Aron Namenwirth

We are meat eaters

2012-02-11T17:21:00.002-05:00

Tom Moody Music: "New Shortcut" [4.6 MB .mp3]

New Drummer, and Guitarist

2012-02-06T18:42:00.001-05:00

So Scott Fulmer and I are joined by Ernesto Arencibia and Glenn St. Jean watch out.

Culture of Waste

2012-02-01T11:47:00.002-05:00

For Mike Kelly

Looking for drummer

2012-02-01T09:33:00.002-05:00

Looking for drummer
no strummer
no hummer
no cock sucker
you may be out of luck
but could be our drummer
If your old or young and have a heart that beats
If you are a punk with some funk
Give a call nine1seven3 oone sixsix80
If you really suck you may just be in luck
if you think this pathetic forget it

Looking for drummer

2012-01-22T15:17:00.001-05:00

Drummer (Bushwick)

Date: 2012-01-22, 3:16PM EST
Reply to: comm-pvjej-2812681606@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

We are a couple of guitarists looking for a drummer. We been playing together for almost a year have our own songs. Influences include Beat Happening, Marble Giants, Sonic Youth. Velvet underground, Big Black. We practice a couple times a week, have some little shit coming up, and have been offered some free recording time so are looking for someone who wants to make a commitment to making some new music. If you are rock star, or a wanna be this is not for you. If you are a geek with some speed and soul please come jam with us. We have some good drums and you are welcome to wail.

Location: Bushwick
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 2812681606

Bonsai still alive?

2012-01-21T11:59:00.005-05:00

Top to bot. White Oak, Japanese Black Pine, Bristlecone Pine, Giant Sequoia. White Oak,

Sopa Pipa Protest

2012-01-19T11:45:00.000-05:00

We are shutting down

Ramones teenage Labotomy

2012-01-02T16:51:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year (Breaking Kindle screen defect)

2011-12-31T14:53:00.006-05:00

Wishing all happy NEW YEAR!!!

On another note it seems there is a defect in the screen of the Kindle, If you have had a
Kindle that for no apparent reason had the screen freeze with a decayed image with scratches running through it and returned your device to have the same thing happen again. It seems Amazon and Kindle are servicing and returning the devices quickly, perhaps too quickly. If you have a story to tell let us know.

Husker Du

2011-12-22T16:51:00.000-05:00

Makes No Sense at All

From internet to State Capital

2011-12-19T11:00:00.006-05:00

A portrait of President Obama finds its way back into political space in the Deputy Secretary of State office in Hartford Connecticut, we had fun figuring out which wall would be best for it.
It is on loan from Rico Gatson who has traded me for one of his. Happy Holidays Barak and Rock and Roll.

Drumming auditions

2011-12-04T10:07:00.002-05:00

Studio

2011-11-28T12:38:00.000-05:00

Bass test

2011-11-14T16:34:00.004-05:00

Tom Moody retro-jungle-kit

2011-11-14T10:52:00.005-05:00

11249

2011-11-07T08:59:00.001-05:00

Black Rock/ Willyburg

2011-11-03T11:49:00.004-04:00

"Map of Williamsburg Brooklyn" pencil on paper 14x9 " 2007-09

Jay Davis at Black Rock

Zuccotti Park 10/21/11

2011-10-21T10:55:00.001-04:00

Went down to Zuccotti Park this morning to see how the children of Democracy were doing.
The first change I noticed was the increased involvement of the labor unions, It was around 9 a.m.
and there was a line down Broadway the length of the park with burly helmeted guys with signs
chanting words of protest, a few Police officers watched on. The body of the park had twice the number of campers from 2 weeks ago and a proportionate increase in breakfeast food was being served. There was little space that was not being slept on. Although there was plenty of bench space for me to take a load of my feet and put my guitar down. As most of the new residents were still asleep I did not play any songs today. The park considering it's use was very clean although the body odor from no showers and dirty clothes was getting stronger, but one can't get anything accomplished without a little sweat.

fretting

2011-10-18T16:19:00.000-04:00

ink, acrylic and pencil on paper 59x158"

top was trying to make an association between color and notes in effort at aiding memory, in the end felt that simple was better and painted out color.

Over and over (revolution)

2011-10-17T12:56:00.000-04:00

2011-10-17T09:08:00.000-04:00

Zuccotti Park child of Democracy

2011-10-14T15:40:00.004-04:00

"Zuccotti Park Child of Democracy" BarF/G

Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park

Is it Democracy's last stand or an excuse to sleep in public

What is the message?

That is the question we ask?

Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park

What is the question?

What is the answer?

Its not cancer we are talking about or is it?

the cancer of a society's indifference to the answer?

to an un-asked question.

Is it about the brokers they are doing

what they do and have always done.

Making money as fast as lightning

when it trickles down not frightning

no one is around Zuccotti Park

but the answer isn't so simple for the same democracy

that brings us here keeps them there isn't that fair.

I don't think you want regulation that is not freedom

Got to treatem like we treat are selves with freedom

Now greed and ambition are bad things we are instilled

but without them what use is god or honor, games, entertainment,

art or war just a bore.

A folly a place to put the holly, I'd rather park at Zuccotti, without knowing

the answers, and keep asking the question than

just like we have two eyes two hands two feet

there needs to be two sides to play

and today i take zuccotti Park and Wall street

love them as democracies children

neither pure but with faith will endure.

Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park Zuccotti Park

Jimi Hendrix in Zuccotti Park(not)

2011-10-13T16:01:00.005-04:00

I have decided to play again in Zuccotti Park with some friends Saturday at 3.00 P.M. despite Mayor Bloombergs change of position seem like in update the park is going to be cleaned but still remain partially open. Looks like no more lying down or sleeping, but sitting is okay so are musical instruments :O)
Welcome anyone to join me.

Green Spirit (revised to) Soylent Green

2011-10-11T08:35:00.008-04:00

"Soylent Spirit" acrylic on mdf 18x18x1" 2011

compare to "Green is for Greed" 36x48x3" 2007

Wall Street (Zuccotti Park)

2011-10-06T08:58:00.004-04:00

Heading to wall street to check out the protest bringing the guitar. Things were very peaceful down in Zuccotti Park this morning, I asked a police officer for directions and he complied nicely. I found many young people soundly sleeping most without mattresses, so started my 2 hour jam quietly. There were many people visiting from all parts of the country and as far away as Pakistan camping out without long or short term plans. I proudly started the music off for today soon joined by many. The drumming on the other end of the park was sensational finding
many different styles from big band to African and rock in time. Jeremy seen at bottom shared stories of his experience living off the grid in woods of Pennsylvania drawing a picture of a water heating contraption, while listening to the "World goes round and round" and It's an new day"
which i sung very quietly. This protest had a very genuine and un- political feeling. The buzz was
sharing, be it cigarettes, guitar picks, tunes, stories, food, or information. I think the message is
those in this country who have need to be more generous.

Paul Slocum

2011-10-04T11:51:00.004-04:00

Paul Slocum pencil on paper 11.5x15 2011

Profile on Rhizome

Scott Fulmer Singing

2011-09-29T11:45:00.003-04:00

"Scott Fulmer singing" acrylic on plywood panel 19/19.25x16x1.12" 2011

Come with me

2011-09-28T12:09:00.002-04:00

Song, Vocals, Guitar, me, Bass Scott Fulmer, Sir Sampleton Paul Slocum
Mixed between to jams over last couple weeks.

Lauren Cornell

2011-09-24T14:39:00.005-04:00

Lauren Cornell acrylic on paper 22x15" 2009-2011

American Idol/2004 live Steven Tyler Aerosmith

2011-09-23T11:13:00.005-04:00

Honing in

2011-09-21T09:27:00.007-04:00

Scott Fulmer with pbass, Paul Slocum with Sir Sampleton
So this week proved fruitful with some mixing of the Sir with bass and guitar combined
with boss looper. Working on honing in on the sound.

Proof Bristlecone Pine makes a good bonsai

2011-09-16T10:14:00.004-04:00

Had this one for a little over a year now. Shipped from the west coast, it spent this summer out on Block Island, got lots of rain and did not mind the soaking, although the dark brown clay container got real hot during the day. It's growing spurt started in May and is still going except slowing down now. I treat this tree as if it where a cactus ignore it and it grows. Over the late fall winter I leave it unheated 30-40 degrees and water very sparingly once every two or three weeks lightly. They like wind so inside fan good idea.

Clyde Hall's

2011-09-14T10:15:00.003-04:00

Playing with my oldest friend since 6 he said he got his american strat in the mid 70s.
Jam of a lifetime in the woods of northeastern Connecticut.

Scott Fulmer Original

2011-09-08T09:13:00.001-04:00

A one handed solution to documention
shot with Droid 1

sir sampleton

2011-09-05T15:13:00.000-04:00

Paul's Guitar

2011-06-29T12:19:00.003-04:00

Jam: Scott, Paul, Marcin, ( Camino appearance)

Guitar and Bass Teachers

2011-06-26T22:20:00.005-04:00

Jordon Brooks via brooklynmusiclessons
Peter Engelbert
These guys are both great musicians and teachers. ..and have really long fingers.

Cal's

2011-06-24T08:12:00.009-04:00

Nancy making fashion statement, Jane demonstrating child exploitation, Cal Lane got some new trees to take care of.
Trees left back in studio in Brooklyn, like Sophie's choice these poor buggers are to bare the burdens of future dealers and curators in the confines of the sadistic practice or their neglect.

After a short pre-huttle with Oliver Michaels (link to save amazon, which he just sent me) i decided to bring 2o trees up to Cal's. Much fun was had by all.

Trees going upstate

2011-06-16T13:04:00.009-04:00

2 year old Pin Oak seedling
2 year old Pin Oak seedling in recycled wood from piano, note dye back from hard winter.

The upcoming show has been postponed or canceled as the space at the Moore Street Market was used for local public school arts enhancement. 10 trees are going up to the property of Cal Lane an artist I met at a party of Luke Murphy. She is in Putnam Valley NY a little over an hour hour north of Brooklyn. This leaves me still with 20 trees which all but 7 I am going to plant out on Block Island. It seems as my passion for music grows the more sense it makes to plant them,
in beautiful places rather then convince art dealers, curators or even myself that they are sculpture of highest cultural significance and take their rightful place next to the brilliant work of my contemporaries.

World Peace

2011-05-26T19:02:00.000-04:00

Eight days a week

2011-05-24T14:47:00.001-04:00

singing famous love song by John Lennon and Paul McCarthy to Japanese Black Pine Seedling.
Rooted it can not walk away.

Song for a New Day

2011-05-21T08:25:00.000-04:00

Let it Be

2011-05-17T15:25:00.000-04:00

Here Comes the Sun (electric)

2011-05-16T11:56:00.000-04:00

your eyes only :

2011-05-16T09:01:00.001-04:00

video by Richard Kern and Thurston Moore

rock the house

2011-05-11T11:50:00.004-04:00

Another awesome undocumented jam, Tim Spelios percussion on drywall buckets and garbage can lid, Scott Fulmer guitar and bass, Paul Slocum new instruments including one available through apple apps, myself guitar and bass. Tim thinks we need a young female drummer, not too hardcore, kinda sensitive, who can wander around or through some inventive beats. Who has some experience but still needs breaking in. If anyone knows of such a person. Ha Ha

2011-05-11T11:50:00.001-04:00

New Studio

2011-05-07T10:48:00.002-04:00

Jamming with Scott Fulmer

2011-05-05T14:19:00.003-04:00

No documentation,
Looking for drummer in williamsburg area. Experimental Pop, Beatley, also computer rhythm

orange mold

2011-05-02T17:28:00.000-04:00

Bin Laden

2011-05-02T13:44:00.000-04:00

Cat

2011-04-30T08:15:00.004-04:00

Some green

2011-04-27T17:25:00.006-04:00

Top: Japanese Black Pine Bonsai candles Middle: White Pine Bonsai also sporting candles, I have read that pruning the candles or removing a few is good, but this time just going to let them get bigger.
Bottom: Boxwood that was pulled from the park this is what in the art world might be called a ready made, but is not really the case as so much training is involved. It is hard to kill Boxwood but this last winter managed to as in the case of a small favorite. Still have not shown a live tree as art, sculpture or whatever label it wields.

Dead trees time for some music and tlc

2011-04-27T16:35:00.004-04:00

Well it was a rough winter for the trees just tallied up 18 dead in the backyard in Brooklyn and 2 0n Block Island. Everything looked fine till the last storms recently while I was out on B.I. It was big losses for the Sycamores and Pin Oaks. Looks kinda shaky for the last Italian Chestnut and White Birch. Lost all documentation of these these trees as the files got somehow corrupted. On the bright side what lived is looking great.
The new Ginko seeds have a high germination rate of almost 100% while the 100 pin oak acorns collected all died. A couple acorns from the white oak family germinated so this little forest has a lot of diversity. I would like to note that growing trees from seed is very hard, the success rate is low especially if you plan on wintering trees outside. Trees grown inside with artificial light and irrigation have much better survival rate.
They will be exposed to high volume of music during most intense growth this spring most of my own making.

moose

2011-04-25T18:58:00.001-04:00

high-fire brown clay and branch

brown bear

2011-04-25T18:55:00.002-04:00

high fire brown clay

Jesus Christ on cross with erection

2011-04-25T18:02:00.003-04:00

high fired dark brown clay

Block Island

2011-04-22T10:39:00.008-04:00

Japanese Black Pine survived the winter barely, without tree tube it was badly chewed on by white tailed deer. I tubed it despite Island objection to aesthetics. Note: I gave a couple ot trees to friends who looked down the tube and saw nothing pulled the tube out and told me the tree was dead, alas the tree being without leaves and only 4 inches high blended and was lost among the minutia.
New winter hawthorn seedling nestled in tube.
Swapped one year sycamore for winter hawthorn, looks like sycamore made it bringing it back to brooklyn for a little tlc.
Oliver Michaels and Dan Kopp warming up by wood stove, the temp. on the island floated around 45 degrees. The stove pipe and neck of strat also take angles.
Minus a drop ceiling.
Dead Dolphin, Dan called the Mystic Aquarium but they felt it too far gone.

Dead Stove also too far gone.

made in japan

2011-04-06T10:18:00.002-04:00

Evergreens

2011-04-02T18:14:00.008-04:00

Coast Redwood bonsai/seedling in dark brown clay pot

Giant Sequoia Bonsai/seedling in cast concrete pot

Japanese Black Pine bonsai/seedling in red clay pot

Bristlecone Pine Bonsai/seedling in wood pot

Hemlock bonsai/seedling in spruce log

The Building

2011-04-02T11:23:00.005-04:00

Will they be the last living artists in Williamsburg?

By Aaron Short

The Brooklyn Paper

Enlarge this image

Photo by Aaron Short

Aron and Nancy Namenwirth (Horowitz) may have to move out of their two-story live work building on N. 12th Street in Greenpoint because property taxes have risen as the land values have increased.
(more)
(more)

Winter Hawthorn

2011-04-01T17:29:00.004-04:00

Proof that spring is here, Winter Hawthorn seedlings germinating after 2 year stratification.
This would mean moving these seeds around the studio freezing them, heating them drying them out, wetting them and lots of patience. Also, have three red delicious apple tree seedlings,
from the core. I have said good bye to the Williamsburg Ceramic studio, making eight more bonsai pots with dark brown clay high fired. They came out great and transplanting trees into them. The show at the Moore Street Market may or may not happen it is up in the air for the time being.

Anders Osborne

2011-03-21T11:08:00.002-04:00

Brooklyn Bowl Totally Amazing! sample different jam

Shannon's Tree

2011-03-11T18:45:00.006-05:00

Shannon's tree a Pin Oak going with her to Portland Oregon

From new shelf on opposite end of Williamsburg Ceramic Studio to the kiln pots are now being biscuit fired and then high fired to cone 4

Bonsai Pots

2011-03-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

Looks like a firing is in order next week.

Jamming with Paul Slocum and Marcin Ramocki

2011-02-26T18:58:00.007-05:00

Sorry no documentation did not want to stop.
Put the Yamaha Bass through the moves and Paul gave his new keyboard app a rip. Marcin and I also, noodled a little with the mim strat.

Spirit Surfers is Dead, Long Live Spirit Surfers. Dtangler

Luke Murphy and Marcin Jamming

2011-02-24T12:30:00.003-05:00

Problems inherent in documentation is you are not playing

Tom Moody 10th anniversery (2 days ago)

2011-02-23T21:33:00.005-05:00

//www.tommoody.us/archives/2011/02/23/10th-anniversary-2-days-ago/

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! 10 years is long an epic span.

"Mark It" mini

2011-02-19T11:24:00.003-05:00

installation including video "empire" painting "Jane" clay coil pot made from Block Island Clay, Porcelain dead Italian chestnut seedling, transformer wire, 2 Boston acoustic speakers found on street, 2011
note: The Museum of Modern Art re-screened Andy Warhol's Empire the same night as premiere of my "Empire" at Norte Maar.

ufo's

2011-02-06T10:03:00.003-05:00

Mark it! @ Norte Maar

Opening: Friday, February 18, 6 - 10 PM

Norte Maar 83 Wyckoff Avenue, #1BBrooklyn, NY 11237 USA

Hours by appointment 646-361-8512

“Mark it” presents a group of artists at the beginning of new projects including; Paul D'Agostino, Lars Kremer, Aron Namenwirth, Cathy Nan Quilian, Julie Torres, and Audra Wolowiec

organized by Austin Thomas to celebrate the beginning of a new public art project for the Historic Moore Street Market in Brooklyn

Beat nite Bushwick, galleries stay open late organized by Jason Andrew and Norte Maar sponsored by Hyperallergic

Cracking Pots

2011-02-03T16:18:00.006-05:00

Japanese Black Pine 2 year old from Block Island in high fired red Clay Bonsai Container made at 9th st. Like Matias warned the cracks came back in firing but it remained intact and Pc7 filled
them solidly. Porcelain Snowman is content.

apple seedling breaks ground

So the first 2 Bonsai containers cracked and I repaired them and they cracked and so on. Evidently
they dried to quickly, not covered sufficiently in plastic. Matias Pfeiffer warned me that I was wasting time. He is a master see image above and was right. Breaking the pots up into little pieces felt quite good,
and one has already been reconstituted.

2011-01-29T08:10:00.004-05:00

New Bonsai Pots

2011-01-26T21:20:00.009-05:00

A few new bonsai containers are in progress, made a lot of mistakes and the pots are cracking like crazy. They may not be sustainable, but have others in the works. I am in a group show coming up soon: Feb. 18th "Mark it" - at Norte Maar, includes a group of artists at the beginning of a new project including; Paul D'Agostino, Lars Kremer, Julie Torres, and Audra Wolowiec curated by: Austin Thomas

Meanwhile, trees still under 3 feet of snow.

Wabi-Sabi

2011-01-22T09:40:00.000-05:00

via:John Gasner
WHAT IS WABI-SABI?

The Japanese view of life embraced a simple aesthetic
that grew stronger as inessentials were eliminated
and trimmed away.

-architect Tadao Ando

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.

Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time-Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe. For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei-merely "pretty"-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful. (Omoshiroi literally means "white faced," but its meanings range from fascinating to fantastic.) It's the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is "natsukashii furusato," or an old memory of my hometown. (This is a prevalent mind-set in Japan these days, as people born in major urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka wax nostalgic over grandparents' country houses that perhaps never were. They can even "rent" grandparents who live in prototypical country houses and spend the weekend there.)

Daisetz T. Suzuki, who was one of Japan's foremost English-speaking authorities on Zen Buddhism and one of the first scholars to interpret Japanese culture for Westerners, described wabi-sabi as "an active aesthetical appreciation of poverty." He was referring to poverty not as we in the West interpret (and fear) it but in the more romantic sense of removing the huge weight of material concerns from our lives. "Wabi is to be satisfied with a little hut, a room of two or three tatami mats, like the log cabin of Thoreau," he wrote, "and with a dish of vegetables picked in the neighboring fields, and perhaps to be listening to the pattering of a gentle spring rainfall."

In Japan, there is a marked difference between a Thoreau-like wabibito (wabi person), who is free in his heart, and a makoto no hinjin, a more Dickensian character whose poor circumstances make him desperate and pitiful. The ability to make do with less is revered; I heard someone refer to a wabibito as a person who could make something complete out of eight parts when most of us would use ten. For us in the West, this might mean choosing a smaller house or a smaller car, or-just as a means of getting started-refusing to supersize our fries.

The words wabi and sabi were not always linked, although they've been together for such a long time that many people (including D. T. Suzuki) use them interchangeably. One tea teacher I talked with begged me not to use the phrase wabi-sabi because she believes the marriage dilutes their separate identities; a tea master in Kyoto laughed and said they're thrown together because it sounds catchy, kind of like Ping-Pong. In fact, the two words do have distinct meanings, although most people don't fully agree on what they might be.

Wabi stems from the root wa, which refers to harmony, peace, tranquillity, and balance. Generally speaking, wabi had the original meaning of sad, desolate, and lonely, but poetically it has come to mean simple, unmaterialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature. Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi. Sixteenth-century tea master Jo-o described a wabi tea man as someone who feels no dissatisfaction even though he owns no Chinese utensils with which to conduct tea. A common phrase used in conjunction with wabi is "the joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe." A wabi person epitomizes Zen, which is to say, he or she is content with very little; free from greed, indolence, and anger; and understands the wisdom of rocks and grasshoppers.

Until the fourteenth century, when Japanese society came to admire monks and hermits for their spiritual asceticism, wabi was a pejorative term used to describe cheerless, miserable outcasts. Even today, undertones of desolation and abandonment cling to the word, sometimes used to describe the helpless feeling you have when waiting for your lover. It also carries a hint of dissatisfaction in its underhanded criticism of gaud and ostentation-the defining mark of the ruling classes when wabisuki (a taste for all things wabi) exploded in the sixteenth century. In a country ruled by warlords who were expected to be conspicuous consumers, wabi became known as "the aesthetic of the people"-the lifestyle of the everday samurai, who had little in the way of material comforts.

Sabi by itself means "the bloom of time." It connotes natural progression-tarnish, hoariness, rust-the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It's the understanding that beauty is fleeting. The word's meaning has changed over time, from its ancient definition, "to be desolate," to the more neutral "to grow old." By the thirteenth century, sabi's meaning had evolved into taking pleasure in things that were old and faded. A proverb emerged: "Time is kind to things, but unkind to man."

Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace: the chilly mottled surface of an oxidized silver bowl, the yielding gray of weathered wood, the elegant withering of a bereft autumn bough. An old car left in a field to rust, as it transforms from an eyesore into a part of the landscape, could be considered America's contribution to the evolution of sabi. An abandoned barn, as it collapses in on itself, holds this mystique.

There's an aching poetry in things that carry this patina, and it transcends the Japanese. We Americans are ineffably drawn to old European towns with their crooked cobblestone streets and chipping plaster, to places battle scarred with history much deeper than our own. We seek sabi in antiques and even try to manufacture it in distressed furnishings. True sabi cannot be acquired, however. It is a gift of time.

So now we have wabi, which is humble and simple, and sabi, which is rusty and weathered. And we've thrown these terms together into a phrase that rolls off the tongue like Ping-Pong. Does that mean, then, that the wabi-sabi house is full of things that are humble, plain, rusty, and weathered? That's the easy answer. The amalgamation of wabi and sabi in practice, however, takes on much more depth.

In home decor, wabi-sabi inspires a minimalism that celebrates the human rather than the machine. Possessions are pared down, and pared down again, until only those that are necessary for their utility or beauty (and ideally both) are left. What makes the cut? Items that you both admire and love to use, like those hand-crank eggbeaters that still work just fine. Things that resonate with the spirit of their makers' hands and hearts: the chair your grandfather made, your six-year-old's lumpy pottery, an afghan you knitted yourself (out of handspun sheep's wool, perhaps). Pieces of your own history: sepia-toned ancestral photos, baby shoes, the Nancy Drew mysteries you read over and over again as a kid.

Wabi-sabi interiors tend to be muted, dimly lit, and shadowy-giving the rooms an enveloping, womblike feeling. Natural materials that are vulnerable to weathering, warping, shrinking, cracking, and peeling lend an air of perishability. The palette is drawn from browns, blacks, grays, earthy greens, and rusts. This implies a lack of freedom but actually affords an opportunity for innovation and creativity. In Japan, kimonos come in a hundred different shades of gray. You simply have to hone your vision

so you can see, and feel, them all.

WABI, NOT SLOBBY

Wabi-sabi can be exploited in all sorts of ways, and one of the most tempting is to use it as an excuse to shrug off an unmade bed, an unswept floor, or a soiled sofa. "Oh, that. Well, that's just wabi-sabi." My nine-year-old son, Stacey, loves this tactic.

How tempting it might be to let the split running down the sofa cushion seam continue on its merry way, calling it wabi-sabi. To spend Saturday afternoon at the movies and let the dust settle into the rugs: wabi sabi. To buy five extra minutes of sleep every morning by not making the bed-as a wabi-sabi statement, of course. And how do you know when you've gone too far-when you' ve crossed over from simple, serene, and rustic to Uber-distress?

A solid yellow line separates tattered and shabby, dust and dirt from something worthy of veneration. Wabi-sabi is never messy or slovenly. Worn things take on their magic only in settings where it's clear they don't harbor bugs or grime. One senses that they've survived to bear the marks of time precisely because they've been so well cared for throughout the years. Even the most rare and expensive of antiques will never play well in a house that's cluttered or dirty.

Cleanliness implies respect. Both ancient and modern tea masters teach that even the poorest wabi tea person should always use fresh green bamboo utensils and new white cloths for wiping the tea bowl. In tea, the host's cleanliness is considered a clear indicator of his state of mind and his devotion to the way of tea. Chanoyu Ichieshu, a tea textbook published in 1956, even goes so far as to advise guests to look into the host's toilet if they wish to understand his spiritual training.

I'm definitely not advocating this extreme. In fact, I'm mortified at the thought of anyone judging me on the state of my own toilets. But the tea masters' point is valid: Spaces that have been thoroughly and lovingly cleaned are ultimately more welcoming. When the bed is neatly made, the romance of a frayed quilt blossoms. The character imparted by a wood floor's knots and crevices shines through when the crumbs are swept away. A scrubbed but faded kilim, thrown over a sofa that's seen one too many stains, transforms it into an irresistible place to rest.

Wabi-sabi's roots lie in Zen Buddhism, which was brought from China to Japan by Eisai, a twelfth-century monk. Zen, with its principles of vast emptiness and nothing holy, stresses austerity, communion with nature, and above all, reverence for everyday life as the real path to enlightenment. To reach enlightenment, Zen monks lived ascetic, often isolated lives and sat for long periods of concentrated meditation.

To help his fellow monks stay awake during these excruciating meditation sessions, Eisai taught them how to process tea leaves into a hot drink. Once Eisai was gone, though, tea took on a very different life of its own. Around the fourteenth century, the upper classes developed elaborate rituals involving tea. Large tearooms were built in an ostentatious style known as shoin, with numerous Chinese hanging scrolls and a formal arrangement of tables for flower vases and incense burners. Tea practitioners proved their wealth and status through their collections of elegant Chinese-style tea utensils during three-day weekenders where up to one hundred cups of tea-as well as food and sake-were served.

Then along came Murata Shuko, an influential tea master who also happened to be a Zen monk. In a radical fashion departure, Shuko began using understated, locally produced utensils during his tea gatherings. Saying "it is good to tie a praised horse to a straw-thatched house," he combined rough, plain wares with famed Chinese utensils, and the striking contrast made both look more interesting. Shuko's successor, Jo-o, was even more critical of men whose zeal for rare or famed utensils was their main motivation for conducting tea. Jo-o began using everyday items such as the mentsu, a wooden pilgrim's eating bowl, as a wastewater container, and a Shigaraki onioke, a stoneware bucket used in silk dyeing, as a water jar. He brought unadorned celadon and Korean peasant wares into the tearoom.

It was Jo-o's disciple Sen no Rikyu, however, who is widely credited with establishing the quiet, simple ceremony that made it possible for everyone-not just the wealthy-to practice tea. In the sixteenth century-the beginning of an age of peace following several long centuries of civil war in Japan-gaudiness was all the rage, and Rikyu's tea became an oasis of quiet, simple taste. He served tea in bowls made by anonymous Korean potters and indigenous Japanese craftsmen, the most famous of which are the Raku family's style. He created tiny tea huts (one and a half tatami mats, as opposed to the four-and-one-half- to eighteen-mat rooms that had been the norm) based on the traditional farmer's hut of rough mud walls, a thatched roof, and organically shaped exposed wood structural elements. The hut included a nijiriguchi, a low entryway that forced guests to bow and experience humility as they entered. Rikyu made some of his own utensils of unlacquered bamboo (as common as crabgrass in Japan, but nowadays a Rikyu original is worth as much as a Leonardo da Vinci painting), and he arranged flowers simply and naturally in bamboo vases (shakuhachi) and baskets. Rikyu 's ceremony became known as wabichado (chado means "the way of tea"), and it endures in Japan to this day.

We Westerners tend to scratch our heads at the thought of four hours spent sitting on our knees, participating in an elaborate ritual during which a charcoal fire is built, a meal of seasonal delicacies is served with sake, one bowl of green tea is made and shared among the guests, and then individual bowls of frothy thin tea are made by whisking hot water and matcha. What most of us don't realize, however, is that tea embodies so much of the beauty that makes up Japanese culture. To truly understand tea, you must also study poetry, art, literature, architecture, legacy, and history. Tea practitioners are accomplished in the arts of flowers, fine cuisine, and-perhaps most important-etiquette (sarei). And the four principles of tea-harmony (wa), respect (kei), purity (sei), and tranquillity (jaku)-could of course be the means to any good life.

Tea, in its current form, was born out of a medieval society rife with terrible warfare, yet the samurai were willing to set aside their rank-and their swords-to become equals within the tearoom. The room's design is deliberately simple and clean; it's meant to be a sanctuary. "In this thatched hut there ought not to be a speck of dust of any kind; both master and visitors are expected to be on terms of absolute sincerity; no ordinary measures of proportion or etiquette or conventionalism are to be followed," declares Nanbo-roku, one of most ancient and important textbooks on tea. "A fire is made, water is boiled, and tea is served; this is all that is needed here, no other worldly considerations are to intrude." As soon as we enter the tearoom, we're asked to shake off our woes and worries and connect with others, "face harmonious, words loving."

"Tea brings people together in a nonthreatening place to escape the modern world, then they can go back out and take that with them," Gary Cadwallader, an American-born tea master who teaches at the Urasenke Center in Kyoto, explained to me. It seems to me that we Americans who lack the time-or the desire-to learn tea could take the essence of that statement and apply it to our own lives.

"If a friend visits you, make him tea, wish him welcome warmly with hospitality," Jo-o, one of Japan's earliest tea masters, wrote. "Set some flowers and make him feel comfortable." This is embodied in a common Japanese phrase, "shaza kissa," which translates, "Well, sit down and have some tea." What if we adopted that phrase and learned to say it more often-when the kids get home from school (before the rush to hockey and ballet), when our neighbor stops by, when we feel our annoyance level with our spouse starting to rise? If we just allowed ourselves to stop for a moment, sit down together, and share a cup of tea, what might that moment bring?

In learning tea, we're constantly reminded that every meeting is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to enjoy good company, beautiful art, and a cup of tea. We never know what might happen tomorrow, or even later today. Stopping whatever it is that's so important (dishes, bill paying, work deadlines) to share conversation and a cup of tea with someone you love-or might love-is an easy opportunity to promote peace. It is from this place of peace, harmony, and fellowship that the true wabi-sabi spirit emerges.

Wabi-sabi is not a decorating "style" but rather a mind-set. There's no list of rules; we can't hang crystals or move our beds and wait for peace to befall us. Creating a wabi-sabi home is the direct result of developing our wabigokoro, or wabi mind and heart: living modestly, learning to be satisfied with life as it can be once we strip away the unnecessary, living in the moment. You see? Simple as that.

This is tough in any culture, of course, but darned near impossible in our own. In America we're plied daily with sales pitches that will help us improve ourselves, our circumstances, our homes. We can have the whitest teeth, the cleanest carpets, and the biggest SUV money can buy. All of this flies in the face of wabigokoro, as described in Rikyu's sacred tea text, Nanporoku. "A luxurious house and the taste of delicacies are only pleasures of the mundane world," he wrote. "It is enough if the house does not leak and the food keeps hunger away. This is the teaching of the Buddha-the true meaning of chado."

This is un-American. Or is it? I believe there exists in all of us a longing for something deeper than the whitest teeth, sparkling floors, and eight cylinders. What if we could learn to be content with our lives, exactly as they are today? It's a lofty thought...but one that's certainly worth entertaining.

You can start cultivating this mind-set in small ways, taking a lesson from tea. In learning to conduct tea, we're taught to handle every utensil, from the bamboo water scoop to the tea bowl, as if it were precious, with the same respect and care we would use to handle a rare antique. You can do the same thing with the items you use every day.

The book this came from: "the wabi-sabi house,the Japanese art of imperfect beauty" is no longer in print, and is a bit dificult to find. However the good news is that a revised paperback edition is due out from New Society publishers. The book is available for pre-order here: Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House ,or on Amazon. Robyn's book puts it in perspective, using evocative descriptions of modern designs using salvaged materials and (local?) artisan wares. All in all a unique insight into a true way of life.

Ceramic bonsai containers

2011-01-18T17:34:00.014-05:00

I am gearing up to make some vessels for the trees, just rented some space at the Williamsburg
Ceramic Center and planning to make 7 or 8 containers, not sure exactly how refined or crude they will be. I haven't thrown clay on a wheel for 20 years so am not sure if it is like riding a bicycle or playing tennis. Hopefully the former. Those pictured above are just some options of conventional Bonsai design. On January 24th am cooking something for a HYPERALLERGIC Pot Luck Dinner.
and discussion.

Here Comes the Sun

2011-01-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

Keeping it fresh

2011-01-08T22:45:00.006-05:00

While the trees are sleeping for the winter I have decided to learn how to play music. Been learning some Beatle songs to play along with pre-recorded stuff to help them grow in the spring. Will post some video soon of my progress with this new medium. So far I have a used seagull m6 acoustic, a restored stella from 1963, and a 1993 Mexican Fender Stratocaster.
Thought I was tone deaf, (NOT)

2011-01-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

Brooklyn Blizzard 2010

2010-12-31T14:36:00.005-05:00

top: 47 seedlings buried in 3 feet on snow
middle: Burr Oak seedling/pre-bonsai
bottom: Sycamore Seedling/pre-bonsai

Happy Holidays

2010-12-27T09:48:00.003-05:00

Moore Street Market

2010-12-22T14:32:00.001-05:00

From: Austin Thomas

Bristlecone Pine

2010-12-21T15:24:00.005-05:00

Bristlecone Pine in inverted Pedestal 12x12x12" variable 2010 (Seen Outside Backyard Studio)
There has been some questioning if Bristlecone Pine makes good Bonsai. This one is in the studio which hovers between freezing and the 50's through the winter. I have had it since the late summer, so am not familiar with seasonal care.
Neglect is the name of the game in taking care of them. I treat it like a cactus water once every two weeks or much less in the winter. Let the sandy soil dry out completely. Last one died from over-watering. I shifted it out of the center of the box so far growth has been extremely slow. Although with the shift I found that the roots were really spreading out so I hope in the spring for a little spurt.

Late Fall Colors

2010-12-11T10:18:00.006-05:00

White Oak seedling wintering outside in Williamsburg Brooklyn in a spruce log from Block Island Rhode Island. Looks like the trees may have a new home in the spring at the Moore Street Market in Bushwick. This being part of a new project of Austin Thomas founder of the beloved Pocket Utopia. This space comes as part of Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and % for art where Austin will make a outdoor social setup of some kind looking 2 years into the future. So short of some disruption expect a new avante guard in this new exciting location.

Auction for MS

2010-12-05T18:49:00.004-05:00

"The Painter" ink on paper 18x12" 2010
Find this and many other pieces of art at the Abbey a fund raiser for MS http://mattsartauctionforms.blogspot.com/
some artists:

abbey ryan

tania cross
justin matherly

davina semo
alejandro almanza

erica baum
birgit rathsmann

emily noelle lambert
dan kopp
scott healy
shane wilson
jay davis
dan rushton
graham parks
greg vore
aron namenwirth
emilio perez
will smith
chris dunlap
oliver michaels
helena peterson
timothy gannon
benjamin dowell
chris smith
alicia gibson
claudia pena
david malek
barbara choit
ana wolovick
nathan gwynne
adam frezza
rafeal taylor
carla edwards
johnny lancaster
patricia valencia
timothy gannon

How to save the earth

2010-11-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Taking it outside

2010-11-14T17:49:00.001-05:00

Contemporary Art

2010-11-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself

By Jean Baudrillard / Translated by Chris Turner

This essay was originally published as part of Jean Baudrillard's "Le Pacte de lucidité ou l'intelligence du Mal" (2004), translated into English in 2005 as "The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact".

The adventure of modern art is over. Contemporary art is contemporary only with itself. It no longer knows any transcendence either towards past or future; its only reality is that of its operation in real time and its confusion with that reality.
Nothing now distinguishes it from the technical, promotional, media, digital operation. There is no transcendence, no divergence any more, nothing of another scene: merely a specular play with the contemporary world as it takes place. It is in this that contemporary art is worthless: between it and the world, there is a zero-sum equation.
Quite apart from that shameful complicity in which creators and consumers commune wordlessly in the examination of strange, inexplicable objects that refer only to themselves and to the idea of art, the true conspiracy lies in this complicity that art forges with itself, its collusion with the real, through which it becomes complicit in that Integral Reality, of which it is now merely the image-feedback.
There is no longer any differential of art. There is only the integral calculus of reality. Art is now merely an idea prostituted in its realization.

Modernity was the golden age of a deconstruction of reality into its simple elements, of a detailed analytics, first of impressionism, then of abstraction, experimentally open to all the aspects of perception, of sensibility, of the structure of the object and the dismemberment of forms.
The paradox of abstraction is that, by "liberating" the object from the constraints of the figural to yield it up to the pure play of form, it shackled it to an idea of a hidden structure, of an objectivity more rigorous and radical than that of resemblance. It sought to set aside the mask of resemblance and of the figure in order to accede to the analytic truth of the object. Under the banner of abstraction, we moved paradoxically towards more reality, towards an unveiling of the "elementary structures" of objectality, that is to say, towards something more real than the real.
Conversely, under the banner of a general aestheticization, art invaded the whole field of reality.

The end of this history saw the banality of art merge with the banality of the real world -- Duchamp's act, with its automatic transference of the object, being the inaugural (and ironic) gesture in this process. The transference of all reality into aesthetics, which has become one of the dimensions of generalized exchange...
All this under the banner of a simultaneous liberation of art and the real world.
This "liberation" has in fact consisted in indexing the two to each other -- a chiasmus lethal to both.
The transference of art, become a useless function, into a reality that is now integral, since it has absorbed everything that denied, exceeded or transfigured it. The impossible exchange of this Integral Reality for anything else whatever. Given this, it can only exchange itself for itself or, in other words, repeat itself ad infinitum.

What could miraculously reassure us today about the essence of art? Art is quite simply what is at issue in the world of art, in that desperately self-obsessed artistic community. The "creative" act doubles up on itself and is now nothing more than a sign of its own operation -- the painter's true subject is no longer what he paints but the very fact that he paints. He paints the fact that he paints. At least in that way the idea of art remains intact.

This is merely one of the sides of the conspiracy.
The other side is that of the spectator who, for want of understanding anything whatever most of the time, consumes his own culture at one remove. He literally consumes the fact that he understands nothing and that there is no necessity in all this except the imperative of culture, of being a part of the integrated circuit of culture. But culture is itself merely an epiphenomenon of global circulation.
The idea of art has become rarefied and minimal, leading ultimately to conceptual art, where it ends in the non-exhibition of non-works in non-galleries -- the apotheosis of art as a non-event. As a corollary, the consumer circulates in all this in order to experience his non-enjoyment of the works.

At the extreme point of a conceptual, minimalist logic, art ought quite simply to fade away. At that point, it would doubtless become what it is: a false problem, and every aesthetic theory would be a false solution.
And yet it is the case that there is all the more need to speak about it because there is nothing to say. The movement of the democratization of art has paradoxically merely strengthened the privileged status of the idea of art, culminating in this banal tautology of "art is art", it being possible for everything to find its place in this circular definition.
As Marshall McLuhan has it, "We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire human environment as a work of art".¹

The revolutionary idea of contemporary art was that any object, any detail or fragment of the material world, could exert the same strange attraction and pose the same insoluble questions as were reserved in the past for a few rare aristocratic forms known as works of art.
That is where true democracy lay: not in the accession of everyone to aesthetic enjoyment, but in the transaesthetic advent of a world in which every object would, without distinction, have its fifteen minutes of fame (particularly objects without distinction). All objects are equivalent, everything is a work of genius. With, as a corollary, the transformation of art and of the work itself into an object, without illusion or transcendence, a purely conceptual acting-out, generative of deconstructed objects which deconstruct us in their turn.
No longer any face, any gaze, any human countenance or body in all this -- organs without bodies, flows, molecules, the fractal. The relation to the "artwork" is of the order of contamination, of contagion: you hook up to it, absorb or immerse yourself in it, exactly as in flows and networks. Metonymic sequence, chain reaction.
No longer any real object in all this: in the ready-made it is no longer the object that's there, but the idea of the object, and we no longer find pleasure here in art, but in the idea of art. We are wholly in ideology.
And, ultimately, the twofold curse of modern and contemporary art is summed up in the "ready-made": the curse of an immersion in the real and banality, and that of a conceptual absorption in the idea of art.

"... that absurd sculpture by Picasso, with its stalks and leaves of metal; neither wings, nor victory, just a testimony, a vestige -- the idea, nothing more, of a work of art. Very similar to the other ideas and vestiges that inspire our existence -- not apples, but the idea, the reconstruction by the pomologist of what apples used to be -- not ice-cream, but the idea, the memory of something delicious, made from substitutes, from starch, glucose and other chemicals -- not sex, but the idea or evocation of sex -- the same with love, belief, thought and the rest..."²

Art, in its form, signifies nothing. It is merely a sign pointing towards absence.
But what becomes of this perspective of emptiness and absence in a contemporary universe that is already totally emptied of its meaning and reality?
Art can now only align itself with the general insignificance and indifference. It no longer has any privileged status. It no longer has any other final destination than this fluid universe of communication, the networks and interaction.
Transmitter and receiver merging in the same loop: all transmitters, all receivers. Each subject interacting with itself, doomed to express itself without any longer having time to listen to the other.
The Net and the networks clearly increase this possibility of transmitting for oneself in a closed circuit, everyone going at it with their virtual performances and contributing to the general asphyxia.

This is why, where art is concerned, the most interesting thing would be to infiltrate the spongiform encephalon of the modern spectator. For this is where the mystery lies today: in the brain of the receiver, at the nerve centre of this servility before "works of art". What is the secret of it?
In the complicity between the mortification "creative artists" inflict on objects and themselves, and the mortification consumers inflict on themselves and their mental faculties.
Tolerance for the worst of things has clearly increased considerably as a function of this general state of complicity.

Interface and performance -- these are the two current leitmotifs.
In performance, all the forms of expression merge -- the plastic arts, photography, video, installation, the interactive screen. This vertical and horizontal, aesthetic and commercial diversification is henceforth part of the work, the original core of which cannot be located.
A (non-)event like The Matrix illustrates this perfectly: this is the very archetype of the global installation, of the total global fact: not just the film, which is, in a way, the alibi, but the spin-offs, the simultaneous projection at all points of the globe and the millions of spectators themselves who are inextricably part of it. We are all, from a global, interactive point of view, the actors in this global total fact.

Photography has the selfsame problem when we undertake to multi-mediatize it by adding to it all the resources of montage, collage, the digital and CGI, etc. This opening-up to the infinite, this deregulation, is, literally, the death of photography by its elevation to the stage of performance.
In this universal mix, each register loses its specificity -- just as each individual loses his sovereignty in interaction and the networks -- just as the real and the image, art and reality lose their respective energy by ceasing to be differential poles.

Since the nineteenth century, it has been art's claim that it is useless. It has prided itself on this (which was not the case in classical art, where, in a world that was not yet either real or objective, the question of usefulness did not even arise).
Extending this principle, it is enough to elevate any object to uselessness to turn it into a work of art. This is precisely what the "ready-made" does, when it simply withdraws an object from its function, without changing it in any way, and thereby turns it into a gallery piece. It is enough to turn the real itself into a useless function to make it an art object, prey to the devouring aesthetic of banality.
Similarly, old objects, being obsolete and hence useless, automatically acquire an aesthetic aura. Their being distant from us in time is the equivalent of Duchamp's artistic act; they too become "ready-mades", nostalgic vestiges resuscitated in our museum universe.
We might extrapolate this aesthetic transfiguration to the whole of material production. As soon as it reaches a threshold where it is no longer exchanged in terms of social wealth, it becomes something like a giant Surrealist object, in the grip of a devouring aesthetic, and everywhere takes its place in a kind of virtual museum. And so we have the museumification, like a "ready-made", of the whole technical environment in the form of industrial wasteland.

The logic of uselessness could not but lead contemporary art to a predilection for waste, which is itself useless by definition. Through waste, the figuration of waste, the obsession with waste, art fiercely proclaims its uselessness. It demonstrates its non-use-value, its non-exchange-value at the same time as selling itself very dear.
There is a misconception here. Uselessness has no value in itself. It is a secondary symptom and, by sacrificing its aims to this negative quality, art goes completely off track, into a gratuitousness that is itself useless. It is the same scenario, more or less, as that of nullity, of the claim to non-meaning, insignificance and banality, which attests to a redoubled aesthetic pretension.
Anti-art strives, in all its forms, to escape the aesthetic dimension. But since the "ready-made" has annexed banality itself, all that is finished. The innocence of non-meaning, of the non-figurative, of abjection and dissidence, is finished.
All these things, which contemporary art would like to be, or return to, merely reinforce the inexorably aesthetic character of this anti-art.

Art has always denied itself. But once it did so through excess, thrilling to the play of its disappearance. Today it denies itself by default -- worse, it denies its own death.
It immerses itself in reality, instead of being the agent of the symbolic murder of that same reality, instead of being the magical operator of its disappearance.
And the paradox is that the closer it gets to this phenomenal confusion, this nullity as art, the greater credit and value it is accorded, to the extent that, to paraphrase Canetti, we have reached a point where nothing is beautiful or ugly any more; we passed that point without realizing it and, since we cannot get back to that blind spot, we can only persevere in the current destruction of art.

Lastly, what purpose does this useless function serve?
From what, by its very uselessness, does it deliver us?
Like politicians, who deliver us from the wearisome responsibility of power, contemporary art, by its incoherent artifice, delivers us from the ascendancy of meaning by providing us with the spectacle of non-sense. This explains its proliferation: independently of any aesthetic value, it is assured of prospering by dint of its very insignificance and emptiness. Just as the politician endures in the absence of any representativeness or credibility.

So art and the art market flourish precisely in proportion to their decay: they are the modern charnel-houses of culture and the simulacrum.

It is absurd, then, to say that contemporary art is worthless and that there's no point to it, since that is its vital function: to illustrate our uselessness and absurdity. Or, more accurately, to make that decay its stock in trade, while exorcizing it as spectacle.

If, as some have proposed, the function of art was to make life more interesting than art, then we have to give up that illusion. One gets the impression that a large part of current art participates in an enterprise of deterrence, a work of mourning for the image and the imaginary, a -- mostly failed -- work of aesthetic mourning that leads to a general melancholia of the artistic sphere, which seems to survive its own demise by recycling its history and its relics.

But neither art nor aesthetics is alone in being doomed to this melancholy destiny of living not beyond their means, but beyond their ends.

Bonsai Brooklyn Style (Mac)

2010-11-05T11:17:00.000-04:00

Zen

2010-10-31T11:36:00.006-04:00

Japanese Black Pine seedling ready for trip back to Brooklyn

Japanese Black Pine seedling with Chinese Juniper in the Zen Bud dist garden

Studio

2010-10-20T15:45:00.000-04:00

Bonsai Brooklyn Style (part 3)

2010-10-18T12:39:00.000-04:00

Bonsai Brooklyn Style (part 2)

2010-10-17T19:56:00.000-04:00

Bonsai Brooklyn style (part 1)

2010-10-15T11:18:00.001-04:00

Ghost Ship

2010-10-12T14:25:00.008-04:00

Top to bot.: "Ghost Ship" dead Pin Oak seedlings, dead Bristle cone Pine seedling, beaver wood, and red crossover wire and ikea shelf 33x24x12" 2010

"Stack" Spruce, pit fired clay, red crossover wire, dead Pin Oak seedling, driftwood, Sycamore,
drawer, and acrylic 42x17x10" 2010

"Mountain Maple Inlaw" transplanted Mountain Maple approx. 7 feet, showing beginning of fall colors. 2008-2010

"Reservoir Hemlock" New addition replacing the first Hemlock cut down over the summer this one was taken from Simsbury Ct. Reservoir measuring in at a whopping 2" tall, planted in spruce log. 2010

Killed Sycamore

2010-10-09T17:58:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I planted a sycamore seedling in on the park on north 12th street in Brooklyn, today I found the tree tube and bamboo by the garbage the seedling gone. how it looked after 6 months of nurture in the studio.

Dug up Boxwood

2010-10-01T14:33:00.007-04:00

Boxwood like the hedge on BI is tenacious and hard to kill. These bushes provided ambush for many an hider.

Dump Truck

2010-09-30T21:06:00.003-04:00

Pin Oak in Dump Truck

Imaginary Oak 3

2010-09-30T20:28:00.004-04:00

imaginary oak 11x14"pencil on paper 2010 (in progress)

WO23 named Jane Namenwirth

2010-09-30T11:45:00.003-04:00

White Oak 23 named Jane Namenwirth replanted in piece of Blue spruced downed on the North East portion of the estate where is planted a white oak given to Nancy.

Coast Redwood with Spider

2010-09-29T13:27:00.002-04:00

Coast Redwood seedling with Spider pencil on paper 17x14" 2010