent much time in Tokyo, and have you traveled widely through Japan?

A)  I will not go to Tokyo, but yes, I have traveled a lot.

Q) Why not Tokyo? Nothing there for you? Where do you travel? To the other islands? China?

A) So few people understand me. No, there is not anything (there for me). The trip destinations, Silk Road, Iran, Iraq, Switzerland, Vienna, from Paris to Morocco, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Turkey – that was 35 years ago, 30 years ago, and Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, New York. And I took my family to Thailand, Burma, Nepal, Germany, Chicago, New York, Mexico, Thailand.  Two months ago the family went to Myanmar.

Q) Subjects in most of the work I’ve seen online are women; do you work from life drawing or memory? Imagination?

A) They are drawn in the imagination in the mountains, because there are no models.

Q) If someone would like to get in touch with you for a show or to purchase a piece, where would they best be advised to go?

A) I do not have an exclusive contract with the art dealer, so please take contact information from my home page, or E-mail directly. We are registered with the (HIROMI SAKURAI) SAAGHI ON LINE GALLERY in the UK. Please contact from there.

Q) Is there anything else you would like to tell us?

A)  Please let me tell you about my constitution.

I have a special wave of biorhythm. For about two years, I sleep sometimes 20 hours, then I suddenly wake up and paint a picture depicting one day, in the sprint. Sleep time is two to three hours. Taste of food has changed, and I have lost close to 10 kg body weight. For 44 years, this has continued its repetition.

Modern medicine can not explain it. It is either a depression, nor a mania.   

More about the artist: 

Tuten was born in 1947 on Kikai Island, Japan. He studied painting under Satoru Kajino and Kanjirou Ikeshima. He’s had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Ginza, and New York. View his work online: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tsuten/11.html
and: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tsuten/

(l to r) Mel Ramos, Woody Johnson, Eric Murphy, and Gabriel Navar, in Ramos' studio. Ramos is signing a print that will be on exhibit in the Ramos-Navar exhibition "Pay It Forward", curated by Johnson & Murphy.

When a student learns

Gabriel Navar Interviews mentor, Mel Ramos

Navar: When did you decide that you wanted to make art your life choice? What artists did you admire as a young artist that inspired you and contributed to your early style(s)? Who (specifically) inspired you most in your early years to become a painter? How did you first determine your initial, personal artistic direction?  

Ramos: I decided I wanted to be a painter when I was in high school after I heard  Wayne Thiebaud give a talk to high school seniors in my class about careers in art. My first big influence was Salvador Dalí, who I discovered when I was 14 after seeing his incredible technical virtuosity with the paintbrush. At first I was a proponent of Abstract Expressionism which was being taught in the art schools at the time. Eventually I realized this was a dead end for me so I decided to paint portraits of my favorite comic book heroes and heroines. The rest is Art History.

Gabe & Mel 1992

Navar: Why did you choose to become a teacher? Was there a specific individual (or individuals) that sparked your interest in teaching?

Ramos: When I decided to make art as a profession I realized I would need a day job to support my activity and knew that teaching art would be the best way to do this.

Navar: As a professor, what was the main thing (advice, message, set of values, etc.) that you wished to instill in your students?

Ramos: The importance of hard work, dedication and clear thinking.

Navar: As an artist working for the most part in California; does West coast painting signify a unique entity? In terms of the contemporary art world, what role does The California School of Painting play? Are “its” unique traditions and values still significant within the contemporary art world? And, why?   

Ramos: California does have a distinct identity but I don’t know why. 

Navar: Mel, I clearly recall being in your painting class, sitting in a class critique, and you stating something very positive about my work along the lines of, “Gabe, paint 10 more like these and you will have a great opportunity in the art world.” I took it to heart and have made it one of my main life challenges. I am still pursuing opportunities and am enjoying the journey and the challenges. A question here, Mel, if I may, what was it about my work habits, painting style, etc., as a student of yours over 20 years ago that caused you to see promise in my work and/or career?

Ramos: I was impressed by your PASSION to succeed.

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Editor’s Note:

© Martin Stavars

The Ghosts of the Millenium, London, UK, 2009

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Four Corners 

of a Photographer’s World

Interview with Michael Foldes

Ragazine: Where do you call home, these days, and where is your studio?

Martin Stavars: I live in London now. It’s a great starting point for journeys to anywhere in the world: thanks to two international airports nearby, you can travel to nearly every corner of the world, which allows you to plan any trip freely. I’m also working here on a large project – one, that I’ve been carrying out longer than any other. However, I only spend my time working on it and taking photographs when the conditions are perfect, which is a luxury you can’t always have when you’re on another continent and your time is limited.

Q: When and how did you get involved with photography? Did you start out working for an agency, or another photographer?

A: I’ve never worked commercially and I don’t do commissioned assignments. I do everything just for myself and I don’t think that will ever change. Photography has always been a passion of mine, which allowed me to find the meaning of life and fulfill every idea, even the most unreal ones. Of course, I do cooperate with galleries and agencies, but only in terms of print copies – not commissions for specific photos.

Q: Who or what would you say has been your principal motivator to take pictures? I see from your site that landscapes draw you in, but why not paint them?

A: My first inspirations were sea landscapes, made by one of the lesser-known Polish photographers. However, my photos captured something completely different: mostly urban landscapes. It wasn’t until later that I’ve gotten down to nature and by photographing the sea and mountains I gained experience and explored photography, mostly in its’ technical aspect.

Q: Do you have a formal education in art, design or photography that you bring to a session, or are you self-taught?

A: I studied in Warsaw School of Photography, which was an important turning point for my approach to photography. During Marian Schmidt’s lectures (who himself comes from the school of humanistic photographers, such as Cartier-Bresson and Doisneau) I was inspired to embrace a different way of working and perceiving the photographed scene. That’s when I got to know such classics in photography as Kertesz, Atget and Ansel Adams. I realized then, what an important role people play in terms of photography. And even though people aren’t the main focus of my work, they remain an important addition and are a great challenge for me.

Q: What kind of camera(s) do you favor, and why?

A: At this point I use Canon 5dkmII and Hasselblad 503cw. However, if I could, I would use a smaller camera, since in the photography I prefer my main activity is not taking photos – it’s looking for a specific frame. When I was in cities like Tokyo or Shanghai I used to walk up to several kilometers in search of interesting places. So the less equipment I have to carry on me, the better, because I can see more.

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Q: When you’re still shooting film,  how much do you manipulate in the darkroom? Do you scan and work digitally after the fact? What papers do you like to print on?

A: I don’t develop or scan films myself, I leave that to the professionals, since in the end my photos are printed on a wide format printer Epson 11800. I have two favorite types of paper: Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl and Fine Art Baryta, which I use for 40×40 inch printouts.

Q: Do you also enjoy shooting fashion? portraits? musicians? products?

A: I virtually don’t do any other photos than the ones connected with my projects. Even my wife can’t persuade me to take photos during vacation or family parties. Nowadays it’s very easy to take photos of everything – you can just pull out your mobile phone and snap a photo. But in many ways it deprives the moment of its peculiar magic. When I’m working on my photos, I feel like I’m being transferred to another world. When I finally find the right frame, I feel a huge adrenaline rush and I become focused just on that – it’s a wonderful moment for me.

Q: What photographers do you admire, and whom would you most like to work with?

A: There are a few photographers from the 19^th and 20^th century, whose work I admire and who make me want to go back in time to the places, where the photos were taken. Thanks to websites like Shorpy.com, that popularize photos in high definition, you can get absorbed in every detail and literally almost feel what was life like a hundred years ago.

Q: What’s the most remarkable aspect for you in being a photographer?

A: My three biggest passions are photography, travels and skyscrapers and so it happens, that I managed to combine all three. I’m currently observing the development of over a hundred different buildings in countries like China, Korea, Emirates or Malaysia. Some of them I have already taken photos of, others are still waiting for their turn. So I keep on travelling around the world, taking photos of skyscrapers and I’m damn happy .

Q: What has been your favorite shooting location? What made it so?

A: Hong Kong and Shanghai are my favorite places. They are like a photographical Mecca: tradition intertwines with modernity; street craftsmen working in the shadow of 300-metre buildings is an everyday view. For an outsider almost every street, signboard or a man passing by on a bike is fascinating. The specific smell of incense, dry fish and adjacent bars contributes to the atmosphere. I plan on going back to China in year 2012. This time I want to visit Chongqing, a metropolis with almost 30 million citizens, that lies in an amazing confluence of the rivers Jangcy and Jialing Jiang.

Q: Do you have any anxiety/caution about setting up to shoot in some of the exotic locations you’ve been to?

A: A large part of my portfolio consists of night photography. While taking photos like that, there is always a certain risk of encountering people who don’t mean well. However, luckily, I’ve never had any trouble with that. Actually it’s the opposite: when people see a set up tripod, they mostly react in a positive way. Of course, you always have to be careful, but most of the time the locals have a friendly attitude.

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This interview with Martin Stavars was conducted via e-mail in late 2011. Since then, Stavars was awarded 1st place in the category Cityscapes-nonpro at International Photography Awards, for his 2011 series: “Megalopolis: Tokyo”.

For more information or to contact the photographer:

www.martinstavars.com
www.nd-magazine.com

Gaylard, in his studio working on Space Creator project

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Letting Out the Inner Dialogue

By Miklós Horváth

In February 2012; I had the good fortune to conduct an interview with Murray Gaylard, a contemporary artist and a performer. Gaylard has received his education from the University of Cape Town, in South Africa where he studied social sciences, and from the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main where he studied art. His studies gave him a precocious genius towards political and social matters. Last year, he was engaged in exhibitions, both in the Netherlands and in Germany. Gaylard’s artworks introduce questions of societal development, social changes, and the roles human beings play in them. The discussion between Gaylard and I will address some of these issues, such as the purpose of artworks, the influences that they can have on communities and Gaylard’s personal contributions to the understanding of human emotions and desires within his performances.

* * *

M: Thank you so much for accepting my invitation to this interview. First of all, I would like to ask you about your recent exhibition at Witte de With in Rotterdam where you have implemented an audio-visual installation. This installation consists of a street lamp and a loud-speaker. In the evening, pedestrians passing by this installation can experience a-one-minute-of-fame. When they approach the street lamp, very bright LED lights begin to flicker and shine down on them, and they can hear your voice providing an ironic message: “Even in this most unflattering light, you are beautiful”. In which sense do you think that this installation can provoke the passer-by and is there a need to provoke the public at all?   

Gaylard: I don’t feel that the work provokes the public at all. For me, the word “provoke” implies something negative or shocking. Of course “provoke” could also be understood as engaging the public in a dialogue.  I mean it definitely confronts and even initiates a response in the observer, albeit very subtle, and this is something that I think is very important, particularly with regards to art in public space.

M: I see. But what did you want to create then? What do you think that the public can experience by visiting your artwork?

Gaylard: What I wanted to create, was an experience that would interject into the every-day lives of the people passing by and that would stimulate the public into a space of self-reflection – a quality that underlies most of my work, especially my work in public space. I specifically chose a location along the river that was away from the hustle and bustle of the pedestrian traffic, as it was important for me that the person experienced the installation in a somewhat cocooned and intimate way. I had these wonderful visions of people going home from work in a bad mood and being spoken to by my street lamp, or of someone who was going through a difficult time, or feeling somehow unworthy, specifically choosing to visit the piece because it would make them smile.

M: So, you would like to ease people of their burdens by making them smile…

Gaylard: I don’t know about easing people of their burdens, but I just think there’s so much about the human condition to celebrate and often art ignores that.  Art in public space should never take life too seriously. Public space is our playground and it should be enjoyed. I mean the street lamp piece is a total feel-good piece, and this was my intention right from the start – to make a piece that would gently reach out to someone passing by and make them smile. I know how naïve this must sound, and initially I struggled with the fact that everything I make, although often very socially-critical and tragic, is somehow always coupled with a hint of humor. But I mean really, the power to make someone feel better – what greater goal could an art piece have than that?

M: When I think of the most overwhelming performances of the 20^th century, I often recall the works of artists like Tibor Hajas or Marina Ambrović, who tried to explore their own mental and physical limits by making life-threatening actions. In the ’70s, Ambrović, for example, took some pills which were undoubtedly destructive to her nervous system. Do you think that the most powerful performances require personal physical risks from or to the artist? Can these performances be more effective?

Gaylard: Effective in what way? I mean I think it depends on the point the artist is trying to make.  Obviously if you are interested in the performing body, then it would seem appropriate to use your own body as a kind of test instrument in your work. I suppose it’s the same in all fields of life. The public will view those performances that they cannot imagine doing themselves as “more effective”, or may I rather say more impressive. I did a performance where I hitchhiked in a home-made Mickey Mouse costume from Frankfurt am Main to Disneyland Paris in an attempt to go home, and so many people remember this piece. I didn’t have to inflict any kind of physical pain. I just had to do something that the general audience probably wouldn’t.

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M: By effective, I meant that where the health of an artist’s body is threatened or of concern during his or her performances, this can truly incite the discovery and reflection of the audience’s own boundaries. Regarding boundaries, I would be happy if you could offer your thoughts of where a person’s private sphere starts and ends. In your artworks, for example: Space creator (2006, 2010) and Being alone has its advantages (2011), you give your own definition of private and public.

Gaylard: The drawing you speak of, “Being alone has its advantages,” is more about loneliness and having a social network or not. Most of my drawings deal with social behaviour to a certain extent, but I generally prefer to not speak about them.  They embody something very different to the rest of my work and I don’t think that they like to be laden with theory and explanation. That would just make them heavy.  The whole point of working on paper is that there is a lightness and freshness to the end product.  It’s just so liberating to work on paper because it’s so cheap. This allows you to approach the paper far more playfully than any other material because you aren’t so scared of fucking it up.

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Above photos from series,
“There’s no place like home,” 2009

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M: Finally, I would like to ask you to give me your take on the future of art in Western Europe, and the impact of artworks and performances on our society.

Gaylard: The future of art in Western Europe? All I can say is that I hope it’s a future with less of that have-to-read-an-instruction-manual-before-you-can-understand-it art than we were forced to live with in recent years. You know what I mean? I mean the misled belief that concept art means making something and then layering it with so much philosophical material that only someone with a master’s degree can understand it. There was so much of that. 

I don’t want to mock it, though. There is truly a place for all forms of artistic expression, and just because I don’t get it, doesn’t mean it’s trash.  I do, however, think that art will become more “human”, and more accessible to the general public and will probably be more prepared to meet the public in the public, whether real or virtual. Our relationship to public space is changing dramatically. I think that we have moved into a “post fear of terror” era where those war against terror images that kept us indoors for so long are slowly starting to fade from our memories, or maybe we are just tired of living in a state of waiting for something bad to happen. Whatever the reason, the public is far more empowered and fearless now than before. The relationship we have to our streets has changed drastically, but you shouldn’t get me started.  I could really go on about that for hours. 

M: How do you think artworks could be more accessible to the public?

Gaylard: I guess a lot more will be taking place outside. Outside is where we want to be because it is the arena of surprise and assists in the unfolding of identities. Just look at the occupancy movement. I hope that art will stop taking itself so seriously in the future and that it will speak a more understandable language, and that it will be found increasingly more in “untypical” spaces. I mean the timing is perfect for it. We have YouTube, facebook, and an array of social media to help in the circulation of it. Maybe the future of art is an iPhone application that you can buy over iTunes.

For more information about Murray Gaylard, his work and performance art, please visit http://www.murraygaylard.com.

About the interviewer:

Miklós Horváth is a contributing editor to Ragazine. You can read more about him in “About Us“.

Thirty Years Later:

A Conversation on John Gardner

With John Smelcer
Contributing Editor 

This year marks the 30^th commemoration of John Gardner’s tragic motorcycle accident. Poet, playwright, translator, medievalist, he is the author of such novels as Nickel Mountain, Mickelsson’s Ghosts, The Sunlight Dialogues, and October Light, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976. His Grendel, now a classic, is a magnificent retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s point of view. Widely regarded as one of the best teachers of creative writing in America, Gardner was the author of numerous books on craft and literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction, On Becoming a Novelist, Moral Fiction, and The Forms of Fiction. In this candid conversation, Joel Gardner talks about his father with John Smelcer, Ragazine’s contributing editor and founder/co-judge of the “John Gardner Prize for Playwriting”.

JS:       I knew your father from our letters. In the decade before emails and the internet, we had a friendship in the old epistolary tradition. In 1982, I was an undergraduate at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, some 4,000 miles northwest of Binghamton, New York, where John was then teaching. I wanted to be a writer, and I heard that John Gardner was one of the best creative writing teachers in America. I recall having seen him once on the The Dick Cavett Show. His slender Grendel amazed me. Having read Beowulf in junior high school, I loved his bold retelling. He taught me the importance of point of view and voice. From that summer up until his untimely death in September, we exchanged a series of letters on craft. He also guided my summer reading. I remember at the time he was working on his seminal The Art of Fiction. We “discussed” the overriding importance of Coleridge’s “vivid and continuous dream” in fiction writing, especially in the novel. Some of our “conversation” ended up almost word-for-word in the book when it was posthumously published a year or so later. In the twenty-plus years that I’ve been teaching English, I’ve always used his books on craft in my creative writing courses. It’s often said how generous John was with his time. I wasn’t even a student at his university, and yet he expended postage and effort to teach me from afar. Our friendship connected my life to Binghamton University in ways I could never have foreseen at the time.

JG:      Dad was indeed a generous teacher. He was one of the few people I’ve ever heard of who would read and comment on the work of writers outside the formal atmosphere of the workshop or classroom. It was not uncommon for him to ask for manuscripts from people who reached out to him with a letter or a phone call, and—where he sensed there was a willingness to learn—he was very generous and would provide feedback and encouragement, whether in the form of correspondence or critique. He was an incredibly perceptive reader, and he absorbed and retained material almost whole on a first reading. One of the things he shared with me is that he felt very lucky to have read all these stories and novels by students and colleagues, many of which might not ever appear in print. He felt his experience of literature was richer for having all that hopeful (though not always successful) fiction in his head. But how is it after three decades, you ended up teaching creative writing at the same university where my dad used to teach?

JS:       In 2004, my book Without Reservation won the Milt Kessler Prize for a book of poetry published in a given year by an American poet over 40. I was invited to visit Binghamton University to speak to classes about creative writing and to read from the book. Two years later, the university offered me a generous fellowship to earn a Ph.D. in English and creative writing. For the past five years, I’ve roamed the same halls and taught in the same classrooms as your father, whose presence is still felt on campus. For instance, the room of the university’s literary magazine, Harper’s Palate, is named the John Gardner Room. I earned the degree last spring and was given the opportunity to teach in the department this year.

JG:      As long as you’ve been in Binghamton, you must have a lot of friends and colleagues who were also friends of my father, right? Jan Quackenbush comes to mind. You may also be acquainted with Liz Rosenberg and Susan Thornton. Is Bernie Rosenthal still with the department?

JS:       I’ve met Liz at a few readings, but as far as I know I’ve never met Susan or Bernie. In a strange coincidence, I knew Jan before I came to Binghamton. He and I were both teaching in Wilkes University’s low-residency MA/MFA creative writing program along with Norman Mailer’s son, Michael. I met Jan in the fall of 2004 after someone introduced us, saying that he had been a close friend of your father’s ever since your dad came to Binghamton in the late 1970s. With our mutual connection, we became good friends. He used to take me everywhere your dad used to haunt, even the exact place where John wrecked his motorcycle on that fateful September day in 1982. Jan used to ride with your dad, cruising the backroads from Binghamton to Montrose and Susquehanna, stopping by Jan’s little farmhouse for lunch and a beer. Although Wikipedia suggests that alcohol was the cause of your father’s death, Jan says that there was a dog that used to live at the house right at the bend in the road and that the damn thing always ran out to chase them whenever they motored by. Jan once said that he believes the dog probably ran out in front of John, who tried to avoid it and wrecked instead. I’ve ridden my motorcycle past that spot a few times, and I can see how it could have happened exactly like that. Jan gave me the leather jacket he used to wear when he rode with John. I recently wrote a poem about riding with your dad:

RIDING WITH JOHN GARDNER

I only knew Gardner from our letters.

But ever since I moved to the same town and haunt

the same university halls, I have this recurring dream:

We’re riding motorcycles on the backroads of New York

and Pennsylvania on our way to Susquehanna or Montrose.

It’s summer and we’re a couple of badass poets in black leather

& cool mirrored shades.

But then Grendel rides up on a hardtail Harley —

his shaggy fur ablaze in the sun, the road behind him aflame.

He pulls alongside, points a clawed finger, glares a gore-dangling grin,

strops a yellow fang with a blistered tongue, rattles his head and bellows,

before he runs us off the road and gorges on our grisly carnage.

The dream always ends the same.

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I hope your father would approve. You once asked me which of your dad’s books is my favorite. Hands down it’s Grendel. I loved it from the first page with the obstinate goat with his hanging balls standing on the rocky crag. I remember telling your father thirty years ago that I wanted to do something similar with Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. As you know, I finished that novel a few years ago, and you were nice enough to read it and offer a few words for the dustcover. But his The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist are never far from reach. Of all your dad’s books, which are your favorites and why?

John Gardner, ca 1980. Joel Gardner photo

JG:      I love the poem. Probably the first book of my father’s that I really fell in love with was The Sunlight Dialogues. I was young the first time I read it — it had just come out —but it was a big, powerful book, and the story grabbed me. I could see so much of my father’s early life in Batavia in it (The Hodges being very much modeled on the extended Gardner family) that it served as a bridge to a past, a family archeology that I was only distantly a part of. But it was also the magic of the book, not just the stunts the Sunlight Man pulls off, but some of the effects, like the Esther chapter that begins by cutting straight into her stream of consciousness. And of course the plot was rich, multi-layered, profluent — though I wouldn’t have had the word for it then. Nickel Mountain is also a favorite, but for very different reasons. This book (October Light has the same quality, but in a more celebratory way) captures a man alone in the world coming to terms with a world that’s very different from what he believes is right and just. In Nickel Mountain, there is a gorgeous wedding scene, in Callie’s POV, that just knocks your socks off. There is something just so compelling about this monstrous man, Henry Soames, who runs a diner on a road over a mountain to and from more or less nowhere that feels truly like the despair any of us feels when we’re stuck, and we don’t know what to do about it. I love the generosity of the book, the love in its pages. The scene of the birth in the hospital in the snowstorm is pretty mystical.

I had a hand in Mickelsson’s Ghosts, not just by virtue of the pictures I took for the book, but because I came into my dad’s study one day with a handful of wallpaper from a back room he was remodeling in that house on Coleridge Road into a dining room. There were five or six or seven different layers of wallpaper, each seeming to indicate a different use for the room in past times. That scene is in the book somewhere, Mickelsson seeing all the different kinds of wallpaper when remodeling the fictional room, but it’s also the genesis of the book, or at least so Dad told me when he started writing it. MG is a big, complex, feisty and supernatural journey. It seems both a lot more grounded in realism and a lot more shaded with occult weirdness than any of Dad’s other works. I like that about it, but again, there is some tour-de-force writing in there, a whole chapter which takes place in Mickelsson’s mind while he’s driving, for one. By the end of the chapter, you are so in the vivid scene, that you are shocked and thrilled when you find yourself riding with Mickelsson, then shocked and thrilled again when you hit the end of the chapter and find yourself holding a book in your hand, that you’ve actually just been reading the whole time. Spooky stuff, even without the witches and the ghosts.

I pretty much love all of the books, but I haven’t grown to love The Wreckage of Agathon. I haven’t really even given it a fair shake. It is such an ugly book to read, at least the first hundred pages or so, that I could never get past the opening. Truth be told, I’ve never gone back to finish it. Maybe one of these days. Some of the short fiction is magnificent. The King’s Indian works as a whole like a great marvelous ship, with each story bursting with a different kind of life and magic: The New Jerusalem indeed! There are so many intricate things going on in so many of those stories, I pick it up every few years just to be reminded how good a story can be. I feel that way about the stories in The Art of Living, too, but the wildness and the range of Dad’s voice in the earlier collection is just so ambitious. You heft the book in your hand, and you can taste the gunpowder. I’m reading Jason and Medeia right now. It’s muscular and strange, and I can’t help thinking it wouldn’t take much to turn it into a gorgeous animated movie, though you’d have to cut a lot of the story. But it would be ravishing.

JS:       This raises an interesting question. I have two daughters, and I often wonder if they’ll read my books, and if so, what will they learn about me as a person? So much of who I am is on every page of every book, story, or poem I’ve ever written. Will they come to know me more from reading my books? And when I am gone from this earth, will reading my work reconnect them to me momentarily? At such instances, will I live again? Is there much of your father in his books? These are questions I think you are better suited to answer.

JG:      What your daughters learn about who you are as a person depends a lot, of course, on the kind of writer that you are. I think it goes without saying that if you approach writing with the kind of integrity and fierce belief in the power of story and poem to effect change and bring about a better world—as my father believed and advocated—there is no question your daughters will come to know you better through your writing. But there are two other consequences that are even more interesting. First, it is almost certain that you’ll be a different, better and more present parent to your daughters by virtue of the work you do as a writer. Part of the change that writing with seriousness and integrity brings about is almost imperceptible, gradual, but real growth in self-knowledge and character. Secondly, what writing does — and here we can drag out the real meaning of what my father meant by “moral” fiction — is it provides the reader with subtle shadings and an ear to the fine tuning of a character’s decisions in dramatic situations, and that leads right back to the source (you, the author), revealing not just who you as a writer are, but how you think, react and reflect, what you value and how you fight to protect those values, including your loved ones. So your daughters (and I realize this is Thing Three) will also see a better version of themselves in what you write, not just explicitly, as when you tilt aspects of them into characters or thinly veil situations lifted from real life, but in the example of your very mode of thought and love. For that’s where all of this is really leading: the kind of writing we’re talking about is Love. And love, written, is a powerful and enduring source of comfort and strength. I feel it every time I happen into a bookstore, and I can reach out and touch the binding of one of my father’s books, Nickel Mountain especially. Or The Art of Living, which is a very love-driven collection. “Redemption” is itself a powerful and dangerous act of love and forgiveness, though of course it was hard for Dad’s parents to see it in this light.

JS:       Speaking of On Moral Fiction, I think Gore Vidal, Barth, and other critics of the book got it all wrong. I spoke to Updike about it (we had a heated debate), but he eventually agreed that all good novelists must write true, as Hemingway so often admonished. Cormac McCarthy says that all great writing is about life and death. I think you do a good job of clarifying what your father meant (and which I agree wholeheartedly). I’d like to return to Caliban for a moment. My wife says that there is a lot of me in my portrayal of Caliban. I created him to be earthy and elemental and brutish. He farts, snorts, burps, picks his nose, scratches his groins . . . a typical male, if you ask me. Do you think there’s any of your father’s personality in his portrayal of Grendel? Would you say he was obstinate, stubborn, or a rebel against authority (like Grendel)? Your dad must have had a blast breathing life into his monster.

JG:      There’s no question my father identified with the monster — and yes, John, he enjoyed playing the role of any of the characters he was writing, inhabiting the character — but he also used the character of Grendel as a foil, a fictive stand-in to test his ideas about art and life, what makes us human, and what it is not to be human. There is also certainly something of my father in his Grendel (and something of his mother in Grendel’s mother, when you get down to it): he felt monstrous — capable of being a monster, possibly believed he was part monster — after killing his brother as a child. My father knew for a fact there was an abyss, and he pretty much knew right where the edge was. He’d been there, so that — and all things monstrous associated with the abyss — was to him familiar territory. But as a foil, he’s holding Grendel up as an example of what we would all be — any of us — without culture and community. In no way is the monster, Grendel, ever a hero, and yet he does go on the prototypical hero’s journey. The monster is also a test (as you know) of Sartrean existentialism. It turns out that existentialism is all well and good if you are sitting at a café table on the sidewalk all day, smoking French cigarettes, but it isn’t such a good model for living. I remember when my father was working on The Wreckage of Agathon. Now there was a burping, farting, ass-grabbing, drunken madman, all right. And that’s exactly how I remember my father behaving back in the early seventies. I’ll admit his inhabiting that character really put me off reading the book.

You ask about obstinate, stubborn, whether John Gardner was, or whether he was a rebel? He was a fire-breathing monster of a cause on two wheels, hell-bent to change the world, to make it better. He was Tolystoyan in his approach to writing and teaching, and he expected us to read, to learn, to think through the kinds of elaborate and fully complex moral circumstances his characters had to slog through so that we would be better equipped to make the best decisions we’re capable of in life. And that’s finally what he meant at that last Bread Loaf when he admonished the crowd in the Little Theater that “. . . [I]f you’re not writing politically, you’re not writing.” So rebel? I’d say yes. Sometimes an ugly one, but for all the right reasons. And yes, you as Caliban: I can see that. Caliban and Grendel riding into the sunset, lobbing fictional and poetic bombs into the meek and modest crowds feeling so good about themselves because they went to church on Sunday.

JS:       The final question is the easiest. Like your father, you are a motorcyclist. What’s your ride nowadays? I ride a black and chrome 2008 Yamaha V-Star Midnight Special. Sweet!

JG:      You are right there. My first motorcycle was a 1975 BMW R65, a 650 cc boxer that was a great introduction to motorcycling, very gentlemanly. Now I ride a K1200RS, a very elegant machine, well-balanced and capable — especially for distance touring — but not always so gentlemanly.

About Joel Gardner:

Joel Gardner was born in Chico, California. He is currently producing a feature-length documentary on John Gardner, SUNLIGHT MAN, and with his wife, Catie Camp, he writes and produces video for educational institutions and non-profit organizations. He currently lives in Newton, Massachusetts, where his two sons are in high school. His website is campgardner.com.

About the interviewer:

John Smelcer is a contributing editor to Ragazine. You can read more about him in “About Us”.

Photos courtesy of Joel Gardner.

©Olaf Heine

James Woods, Los Angeles, 2005

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Living the Dream

By Michael Foldes

There’s a lot to love about photography, but few photographers who make it relatively easy to understand why. How they do it is another thing. It’s not just in the equipment they shoot with, the finish of the paper they print on, or their subjects, but the connection the photographer makes to a moment that will be forever fixed in time. Hang forty or fifty of those moments in a gallery, or in a long hallway, and you have what truly can be called suspended animation. Crisp. Clearly visible to the unpracticed, as well as the practiced eye. Past perfect.

The following interview, with portfolios including images from his books “I Love You but I’ve Chosen Rock,” and “Leaving the Comfort Zone” (both from Hatje Cantz Publishing, 2010 and 2008, respectively), provide ample evidence of Heine’s interpretive visual skill, dedication to craft, and long-term love of music. Born in Hannover and schooled in Berlin, Heine moved to Los Angeles in 1998 where he added to his portfolio of celebrities, musicians and West Coast life. The recipient of numerous awards, his work has appeared on album covers, in magazines, advertisements and in music videos. From the following interview and images, we think you’ll know better why. 

Ragazine: Where do you call home, these days, and where is your studio?

Olaf Heine: That’s a difficult question. What’s home? On a physical level I’d have to say that my base is in Berlin these days and that is also where my studio is. I love the city. Berlin for sure is my home. But I have spent quite some time in other places the past fifteen years. I’ve split my time between Los Angeles and Berlin for eleven years. LA is kind of a home too. Berlin and Los Angeles are twin cities and although they are quite different, there are a lot of similarities in a deeper kind of aspect. I am still travelling there every few months spending time with friends and colleagues and also shooting there a lot. Taking the best of both worlds if you’d like. On a deeper, metaphysical or spiritual level I also must say that Ibiza/Spain became kind of a home for me. I am spending my summers there since the mid-nineties, did quite a lot of shoots there and got married there a few years ago. The small island in the Mediterranean is a very calm and inspiring place for me. 

Q: When and how did you get involved with photography? Did you start out working for an agency, or another photographer?

A: Ever since I can remember, ever since I was a little child I was taking pictures. In the first place it was just for fun, for the sake of playing around with this little technical gadget. But then I started recording my past time. I documented my family, my friends and my life. Later, in my teenage years I started going to concerts a lot and that’s how I became involved with music photography. I grew up in a little village and besides photography I loved rock music. So the camera became the door opener to this fascinating world, gave me the chance to get out and travel the world. I am self taught and happened to know a few musicians in my hometown who trusted me when they needed an album cover.

Q: Who or what would you say has been your principal motivator to take pictures?

Leaving the Comfort Zone | Hatje Cantz Publishing | August 2008

A: If it wasn’t for my affinity for music I’d probably be an architect. My motivation was really to become a part of the music world and to record my life. I didn’t play an instrument but I loved that whole scene, the friendship, the bonding, the travelling circus atmosphere. So the camera gave me the key to that world.

Q: Do you have a formal education in art, design or photography that you bring to a session?

A: I am self taught and learned by jumping in at the deep end. I studied a lot of books and bugged a lot of people who knew about photography. I made tons of mistakes and learned from them. After I worked as a photographer for a few years I finally moved to Berlin in the early nineties and attended a photography school (Lette-Verein).

Q: What kind of camera(s) do you favor, and why?

A: Without sounding arrogant or comparing myself, but would you ask Picasso about his favorite brush? I find discussions about technical aspects or favorite cameras, lenses, etc. boring and dull. I work with a whole lot of cameras. Whether I use a small or medium format, whether I use digital or analog, whether I use Photoshop or Polaroid, that really depends on my idea or vision for a certain image. I sometimes even use snapshot or video cameras to produce images.

Q: When you’re still shooting film, how much do you manipulate in the darkroom? Do you scan and work digitally after the fact? What papers do you like to print on?

I Love You but I've Chosen Rock | Hatje Cantz Publishing | September 2010

A: I do manipulate sometimes. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Again it depends on the subject. I just finished an advertising campaign with Germany’s national football team which I didn’t Photoshop at all. But then again I like to freedom of being able to do so if I wanted to. Same in the darkroom (even though I have to admit that I didn’t enter any darkroom since the late nineties). But my printer has the possiblities and I like to sometimes take advantage of it. As for printing, I still like a good old silver gelatine print.

Q: What kind of shoots do you enjoy most? Fashion? Musicians? Products?

A: In general I enjoy the shoots that give me most creative freedom and productive collaborations. In the past this has been the case a lot in the music industry. But ever since they lost a good deal of money through the digital age and the downloading of music files, they have also lost their courage, which makes it harder for a photographer. There is more pressure to succeed and therefore less and less creative leeway. I am also a big football (soccer) fan, so working with a lot of talented players, especially with the ones from my favorite team give me a lot of joy and happiness. I’m living my childhood dream, right?

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Q: What photographers do you admire, and who would you most like to work with (living or dead)?

A: When I started out I admired documentary street photographers like Cartier Bresson or Robert Frank. Especially the latter’s dark and moody visuality had an impact on my earlier work.  I am also a kid of the eighties and grew up admiring some of the most talented black and white photographers. I like the diversity of Albert Watson for example. Bruce Weber is another one. His ‘Let’s get lost’ documentary about Chet Baker had a big influence on my work.

Q: Did you have a mentor? Who?

A: This would be German photographer Jim Rakete who was doing great b/w portraits of the German music scene in the eighties. I met him in the early nineties and even assisted for him on one or two occasions. He supported me quite a bit and gave me a lot of advice.

Q: What’s the most remarkable aspect for you in being a photographer?

A: The most important aspect in photography for me is that I get to see so much of the world and meet so many talented people. It really is about the moment itself, the process and collaboration. The journey is the destination, isn’t it?

©Olaf Heine

Stroke, Berlin, 2008

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Q: If you had your choice of subjects/projects to shoot, what would it be?

A: I do have my choice of projects sometimes. Besides my commissions Ialways work on personal projects. Throughout the year I try to take some weeks and months off  to develop and pursue certain ideas. There are portraiture portfolios of different people as well as landscape and architectural projects.

Q:  Obviously you’re not intimidated by fame. Have you always found it easy to work around ‘personalities’?   

A: I try to look at my subjects in their entirety and not just in relation to fame and stardom, if you know what I mean. To me it’s more important that I work with creative minds and that makes the collaboration challenging and thrilling. Their fame is irrelevant to me.

Q: Who or what was the most difficult subject you’ve had to photograph? Why?

A: Of course there are shootings that are more difficult than others but I would’t tell you who those were with. I try to be as loyal as I can to my subjects.

Q: Do you have any favorite photographs, or one in particular you wish you’d had a chance to shoot over?

A: No. I don’t. I try to not look back too much and/or regret… Everything happens for a reason and if I mess up, I mess up. I try to learn from mistakes and move on.

Q: Any advice for young people starting out in the business?

A: That’s a tricky one. What would I say? Forget about sleep the first couple of years? Be grateful and humble? Try to not be too satisfied with your work? No seriously. I would say that one should not concentrate on photography alone. There is so much medial interplay between the different creative forms nowadays. My job needs some fundamental knowledge in graphic design, advertising, architecture, fashion, film, marketing and so many other aspects. Take your time and look around is what I’d probably say.

Q: Thank you, Olaf.

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Related Sites:

http://www.olafheine.com/
http://www.hatjecantz.de

All work copyright Olaf Heine; used with permission. 

Anja Wiroth Agency | Alexander Str. 9 | 10178 Berlin | Deutschland
Fon: +49-(0)30-509-161-41 | Mail: anja@anjawiroth.com

Weiss Artists Inc. | 6311 Romaine St. #7234 | Los Angeles | Ca. 90038 | USA
Fon: +1-323-461-1084 | Mail: caryn@wreps.com

Note:

This edited interview was conducted via e-mail from October through December, 2011.  

PULPO:

Hieronymus Bosch

Meets Theodor Geisel

Interview with Fernando Hereñú

by Mike Foldes

I don’t exactly recall how I came to know Fernando Hereñú’s work, most likely on a jaunt through Chelsea last summer, but I do know that soon as I saw it I had stepped into a world of fantasy that combines childhood dreams and adult nightmares. It was no surprise to find out that Hereñú, who goes by the nom de plume of Pulpo (incidentally the Spanish word for octopus), is engaged in comic book illustration. Citing historically diverse influences as Hieronymus Bosch, and Argentine illustrator Jose Luis Salinas, Pulpo invites us to venture with him into psychedelic realms where we can linger longer than with a fleeting thought. Hereñú was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977, completed his Graphic Design studies at the Universty of Buenos Aires in 2002, and for the next four years  he worked as a designer for Cartoon Network. He lives in Buenos Aires and is creative director for an online games company.

Q: How did you come to art? Were your parents artists?

A: I have no family artists. But all my relatives are related to sociology, anthropology and humanities, science… So when I was a kid we always had many art books in my house. We had a large library where they were almost all European artists of the 20th century. I looked at those pictures and was very confused, I remember much of it, could say that I liked but could not stop looking at art. Imagine a child looking to Hieronymus Bosch. That might be a good image on my childhood.

I started to draw early in my life. Was the only way I was quiet in my house.
I could spend hours and hours just drawing.  My parents realized of it and then they send to me to study comic book to one of the best teachers in my country.

Q: Who was the teacher your parents sent you to, and what was his/her process of teaching, and working with you?

A: My teacher was Jose Luis Salinas, one of the drafters of the Marvel comics. One of the most important studies was the anatomy of the human body and another, perspective drawings. They made ​​us work very hard. Where the human form and the handling of the pen was the most important.  We students drew for hours drawing hands, bodies, etc.

I was among the younger students throughout the academy. I spent about two years and then went to work more on the comic mode. In this way, then, I got my job at Cartoon Network.

Q: What kind of work did you do in your first job at the Cartoon Network?

A: I really do not remember. The important thing to know at that stage was different illustration styles and meeting friends. Another good thing at that time was to know a little about the production of animated entertainment.

I think the best we had at that time was the quality of animation and illustration.

Q: What project/program did you work on?  Can you see them on the web?

A: Now I am working for an exhibition in Salvador Bahia. I’m working hard for this. Since it is a project to purify the aesthetic lines.  You can see it all on my page, http://pulpocorporate.tumblr.com/

My project is to continue the series. I’m working to further deepen the concept.

Q:  What is the Bahia, Salvia project? Is it a commission?

A: Salvador Bahi its an important city in Brasil. I will be there this month because I have an exhibition there. I am going to present some abstract drawing. There are something strange that happened to me now, I don’t want to draw figurative things. I prefer to be more complex than the reality. The abstraction, it’s like a dark hole.

Q: How difficult is it to make a living for a commercial artist such as yourself? What would you tell others who are interested in pursuing careers in illustration, as artists or as cartoonists?

A: For me it would be much more difficult to live a profession other than as an artist. I think I could develop another activity. To me, life is 24 hours related to art.

Some artists are rich and others poor. But art has nothing to do with money.

But the most important thing I can say is that illustrators do this activity with the heart. Finally they will find a worthy a place to work. Art has nothing to do with the grasp of money. To make money there are other better careers. The career of an artist is to find within ourselves something to show others. It puts everything into images we think and feel.

Q: Where do you get your ideas? What’s the most “fertile territory” for your images. They seem too strong to be taken from café scenes.

A: I use a technique called Synchronism for composition. This technique has to do with surrealism. I do not plan a lot about what I do. I try not to think about them if possible.

Q: What is your preferred medium these days? Do you sculpt?

A: My preferred medium is paper and India ink. It is actually the preferred way that I always use in my career. I love drawing more than anything else. But the painting half seems tedious. I just love painting with the comic style, which is easy to give good volume. Like you, I am not really a person with great patience.

Q: How do you know I’m a person without great patience? (BTW, I am laughing out loud with that last answer!)

A: I wanted to say that I’m a guy a little (too) anxious to sculpt. I want to see something now. I want to create a painting now, I feel I have no time.

Q: What’s next on the agenda for you?

A:  But I prefer to be more concentrated in the creation this year, because I have a lot of ideas that I feel have to take priority. Maybe I’m thinking to move to the U.S., France or Tokyo soon. That will be my next project.

Note:

Fernando Hereñú aka Pulpo’s first solo exhibition in New York, “Hidden Drawings,” took place at Tache Art Gallery in New York last summer, where his work is available.  This interview was conducted via e-mail between September and December 2011.

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187291607992623
www.tachegallery.com
http://pulpocorporate.tumblr.com/

__________________________________

Anthony Haden-Guest

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Mr. Hyde | Spray-paint and oil on canvas | 110 x 115cm

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Dale Grimshaw

Painting the bad dream 

Q: The theme of your new show, ‘Semi-Detached’, you have described as depicting ‘what goes on behind closed doors’. How much of the show will relate to personal experience?

A: My experiences as a child in a very difficult and potentially violent environment, has had a strong impact on all parts of my life. My father was a violent and cruel man, whose presence in the family home caused physical and emotional pain for us all. My mum was the focus of his violent behaviour and she really suffered at his hands. We were left homeless after fleeing the family home. We lived in so many places after that, including a caravan in a farmer’s field and also a gutted farm house that was home to chickens – the chickens still came in to visit after that! My oldest sister witnessed a lot more than me and sadly I believe it really brought the worst out in her in later years.

Being a child in that type of situation is a nightmare. All the things that should be there to support you and help you develop as an adult are undermined by the fear and unpredictability of the situation. My mother did her best to protect us, but she was lonely and vulnerable herself. Despite all that happened in the early days, my Mum’s love has shone through for me and I have held onto that as an adult, despite losing her tragically early when I was only nineteen. Without this love, I can’t imagine how I could have carried on and achieved anything as an adult.

I’m always intrigued yet horrified when I read in the paper about murderers or people that have sex slaves in their basements. Neighbours are quoted as saying things like “ooh he was such a quiet and polite man… who would have thought”.

Sociopaths can be the most worrying, as we like to think we can summarise and judge people quickly and accurately – but we can’t always. Who knows what some people are up to behind closed doors…

My work really started taking off when I realized that it was ok to express some of the darker emotions in my art. For a long time I kept a lid on all these feelings. My piece called ‘Exorcism’ is the first piece in which I found my creative voice and it’s still one of the most powerful images I have ever painted.

Exorcism

Q: Where do you call home, these days, and where is your studio?

A: I live in north London with my partner and two cats. I’ve lived in the Haringay area of London for twenty years now. I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere else other than London. London is such an amazing place with so much to do. A lot of people that inhabit the city take it all for granted I think. It can be a lonely place though; I found it hard when I first arrived here with £4.90 in my pocket.

It’s nice to feel safe and be finally settled now, although I still have a wooden club next to my bed though, just in case…

Our house has a nice garden and the house is big enough for me to have my own studio at home. This works for me at the moment, but in time I may need to expand into a bigger space. I love the idea of working much bigger than I currently do.

Q: When and how did you get involved with art?

A: I’ve been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. I was naturally talented I would say, but there wasn’t anyone in my family that was arty in the obvious sense, that encouraged me.

I always loved the military look of the feudal and medieval period, so I would draw Saxons or Knights. I was never really a confident drawer in front of people but when I started painting and using pastels at about 12, I really came into my own. I did still lifes and landscapes from my imagination. I also did drawings of Johnny Rotten, Adam Ant and other bands. Later I had a period of painting LP covers on people’s leather jackets. I was always obsessed with graffiti and I would write ‘Dale G’ from the age of about ten, then later I became ‘Grimmy’ and I would daub that at every given opportunity! My mum encouraged my art and bought me materials when she could, I also stole materials from shops when the occasion arose.

When I was at Assessment Centre in Blackburn as a teenager, I was helped to pursue creative routes – they must have been desperate to stop me glue sniffing and I was allowed to paint on the walls in the building, which was great.

The Fool | Oil and spray paint on canvas | 2009

Q: Who or what would you say has been your principal motivator to take art?

A: No one in particular motivated me to produce art – I naturally gravitated towards it myself. There’s no defining moment either.

I wanted to be really famous so I thought I should either be a famous archaeologist, a serial killer or an artist. Archaeology started to appear really boring as time went on. With being a serial killer I realized I would have to kill people horribly, so that was out of the question. Being a famous artist seemed really plausible. I was a strange child.

We had several prints by famous artists in our council house on Clarence Road whilst growing up, including Monet and Constable. Constable’s ‘The Cornfield’ was really painterly and had a farm boy drinking from a stream. His sheep dog and herd were near by and in the background was a cornfield. I loved the narrative of it.

Later on I was fascinated by the designs of punk record covers. The drawing on the front of Adam and the Ants ‘Young Parisians’ single springs to mind. If you look at the photography on Adam’s ‘Zerox’ cover, you can really see similarities with what I do now. Later I liked Jamie Reid’s approach to art – cut it out, throw some glue on it and stick it down ‘Blue Peter’ style.

Q: Do you have a formal education in art, design or photography that you bring to a session, or are you self-taught?

A: I guess you would say I had formal training, but tutors don’t really teach you, in the strict sense of the word, especially at degree level. At foundation level you are taught basic colour theory and life drawing (working from nude model), etc. I went to Blackburn College of Art and Middlesex University, based in north London.

In my very early teens I got those ‘how to paint’ books from the adult section of the library; I would study and copy from those. In time the snotty-faced librarians tried to stop me for a while, fuck knows why…

Q: What kind of medium do you favor, and why? Oil, acrylic, pastel, all?

A: I was mainly an oil painter in the early college days, I started seriously again with oils after my mum died. However, as time has gone on I have found that this medium doesn’t suit all my needs in the studio. It’s a shame because I really love the feel and finish of oils, but I work with a lot of splashes, smears and gestural brush marks. I found acrylic paint really suits this approach better, due to its accelerated drying time. I also use spray paint, especially when I’m painting on outside walls. Spray paint is good for blocking in big areas quickly and it also dries really fast so you can work over it with other types of paint.

2009, Woodcut print, Shoreditch London

I also produce big woodcut prints that I paste up out on the streets across the world. With his technique you first draw your image onto the flat piece of wood, then you cut out the areas that you don’t want to print – it’s like inverted drawing. Then you apply ink with a roller over your design, place the paper on top, apply pressure and then the inked image is left on the paper. Voila!

Q: Where do your images come from? imaginary or based on real events that you transform?

A: The ideas for paintings are often based on memories or experience, but usually the paintings are more of a loose interpretation rather than being a really literal depiction. I sometimes get photos off the internet to start an idea going, then I nearly always take my own photos, mainly of the body, to back this initial reference material up. I do a lot of digital sketches before I start painting. If I’m working on a full colour painting, as opposed to monochrome, then I like to have lots of detail of the skin areas. I love to capture the real visceral fleshiness of the human form – the veins and muscle underneath the skin, if I can.

Q: What artists working today do you admire, and who would you most like to work with (living or dead)?

A: I was a huge fan of Scottish painter Peter Howson when I was younger, along with Ken Currie. I loved the Herculean type physicality of Howson’s work. I also really admired Lucian Freud with his fleshy un-apologetic take on the human body in its many grisly forms and colours. I never really went through what seemed to be the obligatory Francis Bacon obsession that most art students go though — although I’ve come to really appreciate his stuff of late.

I really like Jenny Saville’s work too.

I’d probably work well with someone like Rubens – he could do his amazing translucent fleshy bodies and then I’d add to it and fuck it up with all my trademark smears and splashes. That would be great as I could nick some flesh-painting tips at the same time.

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Q: Anything we haven’t touched that you’d like to comment on?

A: My solo show ‘Semi –Detached’ starts at Signal Gallery London on the 7^th October. The private view is Thurs 6^th October. (The show runs through October 29th.)

www.signalgallery.com

About the interviewer: 

Patrick Palmer has the unusual combination of having both an artistic and a business background — over 20 years’ experience in media, marketing and publishing. He is  a figurative artist, and his work can be seen at: www.patrickpalmer.co.uk

 Connecting the Dots

An Interview with

Drug Policy Alliance’s Tamar Todd

By Don Ruben

On assignment from Ragazine editor Mike Foldes, I conducted a telephone interview August 19, 2011, with Tamar Todd, staff attorney at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) office of legal affairs in California. She was referred to us by the national office of DPA as the point person involved in litigation, legislative drafting, and public education advocacy involving medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, and legalization initiatives across the country.

Tamar Todd, DPA Photo

The Drug Policy Alliance was formed in July 2000 when The Lindesmith Center, an activist drug policy think-tank established in 1994, merged with the Drug Policy Foundation. More history on all three organizations is available at:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/about-us/mission-and-vision/history.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted medical marijuana laws, but the Obama administration continues to follow the failed policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, evidenced in this exchange at a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, MN, earlier this year: A citizen asked, “If you can’t legalize marijuana, why can’t we just legalize medical marijuana, to help the people that need it?”

Obama responded, “Well, you know a lot of states are making decisions about medical marijuana. As a controlled substance, the issue then is, you know, is it being prescribed by a doctor, as opposed to, you know—well—I’ll—I’ll—I’ll—I’ll leave it at that.”

There’s a lot more at stake than the president seems to understand. Marijuana properly dispensed and regulated for medical use is legal in 16 states and DC, but it’s still illegal under federal law. Many believe the feds under Obama have been heavy handed, suggesting to state bar associations that private lawyers representing medical marijuana dispensaries are committing ethical violations because although MM may be legal in their states, it’s still a federal violation, making those private lawyers, in effect, participants in violating federal law. There is evidence that the feds urge state law enforcement to be extra vigilant in making sure that the MM (medical marijuana) legal guidelines are followed.

The interview that follows has been edited for clarity and length.

DR: For our readers, I would like to briefly talk about the mission of DPA. I have read your web site, www.drugpolicy.org and find it very informative and interesting.

TT: Thanks. We have recently revised the website and I’m very happy with it.

DR: It appears that DPA is more like a think tank than an activist organization like the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

TT: We still have a think tank component, but we’re trying to become more directly involved in direct action work and litigation. We do put out booklets and information materials relating to different aspects of drug policy. Our headquarters is in New York City, and we have offices in five states (CA, CO, NJ, NM, and NY), with the office of legal affairs in California. Most of our legal litigation has been done in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and their drug justice section.

One of the main goals of DPA is ending the unjust drug policies because of discriminatory emphasis on Blacks and Latinos. We feel there is social injustice in the unequal arrest of these minorities that not only results in prison time, but also leaves them with a conviction and record which further impedes their getting employment.  It is our belief that although Whites use marijuana in about the same numbers as Blacks and Latinos, the arrest rates are entirely different and we want to address this injustice. We have partnered with the NAACP (National Association of Colored People) in this regard.

DR: Let’s turn our attention to medical marijuana. MM is now legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

TT: We are working and making our resources and help available to persons trying to get MM on the ballot in others states. We are definitely trying to be more active in this area. (DPA executive director) Ethan Nadelmann calls us a ‘connect the dots’ organization. We try and bring together several different organizations who are working on different aspects of the war on drugs.

DR: In 2008, candidate Barack Obama pledged that if elected, his administration would not use the Department of Justice (DOJ) resources to circumvent state laws on MM. Yet in June of 2011, President Obama’s DOJ issued new guidelines for US attorneys in a document known as the Cole memorandum. Didn’t Obama miss a key opportunity to clarify the state/federal conflict over MM? Instead of paving the way for responsible regulations in 16 states and D.C., the Cole memorandum brought more confusion and obstruction of state’s rights. What is your opinion of these new regulations, especially with regard to large growers?

TT: I understand and agree with you. The President has certainly failed to clarify the situation. The recent Cole memorandum from DOJ seems to agree and also disagree with the original Ogden memorandum saying Federal government would be hands off if dispensaries and growers followed state law guidelines. It definitely has a lack of clarity and there is almost a passive-aggressive policy by US attorneys. They send letters to state legislatures and governors in states considering MM laws and then tend to back off. Yet, in Washington State recently, one letter from a US Attorney was sufficient to give the governor the go ahead to veto the MM law. The President is certainly being very political. He sort of says one thing and yet the DOJ and US Attorneys know they can do what they have been doing and not get called on it.

DR: At the 2010 December NORML lawyers conference in Key West there was much discussion of how some state bar associations, at the urging of US attorneys, are warning private lawyers that it’s unethical to represent dispensaries — even in states with MM laws — because under federal law, marijuana is still illegal and a crime. This happened in Arizona and NORML lawyers have formed a committee to challenge it.

TT: I know, and I think it is also the case in Maine. But in California you can get CLE (Continuing Legal Education) credit for learning how to do it properly. Again, there is a lack of clarity.

DR: Recently the Obama administration flat out rejected the notion of even allowing hearings on marijuana’s federal schedule 1 classification. Schedule 1 means there is no valid medical use for marijuana. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator Michelle Leonart denied a 9-year-old petition for hearings to reassign classification, an issue central to MM. The current schedule indicates marijuana has no redeeming value at all, although most medical professionals disagree.

TT: There is no science, reason, or compassion for such a stance. It’s all political. I don’t know anyone in the field who would agree with Leonart with a straight face. It’s policy based on political concerns by Obama without regard to any scientific proof.

DR: I think that Obama’s choice of Leonart as DEA chief is no different policy-wise than (choices) under Bush or Clinton.

TT: As I said, it must be based on some political calculation on his part, but I certainly don’t understand or agree with it.

DR: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs, started by Nixon in 1971. It seems to many that ending prohibition and using the alcohol/tobacco regulate-and-tax model is the way to go. I clearly separate MM and the recreational user of cannabis. I think that ending prohibition would serve both of these users. I know that DPA is four-square behind ending prohibition.

TT: Yes, it’s the policy position of DPA that ending prohibition is the best way to effectuate MM policy. This would provide the best way to put patients’ needs first and also provide the best way to allow for scientific research into the use of marijuana for all kinds of medical needs. Also, as I have alluded to earlier, the social justice component is very important with regard to the arrests of blacks and Latinos. Ending prohibition would serve both groups. I think it’s important to support the federal bill sponsored by Barney Frank and Ron Paul for ending federal prohibition and leaving it to the states, similar to ending alcohol prohibition.

DR: I totally agree. Let me turn to Prop 19 in California. I know that DPA supported it and I also worked for its passage. Why do you think it narrowly failed, and what are the prospects for success in the future when it’s brought up again in 2012?

TT: I think we are at a tipping point similar to the issue of same-sex marriage. Also, 2010 was a non-presidential year and so not that many young people voted who tend to be liberal. I also felt that there is a profit question which must be addressed. The big dealers in, say, Humboldt county felt if (MM were) legalized, their profit would go down. Also, many in the MM business felt their profits would also be affected.

Ruben at Key West NORML Conference, Dec. 2010 Lelia Cady Photo

DR: Obviously, illegality creates higher prices. I think this can be addressed. I also believe, from my work on the issue, that voters have to understand that a person in California who has a MM prescription would be subject to criminal prosecution if they brought M to a state such as Ohio, where it is illegal. When the Prop 19 folks had a sounding board after the election, these issues were discussed as well as the fact that money from Soros and others came in too late. I agree that 2012, with a larger turnout and a better campaign, could prove to be a winner. I agree with Keith Stroup of NORML that the right to smoke cannabis is grounded in the constitutional right of privacy. How do you view it?

TT: I find the constitutional argument interesting. We at DPA view as part of our mission that the sovereignty of the individual over what they put in their body absent harm to others is the guiding principle.

DR: In conclusion, I say legalize, regulate, and tax.

TT: I agree.

DR: On behalf of Ragazine and myself, I thank you for taking the time for this interview and I wish DPA continued success.

TT: Thank you. If you have any further questions don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me.

 —30—

Interviewer’s Note: I hope readers will take a moment to view an excellent video by DPA director Ethan Nadelmann, responding to the outlandish DEA claim that marijuana has no accepted medical use. Click here.

I believe that President Obama has reversed his campaign promises on MM and has followed the unscientific and uncompassionate views of the two Bushes and Clinton. He has failed to resolve the state/federal conflict and has allowed his DOJ and US attorneys to use their power to prevent states from adopting sustainable public policies for MM. I voted for Obama in 2008 and will not be supporting his reelection in 2012. – DR

 *

About Don Ruben: Ruben has been criminal defense lawyer for more than 40 years. He is a former assistant county prosecutor and served as an assistant attorney general under William B. Saxbe. He is a member of NORML’s legal committee and supports an end to cannabis prohibition. 

_________________

Anthony Haden-Guest

 Eleanor Goldfield

“A Spark to Do Something …”

An Interview with Eleanor Goldfield:

Singer, Songwriter, Urbane Guerrilla

By Jim Palombo, Politics Editor

As various articles in the past editions of Ragazine have demonstrated, we receive a number of emails, both positive and negative, from those interested in what we are saying in our Politics section.  It was in this context that this month’s piece unfolded.

I received a note from Eleanor Goldfield indicating that, via her band, the Rooftop Revolutionaries, she was involved with music and politics in a way that seemed consistent with what we put out at Ragazine. As she was interested in integrating her musical efforts with other forms of art, she was making contact with Ragazine accordingly. In following up on her suggestion that we talk more, we did just that via e-mail, and eventually we met in New York City to chat face to face. The interview that follows is a result of that meeting.

But before you read on, there are a few things I would like to say. We are in dire need in the U.S. of energy and commitment pointed at sorting through the difficult problems that confront us all. In that context, I trust that you, like me, will find the young woman you are about to meet most impressive – in design, in creativity and in her concern about the political, economic and social future of our country. The fact that she has integrated all this into the musical group, Rooftop Revolutionaries, accompanied by their theme to “Do Something” under the banner of “Art Killing Apathy”, with a business model (and portfolio) that states that this is “a way to combine the culture of hard rock and the culture of political and social activism into a revolutionary business” speaks volumes to the socially motivated character and initiative that are much needed in today’s world.  These traits are difficult to locate in Ms. Goldfield’s generation, and unfortunately the same holds true for mine.

As one who shares similar concerns about the future of our country (among others, see the previous Ragazine article “Where Ignorance is Not Bliss” and our Campaign for an Informed Citizenry website noted within:  www.cicorg.com) I am extremely happy to have met-up with Ms. Goldfield – she is indeed someone who is actively and with great intensity “doing something.”  And on this point, I sincerely hope that we will be working together with projects in the future, projects that will have the future of America clearly in mind.

With all this being said, I believe you will find the interview more than of passing interest. I also anticipate that you will come away with a sense of having met a person who you will be hearing more about. And as we always encourage here at Ragazine, please feel free to respond with whatever thoughts your feelings may prompt – certainly what Ms. Goldfield offers will prompt some. Hopefully, and consistent with the Rooftop Revolutionary message, they will be ones that suggest you “doing something” as well.  (I would encourage you to visit the band’s website – rooftoprevolutionaries.com, and also Eleanor Goldfield’s blog – rooftoprevolutionaries.blogspot.com – especially her 4^th of July piece.)

– Jim Palombo, Politics Editor

 * * * * * 

Jim Palombo: How do you respond to the notion that you might be trying to ‘capitalize’ on the apathy that is present — turning it into a marketable product(s) that really will be no different than any other commodity out there, with no appreciable results in terms of “making a difference” but making you famous with some money in your pocket along the way?

Eleanor Goldfield: I have nothing against making money — hell I have to make money and enjoy spending it on things I love. I’ve been homeless, don’t like it. I’m still poor, don’t like that either. Money is not the root of all evil. Plastic packaging is.

Looking at my music, many think I hate corporations. That’s true and false. I don’t have a problem with corporations as an entity. Way back when, corporations were only allowed to exist on a charter — and that charter had to provide some kind of public service. Once that had been completed, they were for the most part, dissolved. The growth into the ‘corpotacracy’ we experience today has been a long road of failed legislation and un-informed voter decisions. And that’s what I have a problem with: corporations being the template for our government. A government should not exist to make money, plain and simple. Bottom line is that bottom lines should not be the focal point of a government. When corporations are in charge of governing a nation, the thought and care of the people becomes far secondary to the amount of money available through various business ventures — namely war, conquest, privatization and free markets. We can see the effect of this today, a home-based lab we tested extensively in South America, Asia, and recently the Middle East. But I digress…

Back to me — I would like to make money. I would like to not have to fiscally debate the cup of coffee I get on my way to the bus. But it is not my primary concern. I am not entirely philanthropic — I believe in helping people to a point, but that the only way to truly help someone is to allow them to learn and find their own strength — else you will have a country of sheep, just an ideological flop from what we have now. I think I can already say that I am not like any other commodity, having mixed the business of music with the business of political activism into, not just a band, but a movement. And, in reality, the only real way to make a difference is to get out there and become known — not necessarily “famous,” but known. Just as people in the music industry tell the kids coming up, if you’re doing this for money, there’s the door — you’re in the wrong business. Revolutionary thinking and acting is not known for its glamorous lifestyle. You don’t fall into it, you blaze into it, knowing you want to do it. I am not driven by greed, just the will to change things, and to allow people the ability to again, Think. React. Do Something.

Q: Describe yourself and the music — are you a ‘rebel?’

A: Think I need more space for this one It’s hard to describe myself, I must say. Without inching too far into the abstract, I am a culmination of all that has happened to me, that which I consciously recall and unconsciously, perhaps more the latter. I am a product of the space and time in which I find myself. The music is the same idea. Although couched under the umbrella of hard rock or alt. metal, the band is a culmination of our history, our thoughts, our experiences, the music we listened to, the art we grasped, and how all this has allowed us to see the world, the wrongs, the ills, the thrills and joys. How being a musician and writing about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in today’s world is a disservice to the art form (as in, you are not creating new art, just regurgitating old themes in mostly a cookie cutter, uninteresting, formulated medium) and to the people who consume it. Something Brian (my business partner) and I consciously decided at the beginning was that we did not want to fit into the confines of any one genre. We both had songs and melodies, lyrics and ideas that had previously “not fit” other bands. Well fuck that! That’s us — that’s our creative being — the idea of just chucking it aside because it’s not this or that became ludicrous. And we stand by that today. If it sounds good, it is good, as Duke Ellington once said.

Like the band, I do not rebel to rebel. I probably did when I was younger, but doesn’t every teenager? Now, there is so much thought behind each word, each action. And that is how it must be. I used to preach, now I teach. I used to fight everyone who disagreed. Now I discuss, I learn, I grow, I continue, forwards. Progress comes as much from realizing your own strength as accepting humility and owning your falls, and wrongdoings. The two play off each other and bolster the other. In that same breath, I have always made it a point to rebel when necessary. I got into fights, standing up for bullied kids. I stood up on a soap box even when there wasn’t one to stand on. The art of picking fights is something I have learned over the years — living in North Carolina, I picked too many for my own good, at times. But there is too much going on to be complacent, there is too much wrong to sit idly by and not rebel against. Now, not all people have the personality to stand up or pick fights. That’s OK. But we all have the ability to add our energy, add our thoughts, our names to a movement. Not all black people went out into the streets. Maybe they put on events at local churches, offered food or moral support. A movement, much like a band, is not just what you see. The people behind the scenes have just as much to do with the outcome as those in the spotlight. Regardless of where you want to be, everyone can rebel without being loud and ready to fight. Rebellion against dwindling rights, falling economies, sagging infrastructures, and blood soaked soil begins with a thought — an idea, which will lead to more. Without that, you can be as loud as you want without actually saying anything.

Q: What is it that makes you who you are/your motivation?

A: Ah, deep questions… I’m not even sure what makes me who I am. I feel that life is a constant journey to understand oneself, not to mention the world and others around you. There are caverns of my mind and soul that I know I will never uncover. And progressively, I am becoming OK with that. What I find exciting is the quest for knowledge and knowing that no matter how much you know, there is always so much that you don’t, and will never know, before you die. It’s intriguing with a subtle spice of solemnity. Momento Mori as the slave would tell the Caesar. Beyond those philosophical musings, what makes me who I am is where I’ve been, where I am, the people around me — past and present, my mom’s egg and my dad’s sperm

As far as motivation, that is the one part where I don’t have to work. Motivation comes to me every time I read the news and well, exist. Every morning I wake up and have about 10 news sources and outlets that I scan for news, including foreign publications. The information I find there is enough to push me forward — to keep fighting, to keep writing, thinking, acting and creating. It is where I hope others will find motivation — in knowledge. Nothing makes you hunger for knowledge like knowledge — nothing makes you want to create, to change, to do, like thinking — fueled by even a subtle fact, a random tid bit in the newspaper — you never know. Motivation can be found in so many places — you don’t even necessarily have to look for it, you just have to allow yourself to see it when it passes by.

Q: Given this, what are some of the difficulties you face — personally as well as in the music business?

A: The difficulty usually comes when this type of information becomes overwhelming. There is so much wrong in the world and obviously news outlets capitalize on this information, that it is often times quite difficult for me to continuously seek and fill my mind and soul with it. The music part is never perceived to me as difficult. I love it. Singing is without a doubt an outlet, as is writing. The one flows seamlessly into the other. If it weren’t for my ability to write and to sing, to find a medium for this information and the associated frustration, I would probably already be in a padded room.

In terms of the music industry, it is a very interesting and unique time. Never before has the music industry been in such a flux. It refused to hop on the internet train and is now desperately trying to stay afloat, clinging to cookie cutter bands and popular music with atrocious deals and contracts — hence why our group and movement seeks investors, not record labels. I want my band and I to be in the sole position of deciding a creative direction, particularly since we have such a specific, creative message. Furthermore, I don’t want to be indebted to ‘the bigs’ for the rest of my days, shelving projects that I worked my ass off on simply because they don’t think they’re marketable in today’s industry. I pride myself on not being marketable by industry standards. I don’t wear fishnets on stage, I don’t wear makeup, I don’t sing about kissing boys, girls, sunny days and noodle salad. I feel there are more important things to discuss and I will no doubt make many more enemies than friends with that viewpoint, but so be it.

In that mayhem, there is also excitement. Bands don’t have a blueprint — it’s not as it was: get good, get signed, get famous, die. Today, bands are forced to be creative business minded entities. From marketing to merchandising, tour dates and locations, niches, all these things are vital aspects that end up being a full time job. I don’t tell people I have a band. I have a start up business.

In terms of other frustrations, though you didn’t ask about the political frustration, I will impart my opinion anyway Being an artist and political automatically plants the assumption that you’re a liberal. I’m not. I’m not on either side. I’m a centrist. I think both parties are equally full of shit and up to their necks in corporate blood money. Frustration comes when people so indoctrinated in the two-party system feel that in order for change to be realized, you must hop on the left or the right. No. Come back to no-man’s land and make a stand. All the most significant legislation in this country’s history has been made from the center. If we are ever to move forward, we have to stop pushing left and right and find our center.

Q: Is there some type of movement afoot? Are there others that you feel some type of connection to? What about the older guard — say Bono, Springsteen, (and newer ‘older’ like Rage Against the Machine)?

A: The movement is more of a stagger at the moment. Again, as I said above, people and organizations feel like they have to latch on to one side of the political foray to get anywhere, The Tea Party, for example. The original idea of not wanting to bail out banks was fine. The execution — what the fuck? That’s the problem here. People are not teaching or being taught, they are preaching or being preached at. A country of left and right sheep doesn’t make a movement. An educated, informed, engaged public does. That’s what I’m after.

In terms of connection, I look to Rage, System of a Down, Springsteen, Bono — I admire what they’ve done and appreciate their efforts. As much as I admire them, they all miss a key ingredient in their message: action. Today, it is not enough to showcase the issues, as we did in Vietnam. Today, we have to call people to act, we have to call people to educate themselves. The closest I can think of would be Serj Tankian and Tom Morello. They are two people who have really worked hard on the political stage as well as musical. But again, there isn’t enough — there isn’t enough movement or suggestion. My goal is not just to give people information, but to give people a spark for that information — a spark to Do Something.

Q: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

A: I see myself touring, not just the U.S., but the world. I recently met a man from Jordan who said it would be interesting to arrange a few shows over there. Their view of Americans contrasted with the band and the message would be a happy contradiction — one I hope to see more of. This country gives itself a bad name by allowing the stupid and the blood thirsty to be the loudest. Raise your voice and you will hear the world respond in kind.

And to elaborate on what I mean by touring, I don’t just mean, play a show, get in the bus and fuck off to the next city. I’d like to organize protests, marches, rallies — I’d like to organize meet-ups where professors and intellectuals get a share of the mic before we play — where people feel the rush of the music as well as the rush of pride, dignity and duty for being American.

Q: How about our country? Are you two connected?

A: As a citizen, I can’t NOT be connected. The fate of this country is my fate too. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but it is true. The choices made (or at this point, not made) every day by our “representatives” and the powers-that-be affect us beyond that day, that week, that month. This country is nearing, if not already standing at, a precipice. We like to hearken back to the good old days, but we can’t really go back there. We fear the future — the rising power of foreign nations. We tend not to live in the present — we push away vital decisions and shun problems. But they will be dealt with — either after the fact or preferably before. As I write this, we are less than a month away from defaulting on our debts. What happens if we do? Who cares? Around the world, this year has seen significant uprisings from people in situations not so different than our own: young unemployed masses aggravated at lack of jobs, lack of opportunity, lowered standards of living and higher price tags. What spurred them? What will spur us? At what point do you take the bitching at the bar over a beer to the streets? It will be interesting to see, and I intend to remain highly connected and engaged throughout this nutty experiment.

Q: You being one of only a few women doing what you are doing — what does this fact make you think/feel? Who are your role models? And somewhat related, what do you suppose the public perception of you might be?

A: I think it’s a factor of our surroundings, our cushy, or at least perceived to be cushy, environment. I’d like to point out that there are many women, braver than me, fighting for freedom and rights in places like the Middle East where education is not an option, not even a bad one, where faces are heretical and simple acts such as driving are considered revolutionary. I consider them my role model but I’d also like to add the disclaimer that having a vagina has very little to do with my activism. I’m not a feminist, at least not in the present paradigm. I don’t think that women should be above men, I don’t think men should suffer for trespasses done towards women in the past. Equal rights are based upon equality… shocking thought, I know. There’s no such thing as reverse sexism — it’s just sexism, any way you slice it. I think women are too quick to fall back on the fact that they are women, when in fact sometimes they just aren’t up to the task. If the best person for the job is an Aryan man, so be it. If it’s a black female, that’s great too. Dropping our prejudices does not mean reversing them. We can only move forward successfully if we allow all questions of race and gender fall to the inner workings of mind and soul.

As far as other role models, anyone who thinks freely and acts upon those thoughts — the ones who appreciate their strength, not their god given strength either. Believe what you will but do not hand over your failures and triumphs to God(s) — they are what make you strong, unique and irreplaceable. People far overestimate the power of false deities and hugely underestimate their own strengths. We the people can, as my slogan likes to suggest, Think. React. Do Something.

The question of public perception is tricky. Even in my 24 years, I have experienced a wide range of reactions to my reactionary nature. I’ve been threatened, hit on, hit, harassed, cheered, booed, congratulated and much more. Public perception mirrors the current zeitgeist of this country: many extreme views pushing away from the center and few moving forward in the center. I have far right bigots and chauvinists sending highly sexualized, inappropriate threats and propositions, I have far right house wives saying I’m a disgrace to the American woman. I have far left women saying I’m a disgrace to the forward thinking woman, old environmentalist friends chastising me for not focusing solely on the plight of mother earth, and then the rare few who push away the cobwebbed fray and support and inspire me to continue moving forward, not left and right. I’m sure as my journey continues, these experiences will be ever magnetized — it’s a good thing I have a drummer the size of a barn door and a dear friend who works as a bodyguard.

Now, and I hope in the future, I will have the ability to see past the mindless criticism to the source of these harsh words — much of it, is ignorance and arrogance, an extremist platform incapable of allowing outside thought. It is important that while we learn, while we move forward, we remember to stay humble, to constantly question our own stance and opinions against new facts. That is the only way that we can grow.

 – 30 –

The Rooftop Revolutionaries: Eleanor Goldfield/vocals; Brian Marshak/lead guitar; Karim Elghobasi/bass; Lamar Little/drums. See/hear more at:

www.rooftoprevolutionaries.com, and http://rooftoprevolutionaries.blogspot.com/ .

___________________

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Ms. Goldfield’s words, like her music, speak for themselves – powerful and provocative stuff that very well supports her call to action. I want to add only that they also evidence something that should present a sincere worry to the older generations. In short, it could be easily argued that we have left Eleanor and her contemporaries in a very precarious situation – one that provides myriad complex problems with limited avenues from which to legitimately address them. It is only natural, then, that an atmosphere of resentment, confusion, untrustworthiness and uncertainty has resulted.  And among other things, this has pushed the anger, disenchantment and cynicism that become evident when talking with young people these days. Said another way, and if for no other reasons than our integrity and responsibility, we should not be willing to let this be our legacy,  especially in light of what many of us have been afforded. Our mandate, our own call to action, so to speak, should be clear: to get involved with the matters at hand in ways that matter − to delve into what we don’t know as much as what we claim to know – to be willing to go beyond thinking and doing what is best for just our individual selves and not for all of us. This is a tall order, in very difficult times. Yet to do anything less would be, well, it would simply be less. 

Palombo’s interview with Eleanor Goldfield was conducted via an e-mail exchange after a meeting in New York City in July 2011.

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Interview with Ultra Violet (oka, Isabelle Dufresne)

by Mike Foldes

A couple of years ago Hélène Gaillet suggested a Ragazine interview with her friend, Ultra Violet, one of the Superstars of Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory troupe. It took a long time to finally make the connection, and when we did, Ultra didn’t want to talk about the old days. “Read my book,” she ordered. “It says everything.” Instead, she moved the conversation to what’s happening now, and said what she’d said, in so many words, when we spoke on the phone: “I want to talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow is important.”

Ultra’s Chelsea studio is in one of the larger converted factory buildings on West 26^th Street in New York City. When we visit the crowded space late afternoon on April 30, she is contemplating a move to a larger studio that had come available in the same building. The 26^th Street space appears to be more of a place to show her work, than to make it.  Many of her pieces are one-off or short runs made at her direction by artisans in shops both in and beyond New York. There’s no way she could produce some of the pieces on display here in such a space without means of production. When asked the extent of her participation, she asks pointedly, “I don’t have a shop to bend metal. Do you?”

Most of the recent pieces in the room reflect Ultra’s commitment to understanding and explaining the cause and effect of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and on America as a nation.  “American naivete,” she says with a French accent, for she is, in fact a French-born heiress who ran away to see the world — and did. “American naivete, it died that day.”

Ultra, born Isabelle Dufresne in 1935, comes across as self-confident and energetic. In the studio, she’s in her element. Her friends, acquaintances and lovers comprise a pantheon of some of the 20^th century’s most famous and accomplished artists, writers, politicians and business people, as well as many more unseen stars who will never be seen, heard of or heard from ever again.  I mention to a friend we’ll be doing an interview with Ultra Violet. “Who?” he asks. “One of the Warhol Superstars,” I say. His wife remembers her this way: “She was famous for being famous.”

That was then. This is now. Ultra Violet is who she was, and more. Today she’s serious about leaving a mark, focused on seeing that her art becomes a constant message to audiences of tomorrow of what 9-11, and its lessons, mean for all of us.

Ragazine: Are you done with the 9-11 series?

Foldes, Ultra & IX-XI sculpture. Maya Photo

Ultra Violet: No no no, the other day I did a performance, a 9-11 performance. No, I’m not done…. No, I’d love to do a chess game; I’d like to do an hour glass, a huge hour glass. No, I’m not done, I don’t know when I’ll be done with it.

R: Do you take breaks and do other things in the meantime?

UV: Well, I do. I just came back from the Dallas Art Fair premiering a movie… I do other things, but 9-11 is a very important subject …

R: Where did you live when that happened?

UV: I was in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side.

R: We were wondering when we came over here whether you lived in your studio.

UV: No, no, you can’t live here ….

R: Once we saw the building it was pretty obvious….

UV: No, no, you don’t live here.

R: How many pieces do you have in the 9-11 series so far?

UV: The other day I had a show, a wonderful show. They counted 25 pieces; actually I have more, but some of them they didn’t want to show…. Like the nuclear terrorism after 9-11, they didn’t want to show this one, because they thought maybe it is irreverent. (Ultra points to a painting of an angel Mickey Mouse). It’s a very touchy subject, they thought maybe it would be irreverent…. Or something.

R: This is the gallery in Brooklyn?

UV: Yes, it was a great show. You know some people might take offense to this, though I can explain this. I’m not trying to be funny or irreverent.

Mickey Mouse represents the American naivete, or good humor, you know, and that day I think that he got nailed. Actually I wrote a story that he died on that day, that’s the meaning of this. But some people, some 200 people or whatever, might take umbrage to that.

R: I don’t understand why people would take umbrage to that.

UV: They would, because the idea to mix Mickey Mouse, which is “Ha ha ha ha,”  with a tragic event, you know,  to some people…. You know, they are in touch with some commission people they want to bring to the studio and I am going to hide this.

R: You mentioned on the phone you didn’t want to look back, that you like to look forward, to what’s happening.

UV: I do, I still do. Usually the press asks you about the past, and I’m not interested in the past, I much prefer tomorrow. What I might do tomorrow. A lot of what’s in the past has already been recorded.

I mean, you might say 9-11 is in the past, but it’s the very near past. It’s just about 10 years, and I think it was such a blow to the American nation that I don’t think people have yet digested it, if you know what I mean, absorbed it, and oh, and plus, a marking of time….

This is a marking of time. It’s really the official date of the Terrorist Era. Terrorism has existed before, I am aware of it. The word terror was created in the French revolution and in Roman times the Zealots, but you know, as we know it now, terrorism… this is the official date. And it will never go away. Terrorism. Unfortunately. So, that’s why I think that marking of time, which is what I am doing with my “Woman of Miracles” (Ultra gestures absently toward another sculpture in the space), matters a lot for people, and I think I was able to do it in a very elegant way.

R: It is, it’s really clean. When I was looking at pieces on the web, they were very clean and seeing them here they’re very clean lines, and to see how smooth they are. Do you do this, or do you have people working with you?

UV: Do I have a factory that bends metal? I don’t …

R: So this is steel?

UV: Aluminum.

R: When did you do the mirrors in the glass frames?

UV: Oh, the glass.  Those are fairly old,  maybe three years or so, and it’s a baroque frame cast  in acrylic.  I think the frame is absolutely phenomenal, and it took me at least a year to decide what should go inside. I tried things, you know, paintings, portraits, blue, green, yellow, and it finally dawned on me to do a mirror, and to do a self-portrait, which I think is pretty nice. (Laughs.)

When you look into it, it must be a self-portrait, but you must think of it. This is a very expensive work. If I could do this very, very cheap… I looked for (a way to do) it, but I couldn’t find it. You know, they used to make mirrors in metal, and they also used to make frames all in plastic, plastic molded, and I was looking for a very cheap $10 mirror that would look good in this. We used to find things on Canal Street, and now Canal Street is all Americanized.

R: Chinese-ized. When you’re working on 9-11 projects, do you conceive of other things, films, or things based on what you’ve done it the past?

UV: Oh, I do. Yesterday I did an interview with a television show with, I don’t know, and the interview was about tarot reading. Why? Because someone created a tarot card (deck), and each card is designed by an artist and I designed one.  The deck is going to premier at the Andy Warhol Museum, and they asked me to do a tarot reading there. I said I would if it only lasted 15 minutes each, and they said “OK”. So, they did that interview for television, and so I spoke about tarot and I did a reading, totally improvised.  I mean I’ve never read the tarot.

So, you know, I do other things. Not all in the studio.

We have a short chat about Helene Gaillet, about Ultra updating her website, and whether Ragazine will ever be in print. “Not likely,” is the answer, but you never know. Ultra continues:

I met a lady at the Invisible Dog (the gallery where her recent show took place) who was doing a thesis on 9-11 … and what she did, she Googled “artist” and “9-11”, and she had a whole list, and she asked “How come you’re not listed?”

(She turns to Martin, an assistant who is doing a time lapse photograph of one of her pieces, and who is also working on the update of her web site.)

Martin you’re supposed to work on this, remember?

M: I’ll do some SEO.

UV: Did you do this? Am I listed?

M: Probably not.

UV: Well I would like to be.… And she found me by chance, because someone told her I am doing work on 9-11. Ah, I guess it’s the new way of the world. You have to deal with it.

R: It used to be video, and before that it was Polaroids. Things change.

UV: Two days ago I was on a panel of Andy Warhol –  since you mentioned Polaroids. The subject was the influence of his artwork today and the influence of the Factory today, and on the panel was Bob Colacello. Do you know him? And then a famous photographer, Berger…. I think he works for Vanity Fair, and then a vice president of the World Foundation who resigned now …. I forget his name…

(Jumping to another subject ….)

Can you take that piece of paper there … the building once a year does an open house, and it’s this weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I have to sell things. Martin, you still need the white cloud?

M: I do until nine o’clock…

UV: What are you doing exactly?

M: I’m doing a time lapse with the cloud in the background.

UV: Then I can’t walk over there …

R: When did you do your clouds?

UV: About two years ago. Much of my work is luminous. This is luminous (points to a neon piece on the wall), and the rainbows are luminous. I was saving…. I can turn them on, but you know all these things have a lifespan. They have a lifespan. The neon, I don’t know if it lasts forever…. And ever.

R: I have a bar down the street, and it has neon in it that’s been there for years.

UV: Well How do you know they didn’t repair it? (Laughs…)

This is neon (points to a neon sculpture on the wall), at the Invisible Dog.   I have this one and another one in black light, ultraviolet light,  and the owner of the place bought it, and he just sent me an e-mail, he said your neon, 9-11, one of the letters is not lit. It never happened to me before.

R: Who does your neon?

UV: There’s a place in Brooklyn called Technolux. I will have to bring it back to them.

I have more in boxes here. We did not unpack everything. I have a series of Windows in the World, it’s a series of 20 little windows on the world, with sky, sky, and after that the sky is crying, and after that the sky is no longer a sky, and I turn it on when I have to but I don’t leave it on all the time. And it flickers. I don’t know how long they last.

R: What’s that piece? (I point to a piece high on the wall, written in Arabic.)

UV: Can you read it?”

R: I can’t.

UV: It’s 9-11 in calligraphy, Arab calligraphy…

R: 9 being the top number?

UV: Well apparently there are many ways to say it, whether you say it nine one one, or n-i-n-e-e-l-e-v-e-n or phonetically, or whatever. So I inquire at Islamic school and they always send me different interpretations, because this one is not exactly the same as this one, and this one I worded to say this way, and left a mirror below.

You know they’re doing a 9-11 memorial in London and the purpose of it is mostly centered for better understanding between the Muslim world and the European world. I don’t want to say it’s invaded, but it’s really not the same civilization…

R: What interests me is that in France, fundamentalist Muslims don’t seem to be very well accepted, these days. (Referring to French law against women wearing the chador).

UV: Yes, and a lot of French people regret it, regret that the laws are so strict….

R: Where do you live in France?

UV: In nice, in the south, you know….

R: Do you have pieces in the show, the 9-11 exhibition that’s coming up?

UV: No, not yet, but I might …

R: How much time do you spend in France.

UV: I don’t spend any time… I just happened to be there a little while ago because I have a show in Paris, and I give a talk in Paris at New York University, and I was signing a very big art project, so I went to Nice for one week….

R: Do you go in the summer?

UV: No, I will spend the summer here, because I have lot of projects planned. One of them is very nice, it is visual and sound and in the project is Bob Dylan and Becky Smith and John Giorno, and it is coming out in August at the Jackson Pollock Kassmer House in the Hamptons. It’s produced by Sony, so it should be lots of fun.

R: So it’s a film?

UV: No, no, it’s a box, and inside the box, you have a visual. My visual happens to be 9-11, and some recordings, probably a DVD. In my case, I excavated a chant, very classical, which I recorded in 1973 for Capital Records, so I’m happy that’s coming out.

R: You mentioned one of the Warhol projects you’re working on, has to do with the influence of Warhol’s ….

UV: Oh, that was a talk two nights ago…

R: So that doesn’t have anything to do with any upcoming projects….

UV: No, no, that was a panel that was organized in Soho by a company that makes furniture, and Bob Colacello was there, and after the talk he signed his book. He has a new book out called OUT, and he was just signing OUT. It was a photography book, mostly of ‘60s photos, and it was organized by these furniture designers, the New Traditionalists, it was at Broadway and Spring.

I’m going to be at the Houston Art Fair in September.

R: Do you take pieces ….

UV: I don’t show it. The gallery takes a space at Art Fair. In this case, the gallery in Houston does that.

I was well positioned, sandwiched between Indiana and Warhol, and there will be a premier of a film which they’ve never seen, that I introduce ….

It’s interesting. The photographer Bill Kennedy, who photographed people before they were famous, in the ‘60s, during the love years… I just happened to be there, and a few others. The photographs have been buried for about 50 years, and now they are just coming to surface, and they interview Indiana and me and a few others…..

R: Indiana, he is still alive?

UV: Yes, he’s alive, he‘s in Miami, Florida. He’s about 70.

R: What’s your routine like when you’re working?

UV: Routine?

R: When you work, do you have a routine?

UV: Well it varies, with some freelance, it depends a lot on appointments. When I have an appointment here and when I stay the day, depending, and I work a lot from home. I have a nice Mac and a lot of my information is there. I work between home and here… No set time… Saturday or Sunday , noon to six… Actually, I met a guy who works with architects, and he knows about my 9-11 and likes it, and I want to put my 9-11 in a situation… For example, I might put it down around Ground Zero. I met the architect that designed Ground Zero, Michael Arad, and I might send that to him, so … It takes time… time.  Time is the issue, time is limited. I am limited, too.

R: Who’s working today whose work you like?

UV: Oh, a lot of people. I like Cristo and Jean Claude. I like James Turel. I like, there are some good people…. There’s a lot of trash, but there are good people, too.

R: Has it always been that way?

UV: No, more so now, because of the art market. Everybody wants to be an artist and cash in, they read the   prices which are phenomenal and they want to cash in. There are a lot of artists now, which makes it very hard to make it, and to break into it (the art market)….

There’s a knock at the door. It’s the agent who will be showing her the other space where she will be able to hang her large paintings of Ground Zero. The interview is over. It will take several weeks before it’s transcribed, edited and placed on the page. In the end, it doesn’t look the way it sounds.

See more of Ultra Violet’s work at http://www.ultravioletweb.com.

“…she is creating the narrative,

so why should she pretend otherwise?”

By Kristin Thiel

Kristin Thiel: That’s an interesting head shot of you for this book—did you want to connect your young-adult years to this book’s characters?

Cris Mazza: I wanted to connect to Hester’s line “College doesn’t play any role in her tale. To my chagrin, it does in mine.” I wanted to put it up front and “out there” that I was in part using some of my experiences and impressions from those years. I’d wanted to put on the cover “this novel is one third true” and let the reader discern which third. But, as it happens, a memoir will follow this novel, so the photo took care of the representation for the novel.

Q: The cover photo, of two people, appears to be several photos but really is one image shifted slightly for each repetition. In all but one version, the full identity of both people is hidden—in that one distinct version, the woman is fully shown and the man’s head has been cropped out. I’m interested in that decision for a couple of reasons. One, it seems to refer to how women are usually the ones reduced to disparate body parts in media images.

CM: The photo has many kinds of illusions. One is that, quite accidentally, the “pose” (which wasn’t staged) looks a little like the way a hunter holds up his dead deer’s head for the trophy photo. It also is a reverse image of Hester’s “position” when she goes to talk to the Mexican prostitute. Lastly, the closed-eyed look on the female’s face is the same content way a dog might relax when it’s being stroked. Ironically, that illusion also evokes something in the book: the wistful longings of girls.

Q: Too, the title seems to emphasize the male characters—the title’s not something like, The Various Girls We’ve Been for Men.

CM: Ha! Maybe that’s my next novel.

Q: What can you say about the cover images and the title? (Especially on the former, I realize that’s often more of a publisher, than author, choice, but in this case, with such an indie press, I thought you likely had more involvement.)

CM: I chose the cover image and the title. The design of how to use the cover image was done by a professional designer. The title was one of those things that when you have it, the book “comes together” more in your mind. The affair with the sixteen-year-old, the would-be affair with the master-teacher, the experiences with her mentor and his nemesis, her husband and lover, and then the men who visit the girls in the field. They all only knew these women as girls . . . in whatever way you want to use the term girl.

Q: It’s strange to read any novel and then find out that parts of it were previously published elsewhere as stand-alone pieces, but this novel is particularly layered, and I’m wondering some things about that. How’d you choose what to excerpt?

CM: Whatever seemed to be able to be self-sufficient . . . so most often it’s something in the first third, or at least the first half. I also cobbled stuff together: one of the letters to Dan mixed with another scene. I do the same thing for readings, paste together two or three short sections that somehow make a whole.

Q: Was the novel already a novel, in your mind or in reality, when you published these individual sections,  or did a longer piece develop out of these smaller parts?

CM: No, the book was already a novel when each of those excerpts were removed and published.

Q: I’d love to hear about your choice and execution of structure, or framework for this novel, your mix of the chronological and the narrative format.

You go back and forth in time – most specific events happen in the late 1970s and early 2000s – but there’s usually (except for Heather’s story) a clear awareness that the reader’s guide is the twenty-first-century adult Hester, as in the description of Tom Hoffman’s outfit: “He was 70s porn-star chic. But of course the first time I saw him was before anyone knew there was a porn-star look, a look everyone would recognize as such by the late 90s. [ . . . ] A guy who would have done his howling and making-out to The Dave Clark Five [ . . . ], and someday would be one of those who wore a slim grey ponytail [ . . . ] Later installed his Bronco with [ . . . ]” (15).

CM: That is a result of my using a very self-conscious first-person narrator—as I think they all should be! She is acutely aware of when (the present date) she is creating the narrative, so why should she pretend otherwise? When she describes a clothing style or piece of office equipment, of course she knows how outlandish or antiquated it is at the time she’s narrating, and of course the passage of time has affected her way of describing that kind of hair or clothing. She probably couldn’t describe a hairstyle the way she might have thirty years ago; I know I couldn’t, other than to say “we must have thought it looked cool.” Our view of things (and how we describe them) is always how we view it now, and “now” is developed by time-passage. To provide the way styles, etc. were viewed “back then” is a memory exercise. In first-person narrative, to pretend the narrator still has the same views and opinions, or remembers her former perspectives without them being warped or altered by time, would be fake. That’s why a first-person narrator who isn’t aware of (and narrating in) the present time — giving the narrative a palpable feel of whatever the time-distance is — is, to me, a misuse and misunderstanding of the technique.

I also tried to make this duality — how I saw it then versus how I see it now in my memory — have a tangibility. For example, when Hester goes back to visit her mentor and sees that George Bush calendar on his wall. Her memories would not have described him as a person who would have such a thing. So Hester as narrator now can’t quite just narrate him the way she perceived him twenty-five years ago.

Q: And your narrator, Hester, tells this book through a variety of forms: “standard” first-person narration, letters she’s writing in present day to the contemporary versions of teachers she knew in the ’70s; typed journal entries/notes she kept in the ’70s; real newspaper articles; imagined magazine features; and there are even pull quotes throughout the narration, from the narration, as though this whole book were a magazine article.

CM: The pull-quotes are my publisher’s idea. A brilliant touch, giving that journalistic feel to a “failed-journalist’s” book. Oh, and you forgot to list one: a third-person account, written by Hester, when she imagines the sixteen-year-old’s affair with the English teacher and puts herself in the far background as “the student-teacher.” I just use what seems organic at the time. The whole book started as a letter to my former master-teacher, which I never sent. I used the notes he kept for me when I was his student teacher, as well as the journal I kept. I made changes as necessary, but used them to capture the feel of how differently a written voice in a journal sounds – you rarely explain things completely in a journal, and twenty-five years later you might not know what you were talking about because only the emotions and reactions are recorded, not the actual scene, setting, or conflict.

Q: Hester gives a few clues about who her audience of readers is: “us,” “women”; people who were sitting “in a courtroom with that senseless, senile expression” (258). She calls what she’s writing “this document” (63). What more can you tell us about Hester’s audience and intention?

CM: Wait, the person in the courtroom with “that senseless, senile expression” is only Dan Wood!

As long as Hester is keenly aware that she’s working on “a document,” she is always aware that it may, someday, have readers. I suppose that’s as far as the specific audience goes. You can surely extend the “us” to mean any woman reading the book, but in my mind, and hers, being aware of writing a book is in and of itself an awareness that the words are directed toward an audience, some audience, someday, somewhere. Hester predicts “liberal protests” and tries to beat her critics to the punch . . . That’s the beauty of self-conscious first-person narration: it is free to digress and ponder itself.

Q: As a reader, I felt an anxiety/tension, as I would reading a thriller or murder mystery, at several times throughout the book, not just at the parts one might guess could provoke anticipation. What parts do that for you — as you were writing them and now as you reread them?

CM: I don’t suppose I provoke the same kind of anticipation in myself (even not knowing until two thirds into the book what might happen at the end). But if anticipation — or surprise, or some form of it — did happen, it was when I was writing Hester’s third-person rendition of the sixteen-year-old’s affair with the English teacher. Keeping that narrative under the purview of it being “from Hester” was not as much of a challenge by that point in the book, because I knew her, and could vicariously play her, including writing something as she would write it. But what would happen in that section — how it would be dramatic and yet not sensationalized, how I would show what I intended and yet keep both characters within some kind of “sympathetic” range, created a surprising outcome: I discovered how the situation could have damaged both characters, and it was beneath the stereotyped reasons society condemns it.

Q: You do link media exposure to, celebration/glorification of, sex with at least some level of the sexual anxiety or even dysfunction that a lot of people have. There is a debate around that, of course, outside this book, so I’d like you to share more thoughts on that.

CM: Simply this: People (especially women) who don’t or haven’t had the sublime sexual experiences that media / culture suggest that everybody has at their disposal carry this, alone, as a secret shame, wondering what is to blame. Some people blame others, many blame themselves. It can be an all-consuming anxiety. It affects how you value yourself, as well as how you perceive other human behavior, whether healthy, misguided, confused, or evil.

Q: One of the scenes that I could really picture as I read it was Hester’s first description of assisting Pryor, how she “recorded the kinds of notes Pryor needed to know later, prompted him in a nearly inaudible whisper when he forgot” (12). It got me to wondering about the times your role was “to listen to his asides, the things he wanted to say but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say,” of which you must have some — as a woman, and as a woman writer, in particular.

CM: As I was developing as a writer, in college, I did have employment as a clerical aide for a music professor. He was a fairly young man (although “older and wiser” than me) and new in the university, struggling with the mixture of egos and agendas that confuse collegiality among colleagues, especially in a performance-based field. I was someone he talked to, barely noticing that he was working things out himself. Years later, when I’d experienced that same kind of atmosphere myself, I could look back and see what he was encountering, what tools he had to deal with it that I took longer to develop. To this day I don’t know what made him confide in me as much as he did — sometimes in the guise of “teaching” me about how people work (he knew I was a developing writer). But it was a relationship that defied definition, which is why it belonged in this novel.

Q: At one point, Hester says the archived paper that she’s looking through “feels sweaty” (51). That’s a great description, and I see it meaning at least a couple of things, in Hester’s case. What documents have felt sweaty to you lately?

CM: When I first moved from California to the Midwest (it was in August), I remember how any paper felt wet to me, just because of the humidity. So I imagined someone’s emotions creating a feeling of “humidity,” which might make flipping through the pages of an old notebook feel damp. It seems opposite of what old, fragile paper might feel like. Sometimes the pages of my old journals feel thicker, not brittle, because of the abundance of smudgy pencil writing, so it looks as though it would have that humid feeling.

Q: How do you define feminism? It’s an oft-discussed question, but it’s also one that seems to have many answers, or at least many accepted answers, so that sometimes the answer is that the term is useless. (For what it’s worth, I disagree that there are many definitions and that the term is useless.) This book is feminist in ways that I think would surprise a lot of people, based on what they consider feminism. Would you talk about that a little?

CM: “I’m for women’s rights,” say college students, “but I’m not a feminist.” What does this mean? Is it like liberals who prefer to be called progressives because the former term started being used as a pejorative? Or is it like, “I’m for worker rights, but I don’t favor unions”? Feminism is a little like a union, in that it aims to protect women’s rights, status, and living conditions. But, unlike a union (or maybe I’m wrong about this), feminism works by educating. There may be feminist groups who will do the lawsuits and protests, but feminism itself, I think, seeks to educate. And one thing I hope feminism is interested in is not just “what is the problem?” but how women have contributed to the overall “problem.” How society and culture taught women to contribute to the problem, but how some women, no matter how smart, can’t break that cycle. Here’s feminism’s image problem: Ask a well-known political cartoonist to draw “a feminist.” If ninety out of one hundred people recognize what that person has drawn, then we need to do something to make sure we don’t all come in one stripe, that resentment and blame and playing-the-victim aren’t our only cry.

About the interviewer:

Kristin Thiel is senior editor and director of community engagement at Indigo Editing & Publications, reviews books regularly, and has fiction forthcoming in Men Undressed: Women Writers on the Male Sexual Experience (Other Voices Books/Dzanc Books), for which Cris Mazza wrote the introductory essay. (Jim Dorenkamp Photo, Copyright 2010.)

©2011 Shawn Huckins

Portrait of An American Family

“An American Revolution Revolution”:

What would George post?

An interview with Shawn Huckins

By Mike Foldes

The following interview took place by e-mail exchanges in June 2011.

Q: What initially prompted your series of “Revolution” paintings?

Shawn Huckins: I’ve always had a fascination with the American Revolution, ever since learning about it in elementary school.  Not just the political aspect, but the way of life, the architecture, the food, the clothes, the fife and drums, and of course the art.  So their way of living has always been in the back of my mind.  I always wonder to myself what it must have been like to not worry about computers, cell phones, cars, and the list can go on and on —  So this initially prompted the series, combining two different worlds.  You are constantly bombarded with modern technology that at first it may seem wonderful and beneficial, but in the long run, makes us drift apart and makes us set our priorities in different places.  I wanted a comical aspect to my work, but also make a statement.

Q: Are they oil or acrylic paintings? If not, what medium? Mixed media? Canvas or board?

A: All of my work is acrylic.  Some are on canvas, some panel.

Q: How did you select the subject paintings that you eventually metamorphosed?

A: There are numerous factors when choosing a painting that I will eventually replicate.  Some things of concern are picture quality … normally, I would photograph the painting myself with a series a detail shots, just so I can retain the original artist’s work as closely as possible.  Second, if I myself think the work is of good composition/color.  Some portraits just speak to me more than others.  I find the work of Copley very inspiring because I work in a very meticulous manner, trying to create an almost photorealistic quality to my work.  My early work borders on realism, so portraits that have a realistic quality to them, I tend to lean toward.

Q: Do you identify at all with Marcel Duchamp, and what do you think Duchamp would say of your work?

A: Duchamp never really inspired me.  I remember learning about his work at college art history courses, but was never drawn to them.  Duchamp made a statement about the art world and the work itself, creating works of art that wouldn’t seem like art at that time.  My work, more or less, contrasts two ways of life and how it dramatically changed over just a few hundred years.  I would think Duchamp would be drawn to my work because some would say I’m “defacing” the original portraits and the prominent people that helped create this country that we live in today.

Q: Out of curiousity, how much are the paintings in this series? Do you have a gallery?

A: No gallery, but I’m in the process of finding gallery representation.  My work goes from $1500 to $4000.

Q: You appear to be strongly influenced by ed ruscha, whom you’ve said is your favorite artist. How would you describe what makes you different, and not a variation on a theme?

A: Yes, Ed Ruscha is very influential on me.  I discovered his work in school and never turned back.  I wrote him a “fan letter” awhile back, not hoping to get anything in return, but a few weeks later, he sent me a postcard with one of his works on front and on the back with his signature.  But to top of the story, a few weeks from that day, I got a package with a return address of “Ruscha Studio.”  My heart started racing…he sent me his autographical book with a little note inside stating “Shawn, thanks for the kind letter.  Best Wishes, Ed Ruscha.”  Not many big time artists would do that for some rinky dink artist, but that gesture shows he’s a really a great guy…and not to mention his amazing work!  His text paintings are very apparent in my work, I think having that kind of bold text makes it easier to make whatever statement your making more clear.  Ed Ruscha’s gorgeous backgrounds mixed with the text have no (in most) apparent relationship, that’s the reason why they are so great…it’s almost so random and the juxtaposition of the two subjects makes the paintings work in some strange way.  For example, he’ll have the word HISTORY going behind a mountain scape.  Ruscha’s work also has a very west coast presence about it.  My work, however, I try to make a statement by contrasting the two words…the world of a “civil” society against the world of modern technology and its distractions.  I also like the fact that I’m recording the language used today in my work.  It dates my work, but it also makes the record of how our language is being cut down/abbreviated, etc. just like how the egyptians recorded their hieroglyphics and the early caveman recorded their language of using symbols and icons.

Q: What you see as a trend in art among working artists of your age/generation?

A: As I see a lot of artists working along different mediums rather the traditional mediums like oils, acrylics, canvas, etc.  I feel artists try very hard to find that one unique medium that makes their work theirs.  Art Work today also seems to have a more an anime/cartoon look, like urban or street art … along the lines of Shepard Fairey.  I like to retain the old traditions of painting, but add and combine popular culture lexicons to contrast the two.

Q: Do you see yourself moving in other directions, and if so, where?

A: I like the direction that I am currently moving in right now.  For once, I feel like I’m making a statement about my work that people can relate to, in contrast to my other work which may seem cool and technically well done, but didn’t really say anything.  There was no gusto behind it.  For example, my last series, The Paint Chips … I had a great time with those … they were fun, colorful, and able to retain my realistic, crisp quality of my work … but they didn’t really mean anything… I was merely trying to make a cool looking image … that’s it.  Although I still like the way they look and enjoyed working on them. I got dried up fast with them and felt constrained.  I feel like I was limited with what I could do with them.  My future work, is going to be along the same lines I’m (working in) now … I would like to do large scale diptychs and triptychs with more of a longer statement/facebook status/tweet. Overall, I’m a very pleased with how the series is turning out, the statements that it says, the comical tone of some, and plan on continuing contrasting the two worlds in some way or another.

Q: Do you plan on staying in Connecticut, or will you be moving to NY anytime soon?

A: Connecticut definitely is not my first choice of which state to live in.  My partner and I have discussed moving out west for a few years just to experience something completely different and get away from the fast paced east coast. San Fran or Portland.  I feel further down the road settling down in New England, but have no plans to be in the Big City.  I’m perfectly happy with being only 1.5 hrs from the city…. easily accessible, but far enough from the congestion.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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Graffiti is illegal in Belgium. That's too bad.

Dehors! L’histoire des graffiti à Bruxelles

By Sara Marilungo

Neerpede Park is a huge open air art gallery. Little known by the people of Brussels and surely not included in any tour guide or do-it-yourself journey in Belgium,  it lies on the outskirts of Brussels, Eddie Mercks metro stop.

The pillars of the three flyovers that cross the park have become the favourite spot of Brussels’ graffiti artists to show dozens and dozens of works of street art.

“Neerpede Park is one of those places that I call ‘no-man’s land’,” says Adrien Grimmeau, art historian and professor at Iselp, a contemporary art centre in Brussels. “Brussels’ graffiti artists moved away from  the streets of the city centre, where there is less control by the police and they can make works that sometimes require up to 10 hours, sometimes even two days”.

Artist at work: Defying da law

Grimmeau has recently written the first book ever about street art in Brussels. The book, titled Dehors! L’histoire des graffiti à Bruxelles and published by CFC-editions, will be released on the 15th of June on the occasion of the exhibition Explosition. L’art des graffiti a Bruxelles – a title in between the French “explosion” and “exposition” – at the Musée d’Ixelles of Brussels.

“I chose this title for the book for two main reasons: first of all “Dehors!” – get out! – is what the teachers say to the kids who misbehave in class. Graffiti art is made by young people, often children who were considered “rebel” at school. Secondly, I say “Dehors!” to the readers of the book, but also to the artists and to myself. Enough with the museums, go look for art in the streets!,” says Grimmeau.

The exhibition will show pictures, sculptures, paintings and installations made by almost 20 artists with a street art background. It aims to show how the artists who exhibit in the museums sometimes come from a background which is anything but academic.

The book tells the history and evolution of graffiti art in Brussels from its origins in the ‘80s until now. “It is a way to speak about Brussels, its youths and its street art,” says Grimmeau, who collected interviews with some of the most famous graffiti artists of Brussels’ milieu, namely Bonom, Muga, Obes, Na and Defo, five artists who differ in terms of topics, typology of art forms and techniques.

“During the ‘80s graffiti was a more social and political art. Afterwards, in the ‘90s, hip hop became an out-and-out underground cultural movement linked to music, rap and break-dance. Differently form today, the graffiti of the ‘80s and the ‘90s were mainly made of letters and few images in poor and degraded areas of the city,” says Grimmeau. These graffiti were also often inspired to comics, of which Belgium boasts a rich tradition. However, Grimmeau explains that the graffiti artists of the ‘80s mainly drew their inspiration from American comics, in particular Vaughn Bode. “It was more ‘cool’”, explains Grimmeau with a smile. “I know for sure that graffiti artist read comics, but it is not ‘cool’ to paint The Smurfs – Les Schtroumpfs – on the walls.”

“Now it is different. The artists want to show a different way to look at the city and take it back. They don’t want to change the world, maybe they want to make us smile or surprise us. They want to tell the people to look around themselves. “

Not only spray then, but stencils, fonts, stickers, images, tags and out-and-out paintings.

Grimmeau calls them neo-graffiti, in order to highlight these artists’ will to increase the interaction with the city and with the spot itself where the painting is realized.

“Graffiti are more site-specific, which is also what happens now with works of contemporary art in the museums.” For instance, in the case of Bonom, there is always a reason for the animal painted on a certain building. Grimmeau mentions the example of the fox falling on the wall of a building in Place du Congrès. At the feet of the Colonne du Congrès et de la Constitution there is a flame – the flame of the Unknown Soldier –,  which blazes endlessly. Looking carefully, the orange fox looks like a flame pointing at the sky. “Nowadays, in most cases graffiti artists are not inexperienced people, but they come from art schools and they want to bring art out of the museums and the schools, in the streets.”

Grimmeau notices that in the recent past Brussels’ authorities, as often as not, built  “architectural monstrosity” ; in one occasion they even destroyed an art nouveau building by the architect Victor Horta. “Graffiti artists don’t paint on the walls because they hate the city, but in order to make it better and more beautiful. It is also a way to claim the public space as a social space.”

For instance, Obes believes that the city belongs to everybody and that everybody is allowed to express him or herself creatively. But if the city belongs to everybody, then someone may not agree with the graffiti. “As a matter of fact, it is difficult to come to an agreement. Here in Belgium we are very good at making laws and regulations that don’t please anyone, precisely because they’re aimed at pleasing everybody.”

Graffiti in Belgium are illegal and, differently from other cities in the world, there are no walls legally used for street art display of graffiti. For this reason, most of the graffiti artists interviewed for the book had problems with the law on several occasions. For example, Defo and Obes went to prison for some days. The artists are often required to repay substantial amounts of money for damages.

Bonom is the most famous graffiti artist in Brussels. He painted some beautiful graffiti of animals and dinosaurs, even if half of them have been removed. However, not even Bonom is protected and he often had problems with the law, according to Grimmeau.

“The whole graffiti process is contradictory because sometimes these artists are summoned by the authorities to paint public places, such as the tram station  De Wand,” says Grimmeau.

Supports for the arts ...

Beside Neerpede Park , there are other “concentrations” of graffiti in the vicinity of the cultural centre Recyclart, nearby Gare du Midi o in Le Marolles, an historic neighbourhood in Brussels where, since the ’60s, artists have been meeting to make art and discuss about the problems of the city. “It is the soul of Brussels,” says Grimmeau. However, most graffiti are made along the metro lines, such as the line from Gare du Midi to Gare Central or between the station Pennenhius and Bockstael, in the neighbourhood Laeken.

Near the metro stop  Porte de Namur, Bonom painted several buffalos that create the illusion, for the people observing from the metro, that the animals are running. “There are at least 20 buffalos. Even before he discovered Blu’s animations, Bonom revolutionized the way of looking at graffiti in the metro lines of Brussels: once the graffiti were painted on the trains and moved with the trains, now the trains move and the motionless graffiti come to life.” A similar dinosaur was painted by Bonom near Etterbeek Station.

In collaboration with Iselp, Grimmeau also organizes  “graffiti walking tours” for organized groups of several people. You just need to contact Iselp to make arrangements.

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About the writer:

Sara Marilungo has an MA in journalism from Independent Colleges of Dublin. She is a freelance writer in Dublin, but temporarily resides near Brussels. Her work has appeared in the Italian webzine www.nuok.it, and occasionally for other websites and newspapers. She also received a degree in Italy in Communication Science with a thesis about contemporary art and philosophy of languages. This article appeared in the online magazine www.nuok.it, in Italian. This is its first publication in English.

For more information:  http://saramarilungo.eu5.org/

“Get rid of the crow

… enter the cave”

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is an American poet who grew up speaking Italian in an Italian immigrant family in Paterson, New Jersey.  She received the American Book Award in 2008 for her collection, All That Lies Between Us, and the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers. Gillan is the founder and executive director of the Passaic County community College Poetry Center, which publishes The Paterson Review. She is a full professor and Director of Creative Writing in the English Department at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. She has many books to her credit, and her poetry has appeared widely, including previously in Ragazine. She is the mother of two children with her late husband Dennis Gillan. Gillan’s efforts on behalf of young and unknown poets and writers has made her an inspiration to students and acquaintances alike. The following interview took place in April 2011.

By Emily Vogel

Q: Most of the time, when I read someone’s poem, my first question pertains to whether or not the poem is autobiographical.  Sometimes, it is difficult to tell because the poet might conflate true event with elements of fiction, or the autobiographical aspects are merely obliquely autobiographical.  The difficult part about autobiographical poems is that it might make the poem and/or the poet susceptible to a kind of “vulnerability.”  Your poems speak from the heart, and evoke both empathy and emotional reactions.  Could you say something about the autobiographical nature of your poems?

Maria Gillan: For many years, I wrote poems based in the English literary tradition and I was anxious to hide behind language, images, and literary references. Then when I was 40, my first book was published, and a graduate school professor said, “You know, it’s in this poem about your father that you find the story you have to tell.” Then I thought, well I don’t have to be an English Romantic Poet, maybe I can be just what I am – a wife, mother, daughter, granddaughter, grandmother, an Italian American – and write poems from those perspectives. I began then to write more directly and specifically about events and people in my own life, and to be as honest as I could be about what my life was actually like. It took me a long time to have the courage to write with honesty, specificity, and directness. Gradually, I made my language plainer and plainer in an attempt to lessen the distance between myself and my reader.

Q: Your collected book of poems, What We Pass On, speaks a lot to the “shames and eventual triumphs” of growing up Italian-American.  I know that when you were young, you and your family spoke exclusively Italian in the home, and that you were presented with the challenge of essentially “straddling and reconciling two cultures” in order to establish an identity and develop a poetic voice.  To what extent do the pain and/or healing of your assimilation into American culture still influence your work?

MG: My ethnicity and attempts at assimilation have fostered my sense of connection to all people who are outsiders. Consequently, I think that my own struggles with assimilation and with spending so many years trying to erase what I was will always be part of my work. I think that shy, introverted, foreign little girl that I was has never left me and is always there inside, even when I think I’ve left her behind.

Q: You write a great deal about family.  What advice would you give to emerging poets about exploring the depths inherent in family relations, with all the hurts, celebrations, challenges, and wealth of love in order to weave these into their poetry?

MG: The advice I give to emerging poets is that they have to get rid of the crow in their minds, the one that tells them everything that is wrong with them. The crow will try to stop them from descending to the deepest places inside of themselves, the place I call the cave, where all their memories and experiences, good and bad, reside. The cave is where they have to have the courage to go, if they are going to write, if they’re going to be honest enough to search for the stories they have to tell. It is in specificity that we find the universal, rather than the other way around. The mind does not control the poem. It is the old woman or old man who lives in our bellies, who helps us to be wise truth-tellers. We need to learn to trust that inner voice, and not to depend on the intellect to guide us.

Q: You also write a great deal about your late husband’s illness.  What difficulties and/or reliefs have you experienced while exploring this in your work?

MG: My husband got sick with early-onset Parkinson’s disease 25 years ago, and I have been able to survive, I believe, by writing about this very human experience of losing someone I love over a very long period of time. I don’t think I could have survived the pain and terror of this experience without my poetry. I hope by exploring the complications of love and illness that it will help other people who are going through similar experiences to realize that we’re all human, and they shouldn’t expect perfection from themselves or others.

Q: Recently, I heard you read a relatively new poem, which employed “parallel/simultaneous narratives” in order to get at the sentiment of the poem and the experience.  It was about (for our readers) watching birds on the television in one setting, while also attending to your ill husband at the hospital.  There seemed to be a discontinuity of “time” and a juxtaposition of two typically unrelated things, while at the same time these two experiences seemed to reconcile and inform one another.  The poem was very successful. As a teacher of poetry, how do you explain this overlap and weaving of narratives to students?

MG: For me, “Watching the Pelicans Die,” was a very difficult poem to write, because I could not confront my husband’s final weeks directly, and it became commingled in my mind with the BP oil disaster.  The black slick of oil on the sand and water made me incredibly sad at a time when I was watching my husband die, and watching his hands go black at the tips. The poem is a howl of sorrow for the world and also for my husband. One of the prompts I give my students is to go back and forth in a poem between two seemingly unconnected things, and find something in common between them to use as a thread to weave the poems together. I did that with this poem, but I think more than anything the sight of that dying pelican brought back my husband’s death, and I wrote the poem a couple of weeks after he died.  When I started writing, I had the image of the pelican in my mind, but very quickly, the poem took off and seemed almost to write itself. I do believe that happens when you let go and let instinct take over. I swear it’s as if the pen is moving by itself. I try to encourage students to let go when they’re writing. Sometimes, when they think too much, the poem is wooden and ineffective. I want a poem to make people laugh or cry or to make the hair on their arms stand up. I really believe poetry is rooted in the body, and that we react to it by smiling or crying or laughing.

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The Dead Deer on the Side of the Road

When I see a dead deer on the side of the Rt 17 west,
its hind legs pointing up to the sky, stiff as sticks, its body
crumpled and still

I think of you in the ER cubicle at Valley Hospital, your
eyes suddenly blank and staring, your body motionless.

A doctor says “he’s gone” and closes your eyes.  Just
moments before your breath was a loud rasping in your
chest, your fingers turned black at the tips, and the doctor tells me,
“you know, don’t you that he’s dying?  He
probably only has an hour at the most.”

When I see that dead deer, the way life is gone from it,
I cry for you and for the deer and for all the other creatures
lost. I talk to you, as though you were actually in the car
with me and could help me carry the cup of grief
that I try to balance in my hands.

Too much death surrounds me now, my mother, father,
sister, best friends of forty years, all gone and I mourn for
them all, but you who were with me forty six years, you are
the one I am afraid to grieve for, afraid that if I start I will
have to know that I will never fill the space your going
leaves.  I pretend to myself that you are still with me in our
family room as in this car.  It is only when I cry for the deer
that I am able to cry for you.  “I love you,” you said, the day
before you died.   When I came into the room you turned
to me with a smile that filled your face with light.  I will carry
that smile in my memory like a talisman, a worry stone that
I can hold and touch when I am most alone, most afraid.

The EPA Comes to Binghamton, NY

The EPA says there’s a dead  zone in the Susquehanna
River that is growing wider with each day.
Nothing can survive in it.

Some days I feel there is a dead zone in me
as the world I knew, the one with you in it,
has vanished, and the world around me
with its dying lakes and rivers, its endangered
water supplies, its polluted air, grows larger.

As a child, the air smelled fresh and sweet,
even on 17th Street in Paterson, New Jersey
and the stars were huge and visible in the sky.

Why do we ruin everything we touch with our greed
and hunger?  We used to eat fresh snow in a cup
with espresso and sugar.  Are we ever grateful

for what we have without wanting more?  How carelessly
I held you in my arms when we were still young and you
could still travel, your hand in mine in Italy and France,
Spain and Portugal, in theaters where we watched
the plays and movies we loved, in the museums we visited,
the folk concerts.  It wasn’t until later that I realized
what I’d lost and now, how heedless we’ve been

with the prefect beauty of the world, how ashamed I am
of all I have held and failed to protect and cherish

Emily Vogel is poetry editor of Ragazine.

© 2011 Herb Moore

“Draw until your hand feels numb…”

An Interview with Herb Moore

by Mike Foldes

The following interview with cartoonist Herb Moore was conducted via e-mail exchange in April 2011.

Q: When I look at your drawings on your web site, it seems like I’ve seen these somewhere before. How long have you been at this, and where does your work typically appear?

Herb Moore: I was a doodler in school but it was more to escape listening to the teacher than for a love of drawing, ha, ha.

Herb Moore's self-portrait.

Mike, I’ve been in this business for twenty years and have worked at almost every major studio in Hollywood, with the exception of Dreamworks and Sony, but I’ve pitched project ideas to both.  I’ve spent most of my time working at Warner Bros. and so maybe some of their style rubbed off on me, ha, ha.  I was always a fan of the Warner Bros. cartoons when I was a kid because the characters seemed to have some bite to them.  They developed some great characters and character duos.  Now I’m working on Phineas & Ferb, during the day, and it has to be one of the best productions that I’ve ever been on both because of the staff and the show itself. Finally, my website has been an opportunity to showcase some of my personal work as well as a place to host any new content that I create.  I’m soon to release a new animated short titled, “Duffy McTaggart and the 19th Hole” and I’m co-developing several mobisode series of animations for a client outside of the United States.  I’m very proud of animationsoup.net and I look forward to creating even more content to showcase at my website.

Q: Where did you study animation techniques, or did you have on-the-job training?

HM: I passionately studied animation on my own as I obtained my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.  I knew that I needed to draw as much as possible, and really had no solid guidance as to what I “should” do exactly, but I wasn’t going to be stopped.  Once I got my foot in the door at my first “industry” job, that’s when finding work became a little bit easier.  I actually learned more on the job than I possibly could have been taught in school.  I’ll admit, an education in an animation program would have helped, but really, once I got my foot in the door, and I demonstrated my desire to work hard and learn, I did fine, (and will continue to).

Q: In becoming a cartoonist, did you distinguish between what apparently came naturally to you and the classical concepts of ‘fine art’? In your mind, what’s the distinction?

HM: That’s a heavy question for a lite mind like mine, ha, ha.  As I studied “fine art” in college, I initially knew I needed to draw as much as possible and fine art allowed that, but what I gained was an appreciation for true art and what it takes to create it.  I knew that I could tell an entertaining story, as well as act funny, and I felt that I could back that up with great drawings “eventually,” as I worked at drawing, but I had no appreciation for what it actually took to create through art.  Fine art to me is the ability to create something artistically that can be appreciated in one way or another, that is unique, born out of it’s creators experiences, feelings, imagination, and is one’s own personal expression.  Wow, that’s good stuff, I have to write that down.

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Q: I take it you’ve worked with quite a number of other cartoonists over the years. Who do you recall as being most memorable, or fun to work with?

HM: When I worked at Warner Bros. several years ago, I worked with Bob Doucette who was probably one of the most enjoyable artists for me to work ever with because he was so pleasant, as well as extremely talented.  I learned so much from him and had a great time.  Currently, Rob Hughes at Disney is the most fun because he knows funny, he knows how to make people laugh with his artwork, as well as his writing.  I have never laughed so hard as when I’m working with Rob.  I have been extremely blessed to have worked with some very talented and enjoyable people who have eventually turned into great friends.

Q: What do you think of the “Beavis and Butthead” or “South Park” programs? Anime? Any favorite styles?

HM: I love animation, unless it’s totally crap and I just don’t watch crap.  Shows like “Beavis and Butthead”, as well as “South Park”, are great shows.  I was so happy when “South Park” won an Emmy a few years ago.  It’s hard for me to say I have a favorite style, but I will say this, I love independent animation productions both feature films and short form.  Some of the most creative and well thought out animation seems to come from independent productions.

Q: Herb, I imagine both hardware and software have changed a lot since you started out, and there is the fear technology is taking over for pushing pencils and papers (people). How has the business changed technically since you started out and is how is demand these days for good cartoonists? Where is that demand coming from (if it is)?

HM: Things have definitely changed but technology is simply allowing us to do more things faster.  Yes, you have to know more than just how to draw but the possiblities in animation are broader today than ever before.  Personally, I believe “demand” for talented artists and animators is quite healthy these days, in most if not all areas of animation.  And, you don’t have to live in Los Angeles or New York, etc., to be consistently busy within this industry.  The internet has obviously open up a lot of opportunities for animators and I only see that increasing.  Also, animation in the games business is growing rapidly, all due to the blossoming of the digital age.

Q: What computer programs do you find most helpful to produce your cartoons?

HM: I use Sketchbook Pro for creating and developing ideas, such as backgrounds and characters, and then I do my animations in Adobe Flash.  I often use Photoshop in creating or touching up artwork for my website or for presentation.  I’ll also use Adobe Premiere to assemble my animatics as well as my final output of my latest animted short film.

Q: Any tips for the aspiring cartoonist?

HM: Well, yes.  Not only do you need to draw until your hand feels numb every waking hour of the day, and you must continue to study great shows, films and great stories, but you have to be technologically prepared for drawing on digital tablets, like the various Wacom tablets, and you have to know a variety of software, and then be able to manipulate your images in different ways.  Younger people have such a great opportunity to impact the world through their creations because we’re linked together now more than ever, so be prepared.

Visit Moore’s web site at: http://www.animationsoup.net