Art crit

My philosophy of the art crit.  

1. Each student is a human being before they are an artist.

2. The possibility in the work is more important than the work itself. Talk about that.

3. Each student has a voice and must be strongly encouraged to use it.

4. The decisions that led to the work are just as important as the work itself.

5. A student should stand in front of their work when it’s discussed.

6. The crit is about the student, not the instructor.

7. The student should be able to identify the criteria they want used to discuss the work.

Other men

 OK. I’ll admit it. I love men. I’m hetero, but there are men in my life that are solid friends and decent people, who care about me and challenge me and who make my life richer. I love them.

Our culture has such a confused and distorted notion of love. We can love our sports franchises, love our new shoes, love our favorite TV shows, but we can’t love other men. 

Love is expansive and encompassing, and the more we live it, the better society will be.

So, yes, I love men.

Decent

 Is it possible to find a reliable way to build a child into a decent human being?

Are we willing to do the work necessary to achieve this?

Pay for athletes

 Our culture idolizes professional and college sports teams and the athletes who play on them. The Ohio Legislature will likely pass a bill allowing college athletes to be paid for use of their images and names.

Three points:

1. These are team sports. All the star athletes are able to do what that they do because of the team and all of its members. How would the rest of the team like to see only one or two star athletes cash in? What would that do for team spirit?

2. If athletes are compensated in this way, what about the medical care, clothing, food, scholarships and any other perks that they receive at no cost? And all the free PR that gets them notoriety?

3. College performers—singers, dancers, actors, musicians—have notoriety and find their names and images on posters, boards and publications. Their work is filmed and accessible to the public in performances. Should they be equally compensated?

This legislation is one more example of our narrow obsession with sports, especially in relation to the arts.

Men

 What does it mean to be a man? Thinking men have asked this question since the beginning of human civilization. The answers have been personal, cultural and representative of their times, even if not always of high character.

In modern times, the feminist movement brought this question to the fore again. There were drumming circles, men’s groups, stadium revivals and more. Men could be stay-at-home dads, acceptably earn less than their wives, do housework—though not so many did.

The AIDS epidemic and the sex scandals in the Catholic Church added new dimensions to the question. The persistent claims of sexual harassment by men in power did the same. How could men be so different? How could they fail in so many ways?

Most recently, same sex marriage, same  sex parents and the new understandings of the gender spectrum, transgender issues, gender fluidity and other ideas about gender and sexuality have made the question of “manliness” even more complicated.

The modern world makes one single answer to the question impossible, even as it calls past notions of manhood into question. Some answers are certainly toxic, some are glorious. The answer is for each man to discover in his lived life. But each answer, to be a socially and personally healthy one, must come out of thoughtful consideration, mature love and a commitment to do no harm.

Cicada zoom

 Overheard at a cicada zoom meeting

C1: After 17 years it feels great flying around in the breeze.

C2: You’re lucky, man. I was flying and I was really horny, and some little girl grabs me and puts me in a jar.

C3: We don’t learn to swim in the ground. So I fall into this damn birdbath and I’m swimming for my life.

C4: That’s nothing, bro. I was crawling up a kitchen window and I looked in and saw Jack and his whole family being fried up in a pan.

C5: My girlfriend and I were about to make it happen when we got stepped on. Ouch, bent my wings.

C6: Guys, I got you all beat. I emerge after 17 years, feel the freedom, and my ass falls off.

cicada orgasm

 I stepped out my door into the roar of a million cicada orgasms. I thought to myself: once every 17 years, they deserve a good noisy one. How would you feel if you got one of life’s great pleasures only once every 17 years? And you crawled out with a fungus that made your butt fall off?

We homo sapiens, feeling very superior, think of the cicada phenomenon as strange and even entertaining. But as the cicadas come out in each cycle they see us in a world war or massacring one another across the globe. 

Can you blame them for wanting to just crawl back into the ground. We’d probably be a better species if we all got together regularly for one big noisy orgasm.

Are you up for it?

God(ess)

 The God(ess) of Art assigns a bit of the world to each serious artist to see it, understand it, love it and give it back to the world. Who knows how this happens? It just does.

The God(ess) of Art makes this work hard and relentless work. What would be achieved from something that was easy and without failure and struggle?

The God(ess) of Art makes this work financially unrewarding. That way the work does not become a commodity and the art will make the artist.

The God(ess) of Art makes art satisfying through the gift of creativity.

New funeral options

 New funeral options

THE THONG FUNERAL: So you spent your whole life crafting a beautiful body. Why  cover it up duringthe open casket viewing? Dressed in a tasteful thong of your choosing, you can be seen at your best and celebrate your body achievement.

THE SPORTS FUNERAL: You loved sports. You loved celebrity sneakers. You were a Nike fanatic. Once you are cremated, your cremains will be placed in your favorite pair of sneakers, which will then be plastic coated for permanence.

THE BIG EGO FUNERAL: During your life you needed to let everyone know how important and how wealthy you were. Now you can choose a specially made casket completely covered in $100 bills. Let the mourners know what you stood for, even at the very end. Make that last statement of wealth.

THE TATTOO FUNERAL: Your entire life you invested in decorating your skin with rich tattoo imagery. You couldn’t stop until death stopped you. Let your mourners finally see the full picture. You will be skinned, your skin will be tanned and turned into a beautiful cloth to cover your casket.

THE HOME FURNISHING FUNERAL: As you prepare to move into a senior living setting, you wonder what to do with all your extra furniture. This funeral option turns your that furniture into your coffin. Our expert carpenters help you be at home in your home for eternity.

THE OSCARS FUNERAL: Rent the glamorous outfits worn by your favorite movie stars. Be dressed up in them in the open casket. Look like the striking figure you always dreamed you could be.

History

 We turn to history to enlighten us, but we don’t always listen to the advice. 

What we really need to solve our problems is right under our noses. It has always been. 

What we must work toward is a deep understanding of what it means to be human and the courage to make the necessary sacrifices that come with this realization.

Evil

 So what do we do about evil? Evil is not an absolute thing. Think of the slave owners, the Nazis, the royals who abused their subjects, the greedy capitalists. They didn’t think they were evil.

What saves us from evil? Is it beauty? Many makers of beauty have been cads and scoundrels. Did beauty save them?

What about God? Can we even count the evils and offenses perpetrated in the name of God?  God understands evil, because God offers forgiveness.

Maybe love? Love is powerful against evil, but love takes courage and commitment or it’s a sham.

Evil is here to stay. Evil is in all of us. So each of us must search for the thing that will keep us straight.

Sweep you up

 Have you ever felt the fullness of your humanity pour over you, sweep you up in it? And listened to it speak its possibilities?

I hope so.

When

 When you give yourself passionately to something, that’s when you get yourself back.

Weapons

 When the media report on the conflicts that trouble the world, they necessarily talk about the destruction, death and motives of the opponents. But what we never hear about is where all the arms come from.

Arms are expensive, so who pays for them?

How can the smallest terrorist groups afford and acquire these arms?

Are American taxpayers paying for the arms that kill and destroy in these conflicts?

Who are the arms makers and dealers?

What are the profits they make?

What is the extent of their international influence?

Is there as much money being poured into the efforts of peace as into the efforts of war?

God

 I don’t know if there is a God or not. I can only speak to the God in me. Still it confounds me that billions of people claim to believe in God and yet the world looks like it looks.

What if we ask ourselves what God thinks the world should look like and try to make that happen.

New careers

 New career openings

Host of Jeopardy

Sex whisperer

Pastor of the Evangelical Church of God in Jesus Christ Our Dad and Buddy

Toddler influencer

Online dating surrogate

Home doggie wardrobe consultant

JokeDash delivery person

Doggie spa swim instructor

Personal self esteem trainer

Shoe addiction therapist

Experienced blue jean knee extractor

Republican fact checker

Greeting card poet

Disappointed

 I know I’ve disappointed you, so

if I’m not beautiful, pardon me

if I don’t have a chiseled torso, pardon me

if I dress in an unremarkable way, pardon me

if I make you think, pardon me

if I use multi-syllable words when I talk, pardon me

if I tell you the truth, pardon me

if I expect you to be responsible, pardon me

if I’m not wowed by your bling, pardon me

if my values step on your values, pardon me

I’ll try to do better

Love

 To commit to love is always a risk. But how else do we become fully human?

Conflicts

 The Israelis and Palestinians are on the verge of war again, the Palestinians with stones and rockets, the Israelis with tanks and missiles. The war goes from the skies to the streets and from the army to the local citizenry.

The news coverage will be extensive, detailing all that is going down. But all they really need to say is “Here we go again.”

This may seem cynical, but this conflict has flared up over and over again over decades. What really changes? Who persists with arguments for peace and with realistic assessments of the sacrifices to get there? Who has the courage to take real steps toward peace? After the billions and of billions of dollars poured into the Middle East (much of it for weapons) is anything really different?

In truth “Here we go again” could be the mantra for racial conflicts, Protestant/Catholic conflicts, Christian/Moslem conflicts, Shia/Sunni conflicts or any of the other battles that stain the human community.

We like to find heroes and villains in these conflicts when these conflicts are measures of our failure as human beings.

Bleak assessment

 So this is the world we made as humans, built with great consistency over time.

1. Every country has a Satan country.

2. When war is needed, the elders always have young fodder ready

3. Men and women are always in a love/hate relationship

4. God selects some groups of humans over others, allowing them to kill the non-chosen

5. Power is desirable because it brings wealth and immunity from the law

6. Love works as romance and beyond that it’s just too hard

7. We can’t escape sex

8. We crucify the truth tellers

9. We don’t realize how easy it is for us to become sheep

10. The rich will use the poor

Yes, this is a bleak assessment, but it is what the believers in justice and equality must face.

Creativity

 

Sacred

 Though the problems of injustice, racism and violence are always with us, events and the news coverage that results bring one or another of them to the front. We give attention to that problem until a new one emerges in the news. Then off we go to attack that one. It’s really a game of whack-a-mole with social problems.

What if we put our energy into convincing folks that everything is sacred and that authentic love is the agent of transformation? Society can convince us to consume beyond our needs, to embrace vanity, to be comfortable with debt, to desire and to follow celebrities like sheep. Why can’t we be convinced to see the sacred and love fully as the basis for solving our social problems?

 

Self help

 New self help books

Chicken Soup for the Pathetic Loser

When Radiant Skin Is Not Enough

Dealing with the Grief of Toenail Fungus

Safe Sex and Virtual Dating

Five Steps to Assertive Underarms

Puberty Rocks

The Ten Top Dangers of Cellulite

Confessions of a Botox Addict

Being Nice Sucks

The Silicone Body You Deserve

Mother's Day

 Everyone has a mother

Life given from no other

We all need mothering

If smothering a bit

It’s the day for thanks

For yanks on apron strings

Stringing us along in love

Way above anything

That we can bring to bear

That’s why we care

So Happy Mother’s Day

Hooray

Values

 Growing up, family and culture exposed me to a set of values: civility, personal responsibility, self reliance, compassion, loyalty, honesty, obedience, reverence, thriftiness and diligence. As a young adult (school, Boy Scouts, Catholicism), I tried on these values, and as I became a mature, educated person, I decided to keep and live by most of them.

It’s been discouraging to me to see, in this contemporary world, that most of these values have been turned on their heads. Each generation has to define itself in its values, live them out and live with the consequences. 

These days, the world seems more and more perplexing to me.

Week

 

Anthropology

 When I took Anthropology in college, I was taught that the human species was the only one that made tools, used language and mated for life. We now know none of these is true.

The Bible tells us that God gave man and woman domain over nature. We’ve dropped the ball on this one.

Darwin presented the idea of the “Survival of the Fittest.” Humans won’t last as long as the dinosaurs and won’t outlast the cockroach. For all of our glories, we may become an extinct species, taking many other species along with us.

It’s easy for realism to become pessimism and optimism to become delusion. What are the signs that anything is different?

National Day

 National Week

Sunday: National Bubble Bath with a Friend Day

Monday: National Wipe Out Hemorrhoids Day

Tuesday: National Pickle Recipe Day

Wednesday: National Take an Artist to Lunch Day

Thursday: National Brazilian Body Wax Day

Friday: National Annoy Your Sibling Day

Saturday: National Thong Day

Sex

 Maybe it’s always been this way in one form or another. Maybe we are starting to face some issues honestly that have been long in coming. The one I have been thinking about because of recent news—and thinking about with some trepidation and ambiguity—is sexual harassment.

Men have dominated and manipulated women sexually for eons. The male is a sexual animal programmed by evolution. But the male as human being must be sexually educated and responsible, even beyond any legal considerations. Men must have a clear understanding of the consequences of their sexual behavior.

We’ve chosen to live in a society sexually charged in its music, fashion, entertainment, pornography, marketing. It even reaches to, and begins, in middle school. The sexual messaging affects males and females alike as it is manifested in wardrobe, body sculpting, makeup, media choices and behavior. 

Throughout history, women have used sex as a path to power as a consequence of the overt power of men. Cultural messages for women reinforce feminine dress as revealing and even provocative. Conscious or not, in this culture, these can be erotic triggers for men in situations in which women may see no sexual impropriety.

This creates one more situation in which an appeal to law is unpredictable at best. The answer is found in education, honest discussion, responsible decision making and personal accountability.

Without

 I’m looking at the world around me, and I'm wondering how I got through my life 

without paying for sex

without cheating on my income taxes

without poisoning my lawn

without having an affair

without hating my siblings or parents

without ever paying interest on a credit card

without ever paying more than $30 for a piece of casual clothing

without getting into more than one fist fight

Netflix romance

 New Netflix romantic comedies

I Hate You ‘Til I Love You

Addicted to Two Day Beards

Adultery and Moonlight

My Bali Mid-life Crisis

His Six-pack Changed My Life

My Disaster Wedding

Sex, Breakfast, Love Everlasting

Lust on Horseback

Erogenous End Zones

First Husbands Never Work Out

My Girlfriend’s Sister’s Roommate

Another Zombie Wedding

Celebrity

 Recent news reports indicate that politicians who have views and behavior beyond social norms are the ones who collect donations at the highest levels. Entertainers who have flamboyant lifestyles and create spectacles on stage have large fan bases. We follow the lives and careers of premier athletes who slam dunk and dance in the end zone.

I believe this is because most of us aren’t willing to take the risk to expand ourselves into the fuller, richer people we could be. We use celebrities to fill the gaps in ourselves. The basis for celebrity is not necessarily any greater than what we could find in ourselves. 

Why aren’t the doctor, the scientist, the sanitation worker or the teacher worthy of celebrity? We need to believe more in our own celebrity than to just be entertained