A "Sweet Spot in Time"

Yesterday evening, a young girl's wish came true.

Emi said that someday she wanted to meet the subject of her biography report, American oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer Dr. Sylvia Earle.  Last night, she was in the audience to see a dance performance after spending the afternoon with her family in the Aquarium by the Bay.

Dr. Earle was a featured guest at last evening's performance of Okeanos Intimate. Along with fellow ocean scientist Tierne Thys, Dr. Earle collaborated with Capacitor's Artistic Director Jodi Lomask to create a truly beautiful "Love Letter to the Sea," a dance/cirque perfomance designed to inspire and educate audiences through this moving "portrait of the ocean as body, environment, resource, metaphor, and force."

Okeanos Intimate highlight reel from Jodi Lomask on Vimeo.

Dr. Earle and Ms. Lomask came on stage together after the show to answer questions from the audience after the performance.  As the Q&A session drew to a close, I heard a little voice came from the center of the house.

Emi had a question for Dr. Earle.

What will happen to the ocean in the future?

Dr. Earle's beautiful response was directed at one very special girl, but her words of wisdom and hope washed over us all — like a gentle wave of blue love.

What will happen to the ocean in the future depends a lot on what we do right now.   

I think that you have come along at exactly the right point in history, because we didn’t know when I was a little girl the things that we now know. We thought the ocean was infinite in its capacity to yield whatever we wanted to take out and to accept whatever we wanted to put in.  Now we know, you know, that there are limits to what we can take out, limits to what we can put in the ocean, and still have a planet that works in our favor.  So, lucky you. Lucky all of us.   

This is, I call it, the “sweet spot in time” because never before could we know what we know now.  We now have submarines to go down in the ocean.  We have eyes in the sea.  We have dancers who can make it even more real to us what is out there in the ocean.  We have film and cameras that go deep in the sea and high in the sky and look down and see that we are all together in this.  And if we didn’t know, we’d really be in trouble.  

And here’s the thing, there are a lot of smart creatures on the planet other than humans. Dolphins… really smart…and so are whales, so are octopuses. I think that crabs have a certain thing going for them as well.  Cats, horses, dogs, elephants, some very smart birds… really smart fish that I’ve met personally!  You’ll meet some here in the aquarium.  And they cannot know what you know.  As smart as they are, they don’t have the knowledge that Earth is spinning around in a universe of unfriendly places.  Try living on the moon.  Try going to Mars, and have all of the things that you take for granted here, like air, that you can just breathe.  Or imagine having rain fall out of the sky.  It doesn’t rain on Mars.  Well, it might rain things that are not good for you… but water, I mean.  There is no ocean there.  That ocean gives rise to rain. Sweet stuff, water that is mostly there that goes up into the sky.   

So you are armed with power.  Power that no other creatures on the planet have, and you are also armed with an opportunity, because even humans didn’t know what you now know going back to when I was a little girl.  

And so this is kind of a magic time. For the first time, we’re beginning to get it.  We understand.  This is it.  This little blue speck in the universe… So, we have to get better at taking care of the systems that make our lives possible.  And you’re here to make it happen.    

Imagine, another ten years, you could be Mayor of a city, you could be running a company. You could be driving a submarine.  You could be a scientist in a laboratory coming up with new discoveries or out on the ocean making new discoveries.  I mean, kids ten years old now can put on a scuba tank and explore the ocean… and you can explore the world by, you know, taking out a little electronic device that gives you information. 

You can look at Google Earth and fly around and see our parts of the world that people didn’t know about, had never explored, including going down in the ocean… until right now. So there's plenty of reason for optimism that the world in the future will even be better than it is today, because we will take care of it, better than we are today.

Capacitor's Okeanos Intimate, featuring images of the ocean, the voice of Dr. Sylvia Earle, and an incredible crew of dancers, is now playing at the Aquarium by the Bay through September 28th.

The Saga Begins

In preparation for the first day of Art Is... class with 6th grade, I took some time to think about the some of the changes that have happened since I was in 6th grade.  In 6th grade, I was drawing comics in class. In 1972, Richard Nixon went to China and Sports Illustrated named Billie Jean King their first "Sportswoman of the Year".  

When I was in 6th grade, we were playing....

When these 6th graders were born, the Xbox marked the spot...

Nowadays, you can play with designing and 3D printing your own tennis racket.

On the opening professional development day with the teachers, we started out with a song from 1972.

Last night, I took a good look at photos of the current 6th graders Kindergarten class — photos from way back in 2007. It was like being about to fast forward time.  Traveling warp speed. 

Such little faces, hands, and feet.  

Yet, I could see a hint of the grown kids here today in their body language, in their eyes.

Still, who knows what the future holds for each one?

Revving up the pod racer... cue the song.  

The saga begins!

Oh my my this here Anakin guy

May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry

And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye

Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

 

Love’s Labour’s Lost

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world.

Love’s Labour ’s Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

A new round of art-making is soon to begin for the upcoming Rooftop Art Show at the Luggage Store Annex which will open on Saturday, November 9.  It would be good to take a look back at how we came to settle on “A Slice of Life” as the title for our show.

Back in July, there was a 40-year old photo that took the internet by storm. 

In late July 1973, Joseph Crachiola was wandering the streets of Mount Clemens, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, with his camera. As a staff photographer for the Macomb Daily, he was expected to keep an eye out for good feature images — "those little slices of life that can stand on their own."

Joe Crachiola/Courtesy of The Macomb Daily

At the time, we were looking at how we might be able to use Edward Steichen's, The Family of Man, both the exhibit and the book, as a master work of art that could help students to understand the art of  the curating and designing an exhibit.  The Family of Man uses photography to explore all aspects of life.

The exhibition was created by Edward Steichen as a collection of snapshots and emotions that aimed to convey a message of peace in the midst of the Cold War. While the collection still bears the traces of its context of creation, visitor reactions continue to reflect the impact of these images, which remain relevant to this day. Some have even become icons in the history of photography. 

According to Edward Steichen himself, The Family of Man was the most significant work of his career. In a manner that was both unusual and visionary at the time, the collection condensed his approach to photography as well as his understanding of settings: the photographs were chosen according to their capacity of communication, while the layout allowed visitors to immerse themselves in a photographic essay. The collection embodies an astonishing summary of Steichen's career as an exhibition curator at MoMA.

— http://www.steichencollections.lu/en/The-Family-of-Man 

Steichen's brother in law, Carl Sandburg, famed American poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1951 wrote the text below as a prologue to the Family of Man exhibition.  It seems appropriate to share the words and perspective of "The Poet of the People" on this Labor Day.

Endpapers for hardback book of The Family of Man, published in 1955.

PROLOGUE by Carl Sandburg 

The Family of Man 

The photographic exhibition created by Edward Steichen 

for The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955

The first cry of a newborn baby in Chicago or Zamboango, in Amsterdam or Rangoon, has the same pitch and key, each saying, “I am! I have come through! I belong! I am a member of the Family.” 

Many the babies and grownups here from photographs made in sixty-eight nations round our planet Earth. You travel and see what the camera saw. The wonder of the human mind, heart, wit and instinct, is here. You might catch yourself saying, “I’m not a stranger here.” 

People! flung wide and far, born into toil, struggle, blood and dreams, among lovers, eaters, drinkers, workers, loafers, fighters, players, gamblers. Here are ironworkers, bridgemen, musicians, sandhogs, miners, builders of huts and skyscrapers, jungle hunters, landlords and the landless, the loved and the unloved, the lonely and abandoned, the brutal and the compassionate—one big family hugging close to the ball of Earth for its life and being. 

Here or there you may witness a startling harmony where you say, “This will be haunting me a long time with a loveliness I hope to understand better.”

In a seething of saints and sinners, winners or losers, in a womb of superstition, faith, genius, crime, sacrifice, here is the People, the one and only source of armies, navies, work-gangs, the living flowing breath of the history of nations, ever lighted by the reality or illusion of hope. Hope is a sustaining human gift. 

Everywhere is love and love-making, weddings and babies from generation to generation keeping the Family of Man alive and continuing. Everywhere the sun, moon and stars, the climates and weathers, have meanings for people. Though meanings vary, we are alike in all countries and tribes in trying to read what sky, land and sea say to us. Alike and ever alike we are on all continents in the need of love, food, clothing, work, speech, worship, sleep, games, dancing, fun. From the tropics to arctics humanity lives with these needs so alike, so inexorably alike. 

Hands here, hands gnarled as thorntree roots and others soft as faded rose leaves, Hands reaching, praying and groping, hands holding tools, torches, brooms, fishnets, hands doubled in fists of flaring anger, hands moving in caress of beloved faces. The hands and feet of children playing ring-around-a-rosy—countries and languages different but the little ones alike in playing the same game. 

Here are set forth babies arriving, suckling, growing into youths, restless and questioning. Then as grownups, they seek and hope. They mate, toil, fish, quarrel, sing, fight, pray, on all parallels and meridians having likeness. The earliest man, ages ago, had tools, weapons, cattle, as seen in his cave drawings. And like him the latest man of our day has his tools, weapons, cattle. The earliest man struggled through inexpressibly dark chaos of hunger, fear, violence, sex. A long journey it has been from that early Family of Man to the one of today which has become a still more prodigious spectacle. 

If the human face is “the masterpiece of God” it is here then in a thousand fateful registrations. Often the faces speak what words can never say. Some tell of eternity and others only the latest tattlings. Child faces of blossom smiles or mouths of hunger are followed by homely faces of majesty carved and worn by love, prayer and hope, along with others light and carefree as thistledown in a late summer wind. Faces having land and sea on them, faces honest as the morning sun flooding a clean kitchen with light, faces crooked and lost and wondering where to go this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Faces in crowds, laughing and windblown leaf faces, profiles in an instant of agony, mouths in a dumb show mockery lacking speech, faces of music in gay song or a twist of pain, a hate ready to kill, or calm and ready-for-death faces. Some of them are worth a long look now and deep contemplation later.  Faces betokening a serene blue sky or faces dark with storm winds and lashing night rain. And faces beyond forgetting, written over with faiths in men and dreams of man surpassing himself. An alphabet here and a multiplication table of living breathing human faces. 

In the times to come as the past there will be generations taking hold as though loneliness and the genius of struggle has always dwelt in the hearts of the pioneers. To the question, “What will the story be of the Family of Man across the near or far future?” Some would reply, “For the answers read if you can the strange and baffling eyes of youth.”

There is only one man in the world

and his name is All Men. 

There is only one woman in the world

and her name is All Women.

There is only one child in the world

and the child’s name is All Children.  

A camera testament, a drama of the grand canyon of humanity, an epic woven of fun, mystery and holiness—here is the Family of Man!

Dancing in the Streets

August 23 is the birthday of the great dancer/choreographer, Gene Kelly.  His screen persona in the MGM musicals showed everyday people just how much fun it would be to dance in the street.

Kelly's first wife, dancer Betsy Blair said of Kelly truck-driver style, "A sailor suit or his white socks and loafers, or the T-shirts on his muscular torso, gave everyone the feeling that he was a regular guy, and perhaps they too could express love and joy by dancing in the street or stomping through puddles...he democratized the dance in movies."

In opening scene from On the Town (1949), Kelly, Frank Sinatra & Jules Munshin share the sights and sounds of New York, but the dance is contained, mainly repetitive hand jestures.

In American in Paris (1951),  Kelly teaches the Parisian children how to speak English and how to dance by singing an American song,  I Got Rhythm, by using his whole body to become a soldier, Hop-a-Long Cassidy, Charlie Chaplin, or even an aeroplane.

S'wonderful Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) & Henri (Georges Guetary) unbeknownst to each other, are in love with the same girl. Their feelings of love can't be contained in the cafe, and their dance spills out into the street.

This dance number from the 1955 musical, It's Always Fair Weather, 1955, is known as "The Binge."

Three Army buddies - Michael Kid, Dan Dailey and Gene Kelly - have a little too much to drink  and they take to the streets for a dance.  They go in, out and though the windows of a taxi cab, dance a raucous hoedown with trash can lids in a alley, before ending up right back where they started.

When he sings I Like Myself, rollerskates are a perfect match with the quickened heartbeat of love.

Come rain or come shine, Gene Kelly is always Singing in The Rain (1952). 

The next time that you see people dancing in the street in a commercial, a music video or a flash mob, be sure to do a little jig of thanks for Gene Kelly.

Landscape with the Fall

The California Art Council posted a link to this thought-provoking piece on "The importance of teaching the arts," outlining the plethora of reasons for arts education — creativity, self-expression, social-well-being, better test scores. Wendy Earle offers her thoughts on the challenges and purposes of an arts program that purports to be accessible to all learners.

Democratisation of the arts – making them accessible to everyone, engendering real public engagement – requires an arts education that properly introduces young people to a range of art forms (and gives them a sense that there are others to explore).
Most students who study the arts will not become artists; those who do will specialise in one artform. So the purpose of a good arts education must primarily be to develop the ability to judge, ideally within a range of forms. Art, once it leaves the studio or the rehearsal room, no longer belongs to the artist and becomes subject to the judgement of others. If we really want to democratise the arts, we need to give young people enough knowledge to enter into an intelligent debate about what is good and what is not.

I wonder:  How do we begin to define what is "good."?  Who gets to decide what is "good"? Can we agree that there are multiple kinds of "good"? Does the idea of "good" always need to be attached to arts education, in order to justify the engagement?

Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always "or"?
Is it never "and"?

Sometimes, it's helpful to take some time to look at the frame, rather than to look directly at the thing being framed.  The article references "the opening of a window" in a poem by W.H. Auden.

"Musée des Beaux Arts" (French for "Museum of Fine Arts") was written in December 1938 while Auden was staying in Brussels, Belgium. The poem's title comes from the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, famous for its collection of Early Netherlandish painting, including the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder whose painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, hangs in the museum. 

Musee des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (circa 1558)

The painter Brueghel sets this Greek myth in his own time and place. Icarus the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, who constructs wings made of feathers and wax.  Daedalus has already tried out his construction, when his son asks to take his turn. Father warns son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but thrilled by the sensation of flight, the son completely ignores his father's instructions.  Brueghel depicts Icarus splashing down amidst ordinary people, going about their daily business.

Icarus, plate VIII from the illustrated book, Jazz (1947)
Matisse, Henri | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Splash! (2007)
Yoo, Geun Taek | Korean Art Museum Association

The myth of Icarus will always have a special appeal to artists.  

Looking forward to the day when the chance to fly is reason enough to make some art.

Inside Out 11M

The Inside Out Photo Booth truck arrived in San Francisco in July, and they set up in front of City Hall for Inside Out 11M, inviting all to join in this nationwide participatory art initiative aimed at creating a portrait of America that includes immigrants and the descendants of immigrants alike.

 Inside Out is a global participatory art project initiated by the award-winning artist JR to pay tribute to the power and dignity of individuals by displaying their portraits in public spaces around the world. People share their untold stories and transform messages of personal identity into works of public art.

You can follow the Photo Booth Truck's journey cross country via social media.

Young and old alike are invited to participate. 

Even the Mayor Lee came by to have his photo taken.

People were invited into the photo booth to have a seat.

Say Cheese! Then back outside to wait for your photo to come out.

Once the portrait was printed, volunteers were pasting them on long runners. 

One global project meets another.

A Blue Marble for Rhea who printed out a couple of Inside Out backdrops for us.  

 We will be setting up our own Photo Booth to invite the Rooftop community to participate in JR's Inside Out 11M project.

Once we forward our photo files on to the Inside Out team, and they will send back large scale prints for display. The photos that we gather will be used in our upcoming art show at the Luggage Store Annex in the Tenderloin, the neighborhood that is home for many newly arrived immigrants to San Francisco.

A Long, Long Time Ago.

I was 11.

 

and Don McLean was singing American Pie.