Digging Deeper

I first discovered Austin Kleon a few years ago, through Steal Like An Artist, his book of nuggets which provide strategies and tips to build a more creative life. I found it really helpful, and it helped me to focus my energies on my creative goals, releasing a bit of the grip I have on the baggage I carry around with me.

In reading his follow-book Show Your Work, which focuses on getting your message out to an audience, I stumbled upon a passage I thought I'd share. As someone who just finished putting together a show, and is worrying that maybe that's as good as it's going to get and I've mined my best material, I found it really encouraging. Hopefully you will too.

"The Comedian Louis C.K. worked on the same hour of material for 15 years, until he found out that his hero, George Carlin, threw out his material every year and started from scratch. C.K. was scared to try it, but once he did, it set him free. 'When you're done telling jokes about airplanes and dogs, and you throw those away, what do you have left? You can only dig deeper. You start talking about your feelings and who you are. And then you do those jokes and they're gone. You gotta dig deeper.' When you get rid of old material, you push yourself further and come up with something better. When you throw out old work, what you're really doing is making room for new work."

Cosplay is Art!

I consider myself pretty brave. It does, after all, take some chutzpah (L'Shana Tova, everyone!) to keep on writing whether anyone is reading or not, and to parade around in vintage ladies clothing... and yet, nothing can turn on the nerves for me, like the mere thought of "Cosplay".

Through Cosplay, you are crafting a costume all on your own, baring your soul and often your body, and proclaiming an admiration for another piece of pop culture/art.  More than that, you are stating that you share enough in common with what you admire to embody it before others.  It's art, pure and simple, and like all art it is expressive, freeing, and a joy to behold.

Here are some amazing cosplayers from my recent trip to FLAMECON, the LGBTQ Comic Convention...

 The above were my favorites from the con, and while I'll admit, there aren't many photos, I vow to get more on my trip to NY ComicCon on October 5th.

Pave Paradise...

Sunday began my first exploration of New York's LGBTQ history with the assistance of the previously mentioned Stepping Out. I have to say I really enjoyed the journey, and learned so much.  History, is in it's best sense collection of true stories, things of import that affected our present times, often in ways we couldn't have conceived of at the time. Sunday I walked a good portion of the East Village and earned about Emma Goldman, Frank O'Hara, and about Andy Warhol.  I visited the former location of the Lafayette Bathhouse, which operated in the early 1900's through the thirties, and which was at one point owned y the Gershwin family (mother and father to George and Ira).  I also stopped at Webster Hall, which ad been home to some lush and rather infamous drag balls back during the Roaring Twenties, and I learned about one of the most notorious gay brothels back in the 1890s, Columbus Hall. I wish I had masses of pictures to share, but, with as changing as the city is, most of these locations are paved over, were demolished and built anew, or are skeletons of their former glory (Webster Hall just recently was sold, and on August 5th ceased to be a night club in order to prepare for "demo, reno and transition to corporate ownership under Barclays/AEG/Bowery Presents", and while I thought it was protect, as an historical city landmark, that appears not to be the case).

Yes. I understand. New York is a beast.  Constantly changing, growing, transforming. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the importance of knowing and celebrating our story, the both story of the city and of our peoples, both straight and gay, in-between and beyond. Knowing these things happened, and imagining how things might have been, gave me some appreciation for how they might be right now, for the history that is being created as we speak.  Because, even though we may think the resent to be relatively stagnant, or that oppression keeps us fro changing and growing, we now because of history, that this is not so.  One need only to look to "prohibition" and remember how much drinking took place at a time when alcohol was illegal.

And even though most of the time on Sunday it felt like I was moving from geographical point to geographical point with very little to mark the pas that made the location famous, it did feel good to stand where those things happened, and to move from space to space, and realize how much life and how many dreams and hopes were packed into every block.

Stepping Out and Back to The Past

Today's planned visit to Flushing Meadows Park has been postponed, as the U.S. Open is just a few hundred feet away from the museum, which means that not only is one of the major reasons for the journey closed, but the park will be a madhouse for today's final match of the tournament.  Instead I'm going to take book I picked up online a while ago, and be a tourist in my own city, exploring some of the historic LGBT spots in the East Village.  How do I plan to do that you may ask?  Why, with Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past, of course. I found this on the bookshelf of someone I had a couple of dates with, and ended up purchasing it. I have barely opened the book in the six months I've had it, but often think about using it to walk the city, and today is the day to put it to good use!

I will report back, but in the meantime, I leave you with this little film about the 1939 World's Fair, which also took place at Flushing Meados Park, and which has the the catchy title The Middleton Family At the New York World's Fair. Yes, it is hopelessly cornball, very dated in its mindset, and blatant in its motives, but I also find it rather charming at moments. And if that Jim Treadwell isn't a dream walking, I don't know what is!

Recommended: Make Art Make Money

Art fuels more art. The simple act of getting my ass down to the seat tends to do more for my creativity than nearly anything.  And yet, sometimes just moving those few feet to the desk or the coffee shop can seem easier to put off for just "a few minutes".  So I always try to supplement my off times, my idle moments, with books about art, or artists, and ways to cope with the challenges of creativity.  

The book I am loving right now is Make Art Make Money: Lessons From Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens.  

It explores the successful ways that Jim Henson was able marry art and commerce, much of which involved the "art as gift" philosophy.  The basic idea behind it is that art, by its very nature is a gift.  And yet, those creating that gift need to be able to support themselves in order to continue creating.  It's a basic truth, that for the creator, most of the financial gains from that art go right back into making more. And more often than not, the one who creates will put more effort, more time, and more money into it than is "wise" in a business sense of the word. Henson both epitomizes this, and made peace with this. He was able to keep the message of his work pure even though he was commodifying and selling likenesses of his characters.  The work never became about making money. The money was always to make more and better art.  Without The Muppet Show you could never have had The Muppet Movie, without which you could never have had The Dark Crystal, without which you could never have had The Story Teller, and so on.  This is true not just on a financial level, one funding the next, but on a creative level.  The artistic achievements and new understandings reached in one project made the next one possible.

One of the passages that I found particularly inspiring discusses Henson's 1972 television special The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, in which four mistreated animals escape their miserable masters to seek a new life. Hyde Stevens uses this work to parallel the creative struggles Henson was going through.

     Chased from his home, Leroy [the donkey] finds himself alone in the world, pulling junk that                

     "ain't worth nothin". He doesn't seem very lucky at all. But he can be. 

     Enter the frog. 

     Leroy laments his condition to Kermit, who happens to be sitting on a fence. "I'm on the road

     to nowhere," he says. "I gave ol' Mordecai eighteen years of hard work, and what do I have to 

     show for it?"

     Kermit points at the wagon.

     "It's mighty hard pullin'." The wagon, he thinks, is nothing but a burden.

     Kermit tells him he also has a tuba.

     "You mean this big kinda twisty funnel thing? I don't even know what it's fer!"

Kermit shows the donkey how to change his perception of his lot in life, that the things he views as a burden can actually be a salvation. The same can be said for every artist. We spend out lives trying to hide our injuries and imperfections and show only what we have decided is worthy. Doing this is like "a dancer, dancing with one hand behind her back" as my former acting teacher used to say.  Sharing the wounds artfully, allows intimacy between artist and viewer, and opens up a whole new pathway to explore, one that's likely to be very fertile territory because it is at the heart of what we are most passionate about.

Hyde Stevens continues:

     Henson's shoestring budget resulted in Kermit being fashioned out of the fabric from his

     mother's old coat, and that intern spawned the look of a thousand Muppets. His work in

     commercials [something Henson had very ambivalent feelings about] led both to a healthy

     workshop budget and eventually to Sesame Street, who's producers were trying to use the power    

     of commercials to teach. It couldn't be predicted from the outset, but each part led to the next part,  

     and eventually it added up to staggering success when Henson started to see the shape it might

     take.

     Henson may not have chosen his career up until 1958, but he was able to turn burdens into

     strengths. "Take what you got and fly with it," Henson said. Most of us simple don't know what 

     we've got.

Make Art Make Money: Lessons From Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career began as a series of essays published in , and these were later expanded to become a full exploration of Henson's work, and lessons from that way of working that we can use today.  It's available from Amazon.com, and is a steal at $9.19

         

     

                        

Course Correction

Have I failed the challenge?  That quickly?  Watch me backpedal and say that I only said I would do 31 posts in the next days until September was over, and so I haven't exactly failed, and can get back on course with a quick correction. Do you buy that?  Can we continue? Good.

I'v been dog sitting for the past week for a couple of dear friends of mine, and their apartment is full of whimsy and wonder.  I'd intended for it to be a place to really bucks down and create, and yet, I encountered all of the same demons here that I would have encountered at home.  The good thing is that I HAVE been more creative here than I think I would have at my own apartment, just not as creative as I imagined, and if we can assume there is always going to be, at least, a small gap between the imagined ideal and the imperfect reality, than I can be happy about what I achieved.  What was that, you ask?   The beginning of a painting (my first since seventh grade) a couple of blog posts, and some notes on a future Cathy Dresden show.

I've also been thinking about a piece of fiction, something I've had percolating for a while and that I may want to work on during Nanowrimo. I have yet to finish the piece I started last year, and interestingly enough i am right down to the finish line folks. The problem is it's a mystery, and the ending I had been plotting seems a little less than spectacular, and the part of me that had said to myself "mysteries are never really about the 'dun' in 'whodunnit', but the who".  I'd convinced myself it was enough to have a great idea, fun characters, and a couple of pre-planned twists. But now I am doubting those twists.  And while it has yet to be a year since I started the project, and in that time I have managed to write nearly 100,000 words, the little whisperings of doubt tend to find their way to my ears no matter what. Hopefully though, it has been long enough since I wrote last that I have given myself a little space from the attachment of perfection, and I can realize the truth that done and imperfect is better that potentially perfect and never finished.

The World's Fair of 1964-65, Pt. 1

I've been hearing about Flushing Meadows-Corona Park ever since I moved to Astoria, and while I'd always intended to visit it, I have yet to do so. Part of the reason being the distance. Believe it or not, it is 45 minutes by train, and the "not knowing" what was out there that might make the trip worthwhile, was enough to hinder me.  But after doing some research this afternoon, I have a much greater understanding of what those things are, and I'm hoping to make the trip next weekend.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was the site of two World's Fairs, and is the current home of the Queens Museum.  But, while I had known that the unisphere (that giant globe that is probably the most recognizable monument from the fair) still existed, I didn't know what else was still remaining.  It turns out?  A lot.  Now, "a lot" is relative.  Fair sites and most buildings on them are never intended to be permanent, so the fact that a handful of  icons still remain is pretty great.  The previously mentioned Unisphere is there...

The Unisphere as pictured in August of 1964

as are a number of statues, a carousel, a theatre, the building which now houses the Queens Museum (that site was created for the 1939 fair) and The New York Pavilion is still there as well.  

That building has a pretty fascinating history. It was designed by the famed architect Phillip Johnson, made out of steel and concrete, and it was determined after the fair was over that it should remain.  And yet, no one was ever able to decide what to do with it, and so this Atomic Age vision of the future that featured a kaleidoscopic ceiling, a floor that depicted a giant map of New York, and two observation towers that loomed above,  was left to deteriorate.

It's sad to think about something that symbolized hope and promise for the future has been corroding and decaying, with very little use.  The building poses quite a challenge, as tearing it down would be extremely expensive, as would finding a new use for it and restoring it to current safety standards and making it shine again.  Now that I've learned about it from one of my favorite podcasts The Bowery Boys.  Their websitelhas a tremendous amount of photos and information, and you can listen to their podcast, the second half of which was recorded in Queens Theater in the park, here. A large portion of the show was devoted to interviewing Matthew Silva, a devoted fan of the site who co-founded People For The Pavillon alongside Salmaan Khan and Christian Doran. Because of this organization, and others who love this unique site, there is hope that it may be repurposed, much as was done for the Highline, which was once considered an eyesore, and is now one of the city;s prime tourist spots.  Matthew also made a documentary about the Pavillon, called Modern Ruin, and while I'm not certain where it can be seen in its entirety, you CAN view the trailer.

I also found this really well crafted short film on youtube which shows comparison footage from the fairgrounds then and now, and touches a bit on the Disney contributions to the fair that year, which included The Carousel of Progress, Great Moments With Mister Lincoln, and the attraction that was initially sponsored by Pepsi as a tribute to UNICEF, It's A Small World. 

Rest assured that I will post photos from what I discover at the park next week...

The Jim Henson Exhibit At MOMI

We all have artists of our "age". People who were working at the right time to find our eyes, to meet our minds and shape us.  For me, Jim Henson came at that time.  Now, admittedly, it's a wide swath of time.  He began working in the fifties and continued into the very late eighties, and it's complicated by the fact that while he worked in a medium that is considered "kid's stuff", he never considered himself an artist for children alone, so his work was AND wasn't meant for me.  And yet, I saw Sesame Street in its earlier years, when it was a huge success, but not yet the monument it would become.  I saw The Muppet Show when it first aired, and my family was in line with a lot of other family members on the opening weekend of The Muppet Movie (we barely made it in as the line wrapped around the theatre).  I watched Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas whenever I could catch it on HBO, and The Dark Crystal several times at the theaters.  There was a theatre called the Village IV that played it, and they also had someone come and paint their windows with scenes of some of the more fantastical films.  I watched all the Henson films, made sure I was home to watch The Story Teller and The Jim Henson Hour.  He is, to encapsulate it, the artist for my generation.  His was a message of unification, of love, and of changing the world for the better one person at a time.  He made fun of people, yes, of our foibles and follies, but always from the perspective of one who experienced those follies and foibles first hand.

It's a message, and an aesthetic, and a sensibility (this nostalgic, vaudevillian sentimentality mixed with an earnest need to comfort and enlist the dreamers of the world in his mission) that had a strong impact on me.  And yet, I had never seen an exhibition of his before.  I had been in Austin and missed the Sesame Street exhibit at the Lincoln Center, missed the first exhibit that came through the MOMI, and not been to Atlanta to the permanent exhibit. So I was really looking forward to the new permanent exhibit at the Museum Of the Moving Image, which was years in its arrival.  But then when it came? I didn't rush there. I didn't want to be annoyed with people, irritated by them and their inane comments about the work, annoyed by the crowds.  It would have felt opposed to the intent of the exhibit, and poisoned my first glimpse. It was a sacred experience, the first visit, and had to be well timed, ad well planned.  I waited more than a month, and then, last Sunday as the doors opened for the day, I headed in.  

I don't want to spoil the experience with mountains of pictures, as people coming to the museum should be able to feel they are taking a journey that no one  else has, but I do want to tease it, and share.  

I would recommend that anyone coming read about Jim Henson before you arrive, because this collection does a wonderful job of cementing the story of his life and work, and of highlighting the experiences of the companions and fellow visionaries that joined him on his path. You'll see the harness that Carrol Spinney wore to perform Big Bird, you'll see Fran Brill's "elevator" boots that raised her up to an equivalent height of the men she performed with, and you'll see script revisions by Jerry Juhl, muppets performed by Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz and Frank Oz, designed and built by Bonnie Erickson, and by Don Sahlin.  You'll see renderings by Brian Froud, and you'll get glimpses of the impact Jane Henson had on Henson's life and art (although her impact is so ingrained and ethereal, its difficult to physicalize). Speaking of Jane, thinking back on the exhibit she is a very quiet but constant presence, especially in the early work represented. As the exhibit grows, I would love to see temporary exhibits share the space, and a closer examination of Jane Henson and her work and influence is well-deserved.

 In a way, visiting the Henson Exhibit was like visiting New York City for the first time.  I saw a world I had loved as long as I can remember, that I had always read about, watched, that had permeated my psyche, and yet, prior to seeing the physicality of it, it didn't feel truly "real" to me.  Graspable.  This exhibit allows people to get up close and see that these people and animals existed in more than two dimensions, and at the center of their artistic mission and purpose was a creator, a performer, a dreamer, a business man and a leader.  Someone who may not have been comfortable in all of the roles, but who stepped into them to help make his world a reality, one that we could all share.

Live Like Dragons

I snapped this picture three years ago, as I was so taken with the words, found scrawled on the door of a parking lot in Downtown Austin.  The site used to connect with The Dobie Mall and Movie Theatre, a former art house treasure, which is now closed. Currently, it is the easiest way to park and walk to the Harry Ransom Center.  I was returning from a long visit that day, as I'd recently discovered that you could visit and call up items from the archives and had immersed myself in some original drafts of L. Frank Baum's The Tin Woodsman of Oz, and The Magic Of Oz.


On my way back to the car I saw this quote, and was inspired.  I do not know where it is from, and a google search hasn't been very helpful.  Of course at the time, I didn't look closely enough through my lens to realize how blurry the photo was, so I unfortunately have nothing clearer, and cannot read the smudge of pink in the corner that may be a persons name.  If anyone lives near the Dobie on the U.T. campus and wants to send me a better photo, I would be forever grateful.  Or if anyone knows more about the stanza?

And maybe it's better not to know where its source. If it turns out to be an incredibly famous piece of literature, then it's context and meaning may change, destroying what I was touched by in the first moments.  As long as the source remains a mystery, the quote is equally mysterious, and I can endow it with the provenance I want it to have in order to raise it's potency to me.

I have thought about the quote a lot, wondered about its meaning. After reexamination it seems a lot more seditious than what I'd initially imagined.  It doesn't just say be free, ,it says take your freedom even if it means robbing others, and I while I'd always figured that the Kings had probably been tyrants and enslavers and deserved whatever was coming to them, did the angels deserve the same treatment?.  And is it worth their unwilling sacrifice so that we may thrive? I guess, I have to say my answer is a qualified "yes", at lest initially, or I wouldn't have felt that unexpected stomach flutter the first time I read it, that little ping like riding an elevator down, or speeding down hilly roads.  But that was when the angels remained metaphorical.  In reality? I want to fly, to soar, like everyone else.  But I'd like to think its possible to to do grow my own wings, and to defy my Kings without robbing the innocent. Or, barring that, to borrow the wings and to fly with the angel's assistance and approval.  Otherwise, I don't know that I could really enjoy the flight.