Alex Katz

The Smile

ASPECT

Joie de Vivre ...Volume 5

The Smile

Toni Latour

I often wonder why smile buttons are still so popular. They are. Recently, I went on line to look for a nice
friend....greensingles. If you do see a nice friend based on the
websites profiles of likely candidates you send a smile greeting.

For my birthday, my good artist friend gave me
a smile button made of brass.

When I studied sign language and befriended
the people in the deaf community, the persistant phrase about
complaining was and still is ...”Keep Smile”. In other words,
do not get down in the mouth.

Toni Latour seems to say....Smile. Well, it
looks that way at first....she is energizing the vemeer of a pleasant
greeting...a bright outlook on life...Nothing is wrong. Best foot
forward, the world is radiating happiness, positives. All is ready
to see only beauty, happiness....

The smile persists...no cracking, no breaking,
no changing expressions...almost a plastic caste of someone. A
false face. Nothing can be that placid and the same...Where are
the clouds? Where are the mean places, the strong storms of emotions? No, it is the Ipana toothpaste smile. And it keeps on....
No break from a commercial Clean Bright Barbie Doll crested
expression.

And the beat keeps on....a few flutters of the
eyes, only some ripples on this perfect surface...like wonderbread
.....perfectly white and bright. We are transported to the advertisers paradise.

Finally, gloom overtakes , the winsome bright
toothpaste ad smile collapses into a frown...no, it perks up for a
moment...Perhaps she is trying to please a good friend...but, it
loses and finally in a moment of hope ...but no, dashed to the
dark at the end. She only quivers towards the end, and still...who
was she smiling for? Commerce? I still believe it was Crest Tooth
paste or ipana. ....I’ll never know, but it seems she aimed to please
and persisted. Perhaps she won......

dafur concert in Brant Gallery, Massart 4/3/09

final project

The godine library hss films in the archives from charlie chaplin about the
great dictator.....
He pontificates on the perils of the machine

Great idea for the introduction to material on why technology hurts...

I found Poetry in Motion ...on Poetryfoundation.com...

great concept to express issues through animated collages of poems...

Casper Hauser is a play on one of my literary friends blogs...
that is really the opposite of my purpose....He is the recluse who is
hiding in total seclusion and never gets found ...closeted and hidden.

The I photo is truly great..you can make a slide show, music
included...you can whirl the photos, you can blend the photos...great
except .....it does not work in any other site except at home...
a project for your mother only.
very challenging to get the message across.

The ideas of poems that assemble from scattered states into a perfect
formation...Soupcon...except this student can only read and admire
the beautitudes of smooth slick and swift running technocracy.

i have these great notions...have to sketch them in as my virtual
second life day dreams ...like the fantastic world of walter mitty.

Well, on the other hand...part of the ideas get rendered.....

Stones on the Fenway

Stones Found Along The Emerald Necklace in The Fenway


I am caught between a rock and a hard place

Anyone who thinks there is a safe haven
On Earth is only chasing the wind!

If we escape into the shadows to kiss
we avoid the exploding orchids
The Machines...

Washing Machine

If we are insubordinate to the great machine
We will be Shut Out of Luck

Co-mingle ... like mung beans...

Question Authority

Do Not Accept No For An Answer

Either ....Or

The Walls Have Ears

My Ears Have Walls

I Just Joined the Party for Reconciliation and
Consensus

They believe in clustered housing and self
government

Overheard while uplifting a stone....

When women are in control they defile


the order of things

I told those workers by the emerald necklace

No...It is the men who are blowing us all away!!!

Anyone who thinks that the men are making
a safe haven on this earth
is Chasing The Wind!

The best answer is bake a pie and serve
chicken soup.....

If I eat all of the soup before you come home
Don't blame me...Blame my Teeth!!!!

As I keep on walking along the river it begins to cheer up

Now the stones say...Peace, Buttercups, Seagulls,

Clover, and at the very end of the project...Flowers....

Brien Knep

The work that Brien Knep is sharing with our class in New Media is very helpful and
reassuring to learn about...I was at Woodshole this summer and saw many of the
similar materials in frog research on display in the glass encased exhibits
...the work at woodshole was research on the cleanliness of the sea...the fish and
marine life are tested for the pollutants that might be present in their systems.

The path of the frog and its parallel to the survival of the life of a human is
interesting....it is refreshingly different from the boxes of animals taught to
travel in maizes for their food...

So are the worms on a plate...and the study of worms is known to me through researchers
at Harvard who studied the protein gene and the work of composters who breed worms
in order to fertilize compost ....the work of the worms on the plate has a humorous
side to it....I once studied impressionist painting and heard my strict european teacher
disliking modern art...and described it as worms dipped in paint then allowed to
squiqqle on a canvas...just a thought.

But the biological work is reassuring...it is helping energy to grow in the right
direction ..that was my overall general conclusion.

The Shepherd Fairey Exhibit at the ICA

You Must Obey

That seems to be the writing on the wall of the exhibit.

The recall.....
George Orwell, Big Brother is Watching You.

But, Obama is good......

Obey....Make Art Not War...sounds teutonic.
I make art as a pleasing activity to do....Obey ....Make Art Not War

But Obama is changing the face of our nation to work...
Well, after walking around in this exhibit ...and seeing what was a radical
underground, hard to access event of radical expressions through art...I said...
Well, Obama is good...and those intricate Byzantine patterns in the background
of all of his posters seem to say....Face it! The world changed
Well...the Islamic Art and the People with Burkas on look o.k. I am not afraid

Well...I 'll Obey....
Work is better than war...I don't mind work...
But Gee....Make Art not War on command...gee....
ma...couldn't I just make art voluntarily?

The Yes Men

I am a n alumnus of Columbia University...the stomping ground where the yes men gained
their degree and became who they are and what they do...
I did not get too mad at Columbia at the time of attending it in the late 60s...
so, they had a revolution and the violence ofthe world systems is on campus...so,
others had revolutions back then. So, the school is still there...
So, I got in on open enrollment and witnessed the struggle of the minority african
americans over housing on morningside heights, so.
So, some time passes by ....and over some passing of that quality called time...
many alumni, open enrolled in the school or other enrollments in the school of general
studies..back then...or the university of columbia....
Many became Yesmen...kind of a despair...so, as a survival skill you become
a patron to the unjust ....and the sarcasm becomes a love hate relationship with
the establishment...
So,
Even Mark Morris the choreographer of modern dance looks at the world ...the war...
IT IS TOO BEAUTIFUL
he said.

Brien Knep

Brien Knep
New Media Artist

Questions About: Healing Pools and Artificial Intelligence ... Is there any part of these installations that have to do with
restorative healing ..they seem to talk about layering, scabs that grow over wounds and then heal.

Artificial intelligence has the implication of implanting an artificial sector to a wounded intelligence.

The pool of healing seems as if it is tactile but has only glass and hard surfaces...how is this in step with sensory motor
stimulations that are soft and healing...smell, touch that is soft, sounds.

Review of Brien Knep: It seems as if his work is breaking into communicating a message to the traditional world that
brain damage is able to be healed. Labels that were formally reviled as uncurable are displayed in his new media as
openly curable. He seems to be addressing current issues that are important to the field of healing arts, especially
soldiers who have PTST .
My favorite work of art of Brien Kneps are the frogs and the little folk floating...as if the folk floating are small molecules
and parameceum (sp?). He seems to reach his audience...and others that might be aesthetically interested in his work.

Shai Zakai

Shai Zakai
Eco Artist
Born in 1957
Lives in Tel Aviv
Photographer and Sculptress

I found Shai Zakai on Absolutearts.com, an Artists website. Because I had visited Israel in 1992 , the name and
subject interested me ...I found her photography to be very stimulating and present...and because I used to
work in environmental science in New York it particularly was of interest to read on about her work with
cleaning up Concrete Creek...of her expeditions with groups of people in friendly projects, mainly concerning
cleaning up the environment. The usual concept of Israeli land and turf is dry and dessert...but her photographs
show up as deep rich green forested land. The Creek is full of the industries waste from the factories, Concrete.
It prevents the water from flowing and the water contains its pollutants.
her workshops walk among the debris and the long walks end with a supper served on leaves...part of Eco Art.
She has created the creek in fabric...great puffs of cotton are the rocks surrounding a silk river or creek.
She transformed the concrete foundin the creek into concrete flags .
The eco art re arranges how to see the issue of our waste. The talks and walks address the conflict in not
just their land but in the many lands that Shai Zakai has worked with..Korea, India...
Somehow, talking in the forest in a group of many different backgrounds, Arabs with Jews, Palestinians with
Israelis...somehow it might end in a peace ...not just a supper on leaves.

Portrait of Shai Zakai is under Google, her name, CD. Her website includes the many projects and credits .

second life

I used to have strong beliefs in a previous life, a bridey murphey, the world of antiquity spiritually speaking through the
present life . And, I used to read a lot of science fiction, about a future world (s) a future life. Then I read about re birthing,
life after death. The chinese nation even provides fake money for the travellers of life after death. So, Second life reminded
me of these experiences and readings along the way. Well, then I remembered the idea of living and the actual living a life.
And then I remembered I have a hassle about that. So, although I like the concept...and I tuned into the web site and even
downloaded it. Talked about it with a neighbor, artist. The conclusion I drew is that it is cultivating gardens above my
head.
Not that a garden in the sky is so evil. Nor is it evil to trade with theoretical , virtual life. I like the peace behind being
theory only...ketchup only...no real blood. But, am stuck...why would the Linden money work? Is this a comic book
stock market event? Will work on it and add further when the secret thread of avarace within feels less threatened.

Introduction to Critical Thinking by Steven Shafersman

Steven Shafersman alerts his reader the the necessity of being awake and cognitive to academic thinking. It is not written in
erudite academic language that reprimands the reader to Pay Attention! Weed Out this Information! Do not Parrot Back!
Instead the tone of the article is conversant and advisory as to how to give the right signals so that young middle school
and high school students might use reasoning and creative thought to their information as they take read it and process it.
Critical thinking is not, the article seems to say, argumentative thinking, nor defiant but rather it is the senses as we read
and do homework (even in as factual a subject as math) keen upon creative solutions. The authority that wrote an essay
on a scientific topic might be questioned. The math problem could have a view that is not so traditional.
From experience of learning a hard subject, math in elementary school with green and red wooden beads laced onto a
cardboard in horizontal lines....units, tens, one hundreds to the new approach to math where groups of numbers and
combinations are visualized through blocks, I found the essay worth thinking about....critical thinking might not be about
we want to see creativity...nor is it about we need a unique answer...it really is about not becoming a subject to information
that appears on the page of homework or the article written in the magazine.
I disagree...is really a positive response. My thought about this is....veer away from a parroted, recited response...
Word your homework questions with a slant towards the invented or original response.