Sometimes I am invited to speak about art to groups of people. After I finish I usually get asked questions, which to be fair is my favorite part. I enjoy very much being forced to explain myself to a group. A room full of strangers asking me to clarify my points, to stand behind completely outlandish statements, complete doubt from dozens of faces, that's my favorite part. I imagine Perry Mason trying to convince a jury, not of his client's innocence, but instead convince them of the guilt of a totally separate thing.
During the most recent question and answer sequence, a very nice fella raises his hand and asks, "How does someone make money doing art like this?" I proceeded to give him an overly elaborate and extensive persuasively framed answer. Explaining about the market structures for various commodity based works, like oil painting and representational bronze sculpture, I drew delicate lines through the value systems of granting organizations, demonstrating all the precedents in place for innovative post optical work. My words were like a tap dancer, gliding around the room stomping out a rhythm knocking down doubt like dust from the chandeliers. And when I was done I felt completely sound, I felt like the master my degree says I am. In the bath this morning I realized my mistake. I could see it on my toes. My inquisitor asked me how my art could generate money, as if that was the goal of my art, and I had taken the bait and told him.
I failed to say the most obvious and accurate thing. I don't do art to make money. I make money to make art. If the world ran on peanut shells I would dig peanut shells if that would allow me to make my art. Money has nothing to do with it. As if I am standing up in front of these people showing them images of make believe time that I have created because I think that's the best way to generate a living. If I wanted a lot of money I might come up with a product a little more accessible than experimental sculpture. I might try to invent a smartphone app or a pet rock. I hope that my lecture did not lead them to believe that I am so dull in the mind as to believe that I am going to get rich making giant hammocks or by getting twenty performers to pretend to be fortune tellers in business suits. Department of Future Fortunes
I stood there and defended myself to him as if his question made sense. As if he had asked a question I was still trying to answer. But I am not, this is no way to make money, I see people making money everyday, I've lived that life. I don't do any part of this to make money, I can't. It doesn't work like that, the creative daemon inside doesn't come running out of my mind when you dangle a dollar in the air. He comes bounding from his cubby only when an audience comes sniffing around for something interesting to do. I build and create because I am bored with most of this wonderful globe and I am anxious to create the wonder in life that I feel when I see something magical brought forward by another person.
How can I make money by being interesting? That just aint my my bag, man. I have been trying to perfect the cooking of eggs for years. I want to get all forms down. I have scrambled pretty good, I can fry one over easy, over medium, over stiff, over the moon, over under, and over my head, I am still working out poached. My boiled in the shell work is getting better as well. But I am not trying to get better at eggs so I can get a job as morning fry cook at a diner, I am trying to perfect my eggs, so that when someone comes for breakfast they will say, "My god on heaven and earth, their has never been a breakfast egg better than the one I am eating. You are an egg master of the highest order, I will eat no other eggs but your eggs." When that happens I will set my beloved egg pan in the sink and start perfecting hash browns. The point is for nine years I drove to my grandparents house and made breakfast once a week at least. I hated missing that chance to improve my egg making, even though that old man probably would have been happy with me burning them every time. He enjoyed feeding his dog Cajun sausage. We all have our motives. But I wasn't trying to find a way to make money by making good eggs every week, I was trying to increase the meaningfulness of my life. I was trying to make all of this "struggle" have more worth. Society, left on its own, or allowed to make decisions via crowd sourcing or most common denominators, will create gray Hondas. Bland forgettable unoffensive nothingness of cars. Cars which will never be in a parade of classic cars. Imagine that, 4th of July, the jets fly over, and the marching band leads the parade down the street, and the Cub-scouts come down the middle of the street holding a banner, which says Classic Car Club and behind them are thirty gray Honda Civics from the mid 90's to 2000 somethings. Did a little bit of my soul just die from imagining that, I think it did. Hey car company, fins are aerodynamic too, stop with all the rounded off edges, its killing our souls. Does this look like the Jetson's to you? No! Hanna-Barbera was a hack at car design that's why he made cartoons, his other major car design was the foot braked Flintstones, what more evidence could I present to his not being the example of car designer premiere. Stop following his lead, he was wrong. We want sleek and sexy not bland and bubbly. Sorry, that's been stuck in my craw for awhile.
I make art because its ridiculous to do it and its even more ridiculous for me to do anything else. I don't do it because it's really the only thing I could come up with to make it through life. Please don't confuse my personal frustration with how I answered the question and my respect for the gentleman who asked it. He was smart and engaged and I owe him a lot for listening to me and even more for his generosity in asking a question. Like I wrote before, I cherish the opportunity to take the floor and field questions. So if you see him tell him I respect him more now then I did even then.
Art was a job, art was a method for making money so you could then have a nice house and lots of friends and vacations to islands. But that was then, I don't want to serve at the Pope's knee, I don't want an exchange, I don't want to make something so that I can relax and have a vacation. Two weeks ago I stood bleeding from the knuckles, thoroughly tired, arms aching sawdust and sweat in every fiber of me, and growing a pretty good bruise on my arm, staring at a project in the middle of the night. I was on the hunt, I had the scent and it was driving me like a hound through the woods, trailing a myth. Money doesn't matter, sleep doesn't matter, food is simply there to keep me upright, I might even forget to breath if my body didn't do it for me. When you are soul deep into a project and your deadline is creeping like a predator hunting the hunter, you just work, you build and cut and lift and load and haul, you don't debate why you are doing it. You don't wonder about motivation or incentive. You know the motivation and incentive, they both exist as part of the artists operating system. The artist makes, if the artist doesn't make, then the artist becomes a "Was" rather than an "Is" we define ourselves by the last thing we made. If you disagree with this, feel free to swing by my studio, I will give you a drink, I will listen to your argument and then we will debate, and at the end we will both know something more. What more could you want?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Definitions for Only Now
To be read by this computer's speech setting.
Interface. Everything else is alien to you and to us, it is the Other. We only make use of the Other through the interface. The interface is the custom or system of engagement and the physical connection we make between our bodies and the Other. Everything else is an Other. We are self-conscious and this allows us to distinguish three things: ourself, the others, and the interface bridging the first two. This distinction alone, remains contrived.
Switches. The specific point of activation and, deactivation. Switches, are typically binary but should not always be limited to the positions we call on, or off. The in-between is usually the most vital, fertile place.
Timing. Despite heroic effort to lock a single moment into a confined and re-examinable fixture or record. The experience and perception of everything progresses. We are pulled through this experience and any attempt to freeze or immobilize that experience results in... illusion. Narrative continues, even if we re-experience some previous narrative, made into a record, by an Other, we still add our own perception of this particular now and this specific version of a moment to that previously constructed record. No record is universal, or totally repriseable, every new presentation is a version. Every bite of the same apple is different.
Placement. There is not a here, and that perception matters. Knowledge of difference and specific characteristics of one locale to another allows for a great amount of understanding and orchestration. Using placement can be a very interesting practice. Not caring about placement... is lazy.
Now turn speech off, and it will be the same but different... again.
Interface. Everything else is alien to you and to us, it is the Other. We only make use of the Other through the interface. The interface is the custom or system of engagement and the physical connection we make between our bodies and the Other. Everything else is an Other. We are self-conscious and this allows us to distinguish three things: ourself, the others, and the interface bridging the first two. This distinction alone, remains contrived.
Switches. The specific point of activation and, deactivation. Switches, are typically binary but should not always be limited to the positions we call on, or off. The in-between is usually the most vital, fertile place.
Timing. Despite heroic effort to lock a single moment into a confined and re-examinable fixture or record. The experience and perception of everything progresses. We are pulled through this experience and any attempt to freeze or immobilize that experience results in... illusion. Narrative continues, even if we re-experience some previous narrative, made into a record, by an Other, we still add our own perception of this particular now and this specific version of a moment to that previously constructed record. No record is universal, or totally repriseable, every new presentation is a version. Every bite of the same apple is different.
Placement. There is not a here, and that perception matters. Knowledge of difference and specific characteristics of one locale to another allows for a great amount of understanding and orchestration. Using placement can be a very interesting practice. Not caring about placement... is lazy.
Now turn speech off, and it will be the same but different... again.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Dead End vs. Not A Through Street
The couch in our living room looks out a picture window onto a dead end street. At night the street light on the corner flickers out with an unwieldy randomness. It blinks out or just goes dark like power was cut and then twinkles back into orange glow on its own specific timetable. Sometimes when it starts to relight it suddenly quacks out mid resurrection. The light shutting down always catches the corner of my eye and turns my attention street ward. Other lights at night do this. Headlights of cars coming unexpectedly to the end of our short street, most figure out the terminalness of our road, still others drive all the way down and turn around in our driveway. The sign on the corner below the streetlight reads “Not A Through Street”
My brother lives on a dead-end, my sister and the two of us grew up on a dead-end street. We know what dead-end means. Everyone knows what dead-end means. It means “Not a through street.” It does not mean all the old people will die here someday and we don’t want to offend them by calling their street dead anything. But I think we can all agree Dead End gets the point across way better than “Not a through street” or even No Outlet. Its language, and the words we choose to use to communicate information can be strikingly important.
The light goes out and I know I will see headlights, this is the cause and effect of my street now. I remember the cause and effect of growing up on a dead-end street, I remember the cause and effect of being a kid who walked to school out a dead-end street. I was proud to walk, proud to not be on a bus. I believe I felt a freedom in walking. I still do. We build our identities on thousands of little things and few very big ideas of self. Identity becomes all of those thoughts you have of yourself when you look in the mirror or into a menu. Who am I, and what do I present, and what do I absorb?
I drink Bushmills whiskey when given the choice. I have my reasons and I don’t know that anyone really counts that in the evaluation of me as a person. But many people know the whiskey I prefer and consider it when inviting me out or over. As in, will this bar have something he likes to drink? That’s maybe a standard more than a data point on an identity chart of Patrick Melroy, but still I add it to my perception of self because I like it, I like thinking I have a level of consistency. I admire consistency. I rightly or wrongly associate consistency with durability and success. Strange than that I prefer the dynamic flexibility of walking over the rigid consistent bus schedule. I am also devoutly lazy, which results in underachievement and rationalizing. When I was young people would identify my potential, use it like a big old birthday hat at the chain restaurant that you wear while the waiters all sing to you and you try to pretend like this is somehow endearing instead just frightfully painfully to your ego. That’s how I always felt when someone would say, “You have so much potential.” Now at thirty-six it seems sad when someone tells me about my potential. I probably don’t have to explain that. But it feels like the egg timer on using that potential is running low or maybe dinged while I was in the shower.
Potential always felt like a dirty word, like a most improved award, something I received when I was eighteen from the Society of American Magicians #59. No one ever offered to help me with turning potential into achievement, that would be an excellent recipe card to pass out by the way. Its not enough to look at someone who impresses you and tell them they have potential. Push past that, give them more than just the compliment which they will add to their identity. Encouragement is lovely but guidance is gold. But the truth seems to be most of the time people who tell you about your potential have no ideas on how to activate it, otherwise they would say, “You have a lot of potential, I could use a person like you.”
We are ourselves. The idea we hold onto about who we are is very different from the ideas everyone else has about us. We strive to align our self-beliefs with the beliefs of people we meet and interact with have of us. We of course always expect their perception of us to bend to align with our identity, rather than our perceptions to be bent by how others see us. This comes into conflict when they tell us how they see us. Language again. We are bound by how we interpret statements and non-statements and we apply all of our CSI slash Law & Order SVU powers of conclusion to squeeze out ah-hah moments of smarter than thou. We have very big brains and we add conclusions and determinations to everything, we treat every new experience like a clue which will unlock the puzzle of self. Who do you think you are? I’m a kid from a dead-end, and the great thing about a dead-end street is whenever you leave home you at least know which way to head first.
We are specific people, we determine our own identity. We are stuck with genetics on many topics, hair, eyes, disposition toward pie, but we are distinctly available to controlling what we think about our hair or our pie. Like it or love it, you got what you got. I chose a dead-end street as an adult because among other reasons, it felt like the place I live. I enjoy the streetlight’s winking, it could send me into a diatribe about the lazy city but instead it makes my street specific and I like it.
I’ve chosen to abandon my potential, I am happy to hand off the title to some other clever apprentice. Mastery of one thing would seem enough, but how do you pick that one thing to master? In a world of infinite choices… well not infinite, I’m not a very good musician, minor case of the tone def. It’s not really important, just pick something for now and we can change it later. Just don’t let the world do the picking.
We will wake up tomorrow, we will continue this thing we started. I remember being younger and I know I will remember being the person I am now. I hope no-one tells me when I am seventy that I have a lot of potential. I hope that when I am seventy I am still interesting. I hope that I am interesting right now, because I have met a lot of boring people. I used to think it was just me not being able to access the particular side of them that makes them interesting. I imagined that everyone plays the starring role in their own individual film, their own private narrative where they fight all the battles and the camera is always turned on them. The people coming and going from their lives are characters with roles they play and catch phrases. Each person is the star of the story of themselves.
However I think I might have been giving a little more to their individual self reflection than they were. I worry that many people might not know they have access to their script, to their novel, to their plot line, to their story arc, they do, you do even. You can turn your street into an epic location. Just under the street lamp, as it flickers out you have the briefest amount of darkness to get that shopping cart into the back of your truck so you can take it to your studio and use it for moving tools around… but that’s probably just me trying to write your narrative rather than mine or vice versa. It’s the lazy side of me wanting to live as you rather than the effort it would take to be me. It’s why people are always giving you advice, it’s easier to give advice than just enjoying being the star of your own life. Which brings me to the end of this batch of useless advice.
I picked artist, it’s working out fine thanks.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
I hate new year’s eve.
We as creatures occupy space. We take up a certain amount of space. How much space do we inhabit? We inhabit, we exist, what are we doing at any given moment as we occupy space? How can we distinguish the event of being in any one place or another?
I have a garage. In that garage is some stuff. What is that stuff, and more importantly what is that stuff to me? Ownership is a tricky contract. I created a lot of it, or if we are to be more specific I reorganized some objects I purchased into more specific composed combinations of objects. I made some art. My garage is full of boxes of trinkets I value and sculptures I built. Two friends are storing their stuff as well. Stuff they don’t need while they live on a boat. I have a half dozen bikes, I can call them mine as I maintain them and I believe maintenance grants a distinct amount of ownership. But it’s really all just stuff. Stuff I couldn’t really list in any accurate document. And as I write this, the boat people appeared and are going to look through their stuff for something they need for the new year.
I hate New Year’s Eve as an event. Which of course makes me old, but I do, I guess I always have. I have had my fair share of decent nights on December 31, any-year-here. Mostly spent at the Red Fox bar in Portland Oregon, but this year I couldn’t stand the idea of the cold. Though I will miss the fish toss for the first time in a while.
But all this damn stuff. I have a studio on campus, I have a studio off campus in Goleta near the airport. I have a garage and an apartment, they are all full of stuff. I moved here with a small trailer and a pick-up bed full of stuff. Not even a long bed, a six foot four inch blue box of stuff. In three years I have built up a stupid amount of stuff. Now I feel like I am wearing a psychic velcro suit and all this stuff is stuck to every angle of my imagination weighting it down. Now that said I have a very decent egg pan and a very decent coffee cup and a nice kettle and French press. So if I have those things and can tolerate their continued presence in my life than surely I can tolerate that box of useless trinkets from ten years ago in the garage.
Space is a funny strange and bizarre way to define and comprehend territory. As animals we have our territories, in our primal sense we have our sleeping places and our bathing places and our eating grounds and I guess we also identify hunting grounds. But to really feel an ownership over a space seems slightly or greatly absurd. We rent this five hundred square feet of building which we call out apartment. But its not ours, its not even theirs. It’s just a space I have a key to. But I watched a guy named Bobby from Santa Barbara Locksmith open my front door for me in a couple seconds. Despite the fact that I asked him to do it, the act set me on edge a bit as I had known it was easy to pick locks but really, seconds.
So here I have this space, that’s not mine, and a bunch of stuff that I can’t really remember or see in my head and all this stuff that feels… well it just feels like a lot of responsibility, like I keep imagining having to put it all in boxes. Strange to look in a closet for a band-aide and think how everything in the closet is just debris. All this stuff that I don’t use the way I use my coffee cup. We bought a bunch of food the other day and carried it all up our front stairs and Sam packed it into the cupboards and fridge, two more closets really. And as we did this I thought we will have to carry all of this back out of here. All the packaging, all the bulk of the food will have to leave the apartment in one form or another. So what is all this stuff cluttering up my mind? Every year I come to this night, which of course is just a random day in the revolution of the planet. Ask Samoa they skipped Friday this year in order to get into a new time zone. They just skipped a day, so I know this day is really just all of us agreeing to imagine it as something important, well my imagination is occupied right now and I can’t imagine this being a night I care about. But everyone else does so I have to go out with them or curmudge on my own, its up to me. The boat people have gone off to buy tickets for a dance party that they will try to force me to go to, and I probably will, because the one thing I know about dancing is; it generates exactly zero stuff and I can do it in any space regardless if I own the space or not.
Hey New Year’s Eve… pound sand!!!!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients:
2.25 cups flour
2 eggs
.75 cup sugar
.75 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks salted butter
1 bag chocolate chips
Vanilla Extract
Before you leave for work place two sticks of butter on a small plate in the kitchen. After work turn your oven to 375 degrees and place an empty cookie sheet on the center rack. Unwrap Butter and place in mixing bowl add 3/4 cup granulated sugar and 3/4 cup packed brown sugar. Mix sugar into butter with a power mixer, crack two eggs into a measuring cup, add two cap fulls of vanilla extract. Pour this into the sugar/butter mix. Add 1 tsp of table salt and 1 tsp of baking soda and mix some more. Add 2 cups of flour, then add a smidge more. Depending on how firm you like your cookies. Mix until the mix looks like dough instead. Add a bag of chocolate chips, mix with a wood spoon at this point, if some nut comes near your dough with an electric mixer after you pour the chips in, you break his arm, okay. At this point its a good idea to taste the dough with a tablespoon. Make sure you aren't afraid of raw egg sickness before you do this. Pull the heated cookie sheet from the oven (use a mitt) and place a sheet of baking parchment on it. Scoop the dough on to the sheet in small clumps using the scoop your brother got for you. Sample every sixth scoop for quality control. Bake cookies for 9 to 11 minutes depending on if your oven is a liar or not. Let cookies cool on tray for two minutes then move onto the rack then move to a gallon zip lock before your partner gets home and finds them, hide on top of fridge behind cereal boxes.
Ingredients:
2.25 cups flour
2 eggs
.75 cup sugar
.75 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks salted butter
1 bag chocolate chips
Vanilla Extract
Before you leave for work place two sticks of butter on a small plate in the kitchen. After work turn your oven to 375 degrees and place an empty cookie sheet on the center rack. Unwrap Butter and place in mixing bowl add 3/4 cup granulated sugar and 3/4 cup packed brown sugar. Mix sugar into butter with a power mixer, crack two eggs into a measuring cup, add two cap fulls of vanilla extract. Pour this into the sugar/butter mix. Add 1 tsp of table salt and 1 tsp of baking soda and mix some more. Add 2 cups of flour, then add a smidge more. Depending on how firm you like your cookies. Mix until the mix looks like dough instead. Add a bag of chocolate chips, mix with a wood spoon at this point, if some nut comes near your dough with an electric mixer after you pour the chips in, you break his arm, okay. At this point its a good idea to taste the dough with a tablespoon. Make sure you aren't afraid of raw egg sickness before you do this. Pull the heated cookie sheet from the oven (use a mitt) and place a sheet of baking parchment on it. Scoop the dough on to the sheet in small clumps using the scoop your brother got for you. Sample every sixth scoop for quality control. Bake cookies for 9 to 11 minutes depending on if your oven is a liar or not. Let cookies cool on tray for two minutes then move onto the rack then move to a gallon zip lock before your partner gets home and finds them, hide on top of fridge behind cereal boxes.
Monday, November 7, 2011
In Defense of Artists
Smart people always thrill me, I cherish deeply the endless conversation. Endless conversations start when you aren't trying to start one, and they continue past any reasonable stopping point. I began one with Arnold Kemp a few years ago. I met Arnold when he was eating lunch in the middle of a gallery where his show was being installed, he is a very big deal. He had curated my collaborator Heather May Redetzke and I into a show. He was the type of pro who can make you feel a little anxious about your work just by asking what kind of art you make. As if the answer will wilt like a flower in the bright light of his observation. I think he was eating Chinese take out. Three years later he was standing next to my brother talking during my home town 4th of July parade. This juxtaposition of the artist Arnold Kemp is not unusual once you know him, this is exactly the kind of method he applies to other people's madness. Large gaps rest between each segment of our conversation, sometimes lasting a couple hours sometimes lasting a month. The other day I was driving through Berkley California, not a place either of us frequent, and I texted Arnold with a question, and moments later he was yelling at the open window of my rental car. You can rarely predict these moments, like waves rolling into the shore, you can just paddle into them and hope to stretch the ride as long as possible until the next set. This of course is the standard form of friendship, everyone has friends who exist like this, people you don't have to spend time getting caught up with, you just pick up where you left off. I have dozens of friends I haven't seen in years who I still assume are just stewing over the last question I asked them. Patrick Maxwell is one. He will show back up sometime soon and we will pick up on that conversation we were having about the future and handmade wooden boats.
Dick Hebdige sat on the other side of a table next to the biggest ocean on the planet and casually tossed an intellectual ax through my carefully stacked woodpile of logic. Dick is a professor at UCSB and a writer of the first order, and he really knows how to dance. What Dick said (and I am sure he will deny it later) was that "Art is not a part of culture, art does not have a purpose or a function, it does not serve, art is... art!" He learned to speak in Britain so he says it with a much better panache' than I can write it, but this broke me because I have spent years developing my reasons for art. I have always felt the need to refine and hone my vocabulary around why art is important. I provide clear and concise evaluations of the meaningfulness and need for art in our contemporary society. I challenge the myths of the broke bohemian artist living in a flop house cutting off lobes. I break down the obvious and silly evidence which exists in plain site. I describe how everything man-made, everything built, started as an imagination, as an abstract idea, a thought no more real than a cat's name. How if not for the artist, surely, culture would consist of gray everything and bland gravy for each meal. I proffered that the artist is the sole keeper of the best parts of life, and if the world restricts or bars the artist or the art, then society will cease and we may as well all start calling ourselves by numbers.
It hadn't occurred to me that art needs me as a defender about as much as a tree needs a beaver. I was just defining the undefinable, trying to put up a fence around a cloud. I thought I was being clever when I could bridge the gap and explain art to someone, anyone. I was really only explaining it to myself and trying to justify my choices.
The curse of growing up in a small town means rarely fitting in and often strays into awkward kid territory. I used to like to roll down the hill behind my house, cross the highway and run head long through tunnels in the blackberry bushes down the old gravel trail into the woods and off the embankment into that swimming hole at the elbow of Gee Creek at the east end of Abrams Park. Then I would follow it all the way back up. Walking, wading and plunging through the mud and clay I slogged a path against the flow of water. In winter it was deep, in the spring it was a bright run-off of cold and crisp and ball shrinking chill. Gee creek is a little river that I felt I could master, it pales compared to the Columbia that it eventually meets up with out near the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. I spent endless days dragging up and down that creek, pretending, imagining, growing and dreaming. I never had to explain to anyone why I liked playing in that creek. I find myself bored by the idea of trying to convince people about anything, I talk all day everyday, to classes of students, I talk to everyone, non-stop. Hours and hours of convincing, hours of transmitting my opinions, my expertise, my thoughts. I like listening but it always causes me to think of more to say. I promise I am practicing listening. But in all that time, it occurs to me that my convincing is wasted. You shouldn't have to convince people to go play in a creek, that's just common sense. If you have a creek that is. It is even more assinign to convince someone that I make art for a reason. I don't. I've never had a reason and that may be scary to some, but so are creeks.
If you would like to have a conversation about this or any topic on this blog please set up an appointment for a conversation with Patrick Melroy at the UPPUR BUNK
Dick Hebdige sat on the other side of a table next to the biggest ocean on the planet and casually tossed an intellectual ax through my carefully stacked woodpile of logic. Dick is a professor at UCSB and a writer of the first order, and he really knows how to dance. What Dick said (and I am sure he will deny it later) was that "Art is not a part of culture, art does not have a purpose or a function, it does not serve, art is... art!" He learned to speak in Britain so he says it with a much better panache' than I can write it, but this broke me because I have spent years developing my reasons for art. I have always felt the need to refine and hone my vocabulary around why art is important. I provide clear and concise evaluations of the meaningfulness and need for art in our contemporary society. I challenge the myths of the broke bohemian artist living in a flop house cutting off lobes. I break down the obvious and silly evidence which exists in plain site. I describe how everything man-made, everything built, started as an imagination, as an abstract idea, a thought no more real than a cat's name. How if not for the artist, surely, culture would consist of gray everything and bland gravy for each meal. I proffered that the artist is the sole keeper of the best parts of life, and if the world restricts or bars the artist or the art, then society will cease and we may as well all start calling ourselves by numbers.
It hadn't occurred to me that art needs me as a defender about as much as a tree needs a beaver. I was just defining the undefinable, trying to put up a fence around a cloud. I thought I was being clever when I could bridge the gap and explain art to someone, anyone. I was really only explaining it to myself and trying to justify my choices.
The curse of growing up in a small town means rarely fitting in and often strays into awkward kid territory. I used to like to roll down the hill behind my house, cross the highway and run head long through tunnels in the blackberry bushes down the old gravel trail into the woods and off the embankment into that swimming hole at the elbow of Gee Creek at the east end of Abrams Park. Then I would follow it all the way back up. Walking, wading and plunging through the mud and clay I slogged a path against the flow of water. In winter it was deep, in the spring it was a bright run-off of cold and crisp and ball shrinking chill. Gee creek is a little river that I felt I could master, it pales compared to the Columbia that it eventually meets up with out near the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. I spent endless days dragging up and down that creek, pretending, imagining, growing and dreaming. I never had to explain to anyone why I liked playing in that creek. I find myself bored by the idea of trying to convince people about anything, I talk all day everyday, to classes of students, I talk to everyone, non-stop. Hours and hours of convincing, hours of transmitting my opinions, my expertise, my thoughts. I like listening but it always causes me to think of more to say. I promise I am practicing listening. But in all that time, it occurs to me that my convincing is wasted. You shouldn't have to convince people to go play in a creek, that's just common sense. If you have a creek that is. It is even more assinign to convince someone that I make art for a reason. I don't. I've never had a reason and that may be scary to some, but so are creeks.
If you would like to have a conversation about this or any topic on this blog please set up an appointment for a conversation with Patrick Melroy at the UPPUR BUNK
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Wedding of Cappy & Nikki
Cappy & Nikki
October 15th 2011
Who gives this woman to be married? (Her father in full Marine dress blues did.)
Please be seated.
Welcome to the wedding of my friends Nikki & Cappy. Thank you all for traveling so far to get here. I am Patrick Melroy and these two people have asked me to stand with them on this amazing day. This is a beautiful setting and it is wonderful for Nikki and Cappy’s families to create such an amazing event. Especially the Strategic Wedding planning by Jim who may have a big future in the wedding war planning. It is every father's dream to provide the perfect wedding for his daughter, Sir, mission accomplished.
I agreed to be their officiant because I wanted the best seat in the house and I got it. They have asked all of you here today because like most things in their lives it feels better when they can share it with people who know them and love them. You are those people. This is the kind of moment you save up for, the kind of day that no matter how much you imagine it, no matter how many times you pictured it, the real thing is even sweeter and more magnificent.
This couple is honestly magnificent, they are beyond special and ridiculously good looking. This will not however be one of those fairytale romances. This is more of a epic novel slash reality show type romances. Think the Amazing Race meets Moby Dick. Nikki is convinced she knows where to find the great white whale and Cappy is listening patiently while cleaning Napoleons eye buggers away.
In a few short moments the two of you will be married. You will never again be the people you woke up as this morning. From this moment forward you will be new and different and wonderful. I envy the opportunity you will both have to grow together into your old age. You are going to make fantastic old people. You already know each other better and differently than everyone else. Being married will be the greatest adventure. My grandmother had good advice about becoming a successful married couple, she said “when you asked really old married couples who had succeeded at making a real meaningful life together, what the secret was, they always said, “”well its easy, find someone who you love a lot, (a lot a lot), and never let the other person love you harder than you love them, then you create a love surplus.
Spend everyday in love with this person. Give them everything you have, save nothing for yourself, hide nothing, if you are happy share it, if you are sad share it, if you are mad let them have that too, because if you go through everything good and bad holding it in, thinking you are protecting your lover from how you feel, you are really only protecting yourself from their love. Do not fear letting your lover in, they will not think you are a monster, they will cherish the trust. There will be no part of your feelings that the other person can reject you for, the only rejection is in not trusting them to love you unconditionally. Likewise when they give you their trust, know what to do with it. Be patient and listen and try not to exaggerate either of your fears. Fear has no place in your marriage, and the more you push it out, the more you will have room for trust, and love and admiration, and hope, and laughter. Because we do not have enough time in this world to squander it on being afraid.
The two of you have an unique opportunity, which comes along so rarely, you’ve been through the bad times, you survived. You saw the lows and here you both still stand. You lasted through every storm, you stood up against every test. I have witnessed some of these storms and what always kept them going was a deep love and respect. You took every nasty horrible thing the world could throw at you, you made decisions to save each other when each of you needed saving. That may have felt like it cost you a high price, but I assure you… and listen here… it was worth it!
Your marriage is worth it, you are worth it, I am standing here because you asked me to, I would do absolutely anything for the two of you, so would all of these people sitting behind you, so would each of these well dressed Bridesmaids and Groomsmen. None of us is here for the free food, or the dancing, we are here for you. You made this happen, not to fulfill some childhood desire to win a wedding contest, but because it is important to both of you to join forces and build a family. Thank you for letting all of us be here for the start of this part of one of the greatest stories of all time. The story of how the two of you stood at the edge, right here, where the land runs into the sea and joined hands and declared to each other that this is it, and there will never be anything more important than how you feel about each other.
This wedding is happening because these two people are stronger than most. This is not a one sided relationship, there is not one more lucky than the other. They are strong because they are together. Even when they decided to use the entire continental United States in the same way other couples might live across town from each other, they were together. There commitment to each other was like a law of physics, unbreakable and obvious. The challenges were never bigger than the two of them together. They have always been able to beat any struggle, it may have taken a loud voice or a quiet patience waiting out the frustration. It may have taken a big gesture to prove the strength of their relationship, but every time they made it work. You wouldn’t think picking out colors of napkins or paper envelopes could be so tough, but when one person is an artist and the other person is accustomed to performing precise oral surgery, well then these decisions start to feel like congress trying to agree on lunch. But each time, the problem got solved, each time they got the job done.
I have learned from these two people. I hope to keep learning from them for a long time. I hope to learn how not to give up, how to laugh when you take a hit and just step back into the fight and stay until the fighting stops and the loving begins.
These two people have come to this spot to make it official, they have invited you here to bare witness to their marriage, they will continue to provide happiness to all of us for years.
Relationships start in a variety of ways but Marriages begin in places like this. These two people began this process and have worked hard to make this day real. Not just in the planning and organizing and ordering, but in the real mental preparation to become a family. The investigation of another person on this level is a delicate matter. Building a life together, truly together, remains one of the great undertakings of contemporary life. Each of you succeeded in finding a partner who makes you happy. That should never be underestimated. Happiness can seem fleeting and fragile, but it is made infinetly more stable when your happiness resides in the person you wake up next to each morning.
(I skipped this part, because I felt it was too informal) In the hundreds of hours of pre-nuptial counseling I did with these two, AKA greasy breakfast and unhealthy tacos by the beach, I learned that they were truly meant for each other. I have watched them function as a team, and like a team they understand that not everyone has the same role. I have also seen them sacrifice for each other in ways which would make other lesser couples look silly. But on these two when they go out of their way to provide for one another, it just comes across as honest and reasonable. Cappy is a different person than Nikki. They are not two boring peas in a boring pod just hanging around, they have drive to accomplish specific individual goals. That drive will allow them to never stagnate.
In the world of improv and Jazz the number one rule is never stop playing and never say no. It is far better to respond, I don’t know how we can make a peeing buffalo but I am happy to help you try, than to live in a world where there are no giant bison scared of people yelling. (Edited this out on the spot, as it felt like I was losing the rhythm)
Trying to define either of these people with one word seems ludicris Nikki is not just a artist. She is one of the most gifted teachers I have ever seen. Cappy is not merely a Tooth Doctor. His thoughtfulness extends to ideas of business and physical exertion. I have struggled to drive up the same hills he has ridden a bike up. They both know how to observe every situation and distill the participants and strengths and weaknesses down into a useful set of pshhhsh……I could have made that!!
The only person I could imagine who could accept unconditionally the unsure life of the artist is Cappy and the person I could imagine who would take a dentist’s practice tools and create sculptures is Nikki.
SO I guess the completely unsurprising result is their marriage. Because it is obvious to everyone here, they are the perfect parents for a French BullDog with a snoring problem.
Unity forever
If anyone can show just cause why these two should not be wed, then you are crazy and should get your head examined, besides no-one is really asking you so there!
(this part got dropped at the last second)
Unity Tree: Explain
Relationships will only grow strong when rooted in a fertile supportive ground, much like trees, they can grow full and powerful, they can produce nourishing fruit, but only when they grow in good soil with deep roots. To illustrate this Nikki’s mother Remy and Cappy’s mother Ellen will each add a new batch of soil to this small tree. This is a Bessie Tree which produces tiny peaches, this tree was grown form a cutting which Ellen started from her Grandmother’s tree, Louise Overmund's tree will continue feeding generations of grandchildren. Nikki and Cappy’s job now is to find some grandchildren.
(Both mothers did an excellent job adding the soil and there were a few laughs as Nikki and Cappy dealt with patting the soil down. Later I sent the tree back on a flat bed trailer covered with hay. I think the tree made it home with them.)
The vows:
I would like everyone here to do more than just witness this wedding. I am placing a task upon you, it will remain your responsibility to watch over this marriage. You as their friends and family must stand behind them, give them strength when they need it. Give them everything they need, and take from them what they give to you. Show them kindness and protection. Guard them from evil and treat sacred what they have created in each other. Please answer this next question together in one voice with one loud “WE DO” Will you the people most important to this couple, watch over them, guide them, and keep them safe…..?
And now Napoleon's big moment. (He spent most of the ceremony staring at the bay showing his hind to the crowd. Remy had tied the rings onto Napoleon's collar so they wouldn't get lost, the knot was impossible for me to undo so I broke the string and held the rings over my head to show the crowd. Then I handed the opposite ring to each person.)
Nikki, look at this man and repeat after me. Cappy I promise it all, I will never quit, I will be your wife today and for every day after. I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. Place the ring on his finger.
Cappy face this woman, and repeat after me. Nikki I choose you to be my wife. I will never quit, I will be your husband today and for every day after. I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. Place the ring on her finger.
Turn and face me. Do you John Carter Sinclair take this woman to be your wife to have and to hold from this day forward? He Did.
Do you Kristin Nicole Leone take this man to be your husband to have and to hold from this day forward? She did.
I pronounce you Husband and Wife.
Cappy, for the first time ever, kiss your wife.
Ladies and gentlemen please rise with me and welcome a very new thing
It is my great honor to introduce to you Dr and Mrs. Sinclair
Presided over by The Reverend Patrick D Melroy
October 15th 2011
Who gives this woman to be married? (Her father in full Marine dress blues did.)
Please be seated.
Welcome to the wedding of my friends Nikki & Cappy. Thank you all for traveling so far to get here. I am Patrick Melroy and these two people have asked me to stand with them on this amazing day. This is a beautiful setting and it is wonderful for Nikki and Cappy’s families to create such an amazing event. Especially the Strategic Wedding planning by Jim who may have a big future in the wedding war planning. It is every father's dream to provide the perfect wedding for his daughter, Sir, mission accomplished.
I agreed to be their officiant because I wanted the best seat in the house and I got it. They have asked all of you here today because like most things in their lives it feels better when they can share it with people who know them and love them. You are those people. This is the kind of moment you save up for, the kind of day that no matter how much you imagine it, no matter how many times you pictured it, the real thing is even sweeter and more magnificent.
This couple is honestly magnificent, they are beyond special and ridiculously good looking. This will not however be one of those fairytale romances. This is more of a epic novel slash reality show type romances. Think the Amazing Race meets Moby Dick. Nikki is convinced she knows where to find the great white whale and Cappy is listening patiently while cleaning Napoleons eye buggers away.
In a few short moments the two of you will be married. You will never again be the people you woke up as this morning. From this moment forward you will be new and different and wonderful. I envy the opportunity you will both have to grow together into your old age. You are going to make fantastic old people. You already know each other better and differently than everyone else. Being married will be the greatest adventure. My grandmother had good advice about becoming a successful married couple, she said “when you asked really old married couples who had succeeded at making a real meaningful life together, what the secret was, they always said, “”well its easy, find someone who you love a lot, (a lot a lot), and never let the other person love you harder than you love them, then you create a love surplus.
Spend everyday in love with this person. Give them everything you have, save nothing for yourself, hide nothing, if you are happy share it, if you are sad share it, if you are mad let them have that too, because if you go through everything good and bad holding it in, thinking you are protecting your lover from how you feel, you are really only protecting yourself from their love. Do not fear letting your lover in, they will not think you are a monster, they will cherish the trust. There will be no part of your feelings that the other person can reject you for, the only rejection is in not trusting them to love you unconditionally. Likewise when they give you their trust, know what to do with it. Be patient and listen and try not to exaggerate either of your fears. Fear has no place in your marriage, and the more you push it out, the more you will have room for trust, and love and admiration, and hope, and laughter. Because we do not have enough time in this world to squander it on being afraid.
The two of you have an unique opportunity, which comes along so rarely, you’ve been through the bad times, you survived. You saw the lows and here you both still stand. You lasted through every storm, you stood up against every test. I have witnessed some of these storms and what always kept them going was a deep love and respect. You took every nasty horrible thing the world could throw at you, you made decisions to save each other when each of you needed saving. That may have felt like it cost you a high price, but I assure you… and listen here… it was worth it!
Your marriage is worth it, you are worth it, I am standing here because you asked me to, I would do absolutely anything for the two of you, so would all of these people sitting behind you, so would each of these well dressed Bridesmaids and Groomsmen. None of us is here for the free food, or the dancing, we are here for you. You made this happen, not to fulfill some childhood desire to win a wedding contest, but because it is important to both of you to join forces and build a family. Thank you for letting all of us be here for the start of this part of one of the greatest stories of all time. The story of how the two of you stood at the edge, right here, where the land runs into the sea and joined hands and declared to each other that this is it, and there will never be anything more important than how you feel about each other.
This wedding is happening because these two people are stronger than most. This is not a one sided relationship, there is not one more lucky than the other. They are strong because they are together. Even when they decided to use the entire continental United States in the same way other couples might live across town from each other, they were together. There commitment to each other was like a law of physics, unbreakable and obvious. The challenges were never bigger than the two of them together. They have always been able to beat any struggle, it may have taken a loud voice or a quiet patience waiting out the frustration. It may have taken a big gesture to prove the strength of their relationship, but every time they made it work. You wouldn’t think picking out colors of napkins or paper envelopes could be so tough, but when one person is an artist and the other person is accustomed to performing precise oral surgery, well then these decisions start to feel like congress trying to agree on lunch. But each time, the problem got solved, each time they got the job done.
I have learned from these two people. I hope to keep learning from them for a long time. I hope to learn how not to give up, how to laugh when you take a hit and just step back into the fight and stay until the fighting stops and the loving begins.
These two people have come to this spot to make it official, they have invited you here to bare witness to their marriage, they will continue to provide happiness to all of us for years.
Relationships start in a variety of ways but Marriages begin in places like this. These two people began this process and have worked hard to make this day real. Not just in the planning and organizing and ordering, but in the real mental preparation to become a family. The investigation of another person on this level is a delicate matter. Building a life together, truly together, remains one of the great undertakings of contemporary life. Each of you succeeded in finding a partner who makes you happy. That should never be underestimated. Happiness can seem fleeting and fragile, but it is made infinetly more stable when your happiness resides in the person you wake up next to each morning.
(I skipped this part, because I felt it was too informal) In the hundreds of hours of pre-nuptial counseling I did with these two, AKA greasy breakfast and unhealthy tacos by the beach, I learned that they were truly meant for each other. I have watched them function as a team, and like a team they understand that not everyone has the same role. I have also seen them sacrifice for each other in ways which would make other lesser couples look silly. But on these two when they go out of their way to provide for one another, it just comes across as honest and reasonable. Cappy is a different person than Nikki. They are not two boring peas in a boring pod just hanging around, they have drive to accomplish specific individual goals. That drive will allow them to never stagnate.
In the world of improv and Jazz the number one rule is never stop playing and never say no. It is far better to respond, I don’t know how we can make a peeing buffalo but I am happy to help you try, than to live in a world where there are no giant bison scared of people yelling. (Edited this out on the spot, as it felt like I was losing the rhythm)
Trying to define either of these people with one word seems ludicris Nikki is not just a artist. She is one of the most gifted teachers I have ever seen. Cappy is not merely a Tooth Doctor. His thoughtfulness extends to ideas of business and physical exertion. I have struggled to drive up the same hills he has ridden a bike up. They both know how to observe every situation and distill the participants and strengths and weaknesses down into a useful set of pshhhsh……I could have made that!!
The only person I could imagine who could accept unconditionally the unsure life of the artist is Cappy and the person I could imagine who would take a dentist’s practice tools and create sculptures is Nikki.
SO I guess the completely unsurprising result is their marriage. Because it is obvious to everyone here, they are the perfect parents for a French BullDog with a snoring problem.
Unity forever
If anyone can show just cause why these two should not be wed, then you are crazy and should get your head examined, besides no-one is really asking you so there!
(this part got dropped at the last second)
Unity Tree: Explain
Relationships will only grow strong when rooted in a fertile supportive ground, much like trees, they can grow full and powerful, they can produce nourishing fruit, but only when they grow in good soil with deep roots. To illustrate this Nikki’s mother Remy and Cappy’s mother Ellen will each add a new batch of soil to this small tree. This is a Bessie Tree which produces tiny peaches, this tree was grown form a cutting which Ellen started from her Grandmother’s tree, Louise Overmund's tree will continue feeding generations of grandchildren. Nikki and Cappy’s job now is to find some grandchildren.
(Both mothers did an excellent job adding the soil and there were a few laughs as Nikki and Cappy dealt with patting the soil down. Later I sent the tree back on a flat bed trailer covered with hay. I think the tree made it home with them.)
The vows:
I would like everyone here to do more than just witness this wedding. I am placing a task upon you, it will remain your responsibility to watch over this marriage. You as their friends and family must stand behind them, give them strength when they need it. Give them everything they need, and take from them what they give to you. Show them kindness and protection. Guard them from evil and treat sacred what they have created in each other. Please answer this next question together in one voice with one loud “WE DO” Will you the people most important to this couple, watch over them, guide them, and keep them safe…..?
And now Napoleon's big moment. (He spent most of the ceremony staring at the bay showing his hind to the crowd. Remy had tied the rings onto Napoleon's collar so they wouldn't get lost, the knot was impossible for me to undo so I broke the string and held the rings over my head to show the crowd. Then I handed the opposite ring to each person.)
Nikki, look at this man and repeat after me. Cappy I promise it all, I will never quit, I will be your wife today and for every day after. I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. Place the ring on his finger.
Cappy face this woman, and repeat after me. Nikki I choose you to be my wife. I will never quit, I will be your husband today and for every day after. I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. Place the ring on her finger.
Turn and face me. Do you John Carter Sinclair take this woman to be your wife to have and to hold from this day forward? He Did.
Do you Kristin Nicole Leone take this man to be your husband to have and to hold from this day forward? She did.
I pronounce you Husband and Wife.
Cappy, for the first time ever, kiss your wife.
Ladies and gentlemen please rise with me and welcome a very new thing
It is my great honor to introduce to you Dr and Mrs. Sinclair
Presided over by The Reverend Patrick D Melroy
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