Redesign Under Construction

please be patient. 

Riding the Caboose

Two neat things about riding on the back deck of the caboose: watching the landscape move away form you and the sudden surprise when entering a tunnel.  When I passed this caboose parked in Roscoe, NY yesterday, I sensed how these things relate to my current experience with social media. 

I'm a bit late, not so much in terms of the these innovations on a collective scale, but in terms of adopting the practice into my livelihood.  It's true, the unfolding of the social media platform is rippling out through society.  Just ask "twitter?" and get the "what?" response.  Even in Boston last week when shopping at Utrecht Art Supply on Massachusetts Ave., the overly self-conscious twenty something sales reps that helped me: "what's Twitter?" 

What I'm getting at is that I've been fortunate to really catch a ride and fall in with those who are defining best practices.  The experience has been wild and exhilarating.  It's swept me through landscapes I never intended to visit, and introduced me to interesting, talented and committed folks.  When I consider the strange set of circumstances that led me into this opportunity, I can honestly say I nearly missed train.  That would have been a shame.   

Fresh Paint ~ Cloudspotting

Judith spent the better part of this morning out back eyes trained up and toward the west as an army of clouds marched overhead.  When I asked how she made her choices that led to this image (oil on board 36 x 24) she shared this observation. "There are repeating patterns that emerge. Once you determine a pattern, you have the foundation for an image."

We joined the Cloud Appreciation Society this summer.  If you have not given that group a look, do. Then look up... 

So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow...

... begins the enigmatic modern poem by William Carlos Williams.  It's a poem I've taught, professed to have understood.  It was all bunk till I myself depended on one.  In the end this poem is deceptively simple, profoundly true.  

Yesterday we harvested 207 lbs. of winter squash.  Our red wheelbarrow was crucial to that task.  The last two lines of the poem, "glazed with rain water, besides the white chickens," simply give context to the what has proceeded, an awareness like I had yesterday of how essential our tools are.  The poems voice gains this awareness, the "so much depends" during a rain storm, when there was a moment to reflect at a farm (white chickens). End of poem.   

Now before I started to dish out the manure about this poem, I sat through classes in both college and graduate school where this little ditty was blown so far out of proportion you'd think we were cracking the di Vinci code.  Here's a vote for living life before we pay hundreds of thousands of dollars having it professed to us.

Stick Figures ~ a new series

Last week we introduced the Fresh Paint series to showcase Judith's plain aire oil paintings.  Tonight it's Stick Figures. A bit of a play on words, but charcoal is made of sticks of willow that get baked at a high temperature without any air.  It's a fun alchemical exercise and each fall we make a few batches.  Judith, as a part main part of her practice, works with charcoal on paper, rendering from the live model.  Sometimes this is in preperation for a studio painting, as is the case of this portrait drawing of our son as a pirate.  The life size painting will be emerging this fall.

Most of the Stick Figure series, however will focus on the drawings produced working in drawing groups of like minded artists that meet regularly and draw from the live model.  It's a tradition that reaches back to the 19th century French Academy that remains alive and well in small communities throughout America.  The image below was drawn today at the Woodstock School of Art.  

The Unconscious, A Peopled Sea

This short clip, taken last June while following my 6 year old son's desire to capture wildlife "just like on the Planet Earth series", is on one hand only a vacation clip. But on another, it is the fruit of pursuing my son's desire to the limit of what I could provide. We took a shuttle boat service from Chatham over to Monomoy Wildlife refuge where along the beach we encounter hundreds of seals, no humans.

I've been taught that the Unconscious is like the sea. It's an analogy that has served me well as I wrestle to fathom its splendor. In Jungian terminology, our dreams are peopled with archetypes, much as this shoreline a play space for seals. I would suggest, that the figures that people our dreams our no more a figment of our imagination then these seals. If we can entertain that idea, we have begun to realize the ramifications of the objective psyche. It's not a new idea, but one very slow to make widespread gains...

Are we reading the signs...

Around the edges of the social media world, naysayers are chattering that it's all a waste of time, essentially a detour. 

Certainly we all live with a constant barrage of signs, and the demands of the virtual world have many early adopters sharing with sarcasm, "welcome to Twitter, there goes all your free time."  External impressions through the senses interpret the relationships we navigate each day.  Internal notions by way of our dreams, unprompted thoughts and feelings tug at our attention.  Virtual tags and posts through our use of social media and the Internet unfold at rate beyond any one persons grasp.  My question is this: are we really reading the signs?  Hmm.  That prompts a further question.  How are these three input streams reacting to each other?  

I've been tracking "dream" on Twitter for over a month now.  It's a constant theme for tweeters, so much so that it perplexes me I never see this word pop up on twitscoop's tag cloud.  Next to the "oh my god I had a weird dream" post, sharing that one has had a twitter dream has been the most common.  Now many might dismiss such impressions as recent memories populating the images of the night.  I think we need to dig deeper.  

From a Jungian perspective, explaining away the images in this manor will not do.  It nullifies the autonomous activity of the unconscious.  Jung mapped out consciousness with two separate centers, the ego and the unconscious.  Unlike Freud he saw within the unconscious two depths, the personal (the shallows) and the collective (the depths).  While any one dream concerning Twitter might be encouraging an individual to step away from the activity (all addictions suck), there is clear evidence that many are fully committed to the use of these tools and that huge storehouses of libido have been freed up and released through these media.   My reading of the signs is this: the collective unconscious approves of the explosion of information, innovation and sharing unfolding each day through many digital streams.  The challenges inherent in this information flood are leading us into new paths of being.  The collective unconscious always likes that.