i'd rather be a whisper in heaven than a god in your cage

The Shock of the New

-Henri Matisse's "Spanish Still Life"

Nowhere in Matisse's work does one feel a trace of the alienation and conflict which modernism, the mirror of our century, has so often reflected. His paintings are the equivalent to that ideal place, scaled away from the assaults and erosions of history, that Baudelaire imagined in his poem L'Invitation al Voyage:

Furniture gleaming with the sheen of years would grace our bedroom; the rarest flowers, mingling their odours with vague whiffs of amber, the painted ceilings, the fathomless mirrors, the splendour of the East ... all of that would speak, in secret, to our souls, in its gentle language. There, everything is order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure.

- From "The Shock of the New," Robert Hughes

Ornamental patterns and details create a reality that more closely mirrors dreams. Escape is wrought in the existence of other-worldly creations. To don feathers as an exotic bird or adorn the self in hues reserved for the sky alone is luxury explicit.

From the Spring 2010 collections:

 Dries Van Noten - The use of mixed patterns in DVN's collection is fresh and invigorating. The modern approach to silhouette heightens the effect; the look is neither explicitly formal nor informal. DVN is a perennial favorite of mine.               

                      Jason Wu -  Here the use of feathers creates a devastatingly feminine look that is romantic, soft and appealing. It could have worked as well in the 20s or 80s as it does now.  

         Ports 1961 -  I love the Japanese influences here, with the kimono top and use of silk. The pallete is very modern, nearly monochromatic with the exception of a pop of red at the toe and on the eye. Again, the use of an unexpected pattern--this time tye-dye-- keeps the look interesting and new.        

Salvaged

Beachthieves

Waves policed the sand to call

me criminal. I played their game: stole

shells for my table, climbed the stones

with loot. Weed hands obliged. Salt

stung my knuckles pink with guilt

but laws like moon and slant prevailed.

One bird above me, shell in hand

(no shell I'd mount for smiles, yet,

loaded as it was with ooze and meat,

a famous jewel), circled in raid,

his wing acknowledging I'd run

from tailing tides in tribute to his greed.

These to him were crucial:

aim and height, hard target, his corkscrew fall

to where the take lay broken for his meal.

No sound of water fought my social

claim: a dipping wing when he, black

felon, aimless dropped his felony on rock.

                                                                                                 -Richard Hugo

view through a grain of sand

the English "to be" comes from the Sanskrit bhu, meaning "to grow, or to make grow."

'am' and 'is' have evolved from the same root as the Sanskrit asmi, meaning "to breathe"

Compton

William Morris (1834-1896) was a dynamic figure in the field of decorative arts in Victorian England (as well as a writer and early proponent of Socialism). He created this wallpaper design, called "Compton," named for the client's house in which it would appear.

It perfectly mirrors Morris' dictum, that "ornamental pattern work...must possess three qualities: beauty, imagination, and order." Not unlike HP's tees.

Presence

HPC is my obsession du jour. It's an amazing thing to see a friend of yours, who once shared time with you at the end of a cafeteria table, manning the helm of fashion line. About a month ago Hamilton, his cousin Rielly Brooke and I met up at Union Square, basically to catch up. Reilly is an actress and all around fantastic girl (you may recognize her from a national JC Penny ad campaign, or in any number of upcoming feature films), and like his cousin, Hamilton is determined to make his artistic endeavor a success. Judging by the solidity of his first collection, Past Present Future, I'd say he's on his way. While spending time with the collection, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to HP's use of color and pattern. From this point on, I'll be posting works of art that in some way remind me of Past Present Future.

PastPresentFuture

My good friend has launched an eponymous clothing line called Hamilton Perkins Collection. It's a simple and fresh approach to urban streetwear: the Summer 09 collection is bursting with colorful printed tees, a covetable leather duffel bag, and a handkerchief I'm dying to get a hold of.

sonic illustration

I found this great illustration of Sonic Youth by artist Lauren Minco. Since the show at B.A.M. I've become borderline obsessed with the band.

Number Two (नम्बर तवो)

An experiment won't have a reliable outcome if the variables aren't stable: I haven't written in ages, and since I made such a fuss about Vonnegut in the last post I'm also doing a poor job honoring the man with all these colons (a punctuation mark he's said to have loathed). Alas, I'll get to the point with a marching band outside of my window, whistles marking the beats. The other night I went to a modern dance performance called Nearly Ninety at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or B.A.M., my first since moving to New York two months ago. In fact, it was the first modern dance I've attended at all, and judging by the New York Times' review, a very good one to start with (the author calls the choreographer Merce Cunningham "the greatest living artist since the death of Samuel Beckett 20 years ago"). Atop what looked like an architectural egg, Sonic Youth(!), Japanese violinist Takehisa Kosugi, and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones (!) plucked guitar strings, shook paperclips and distorted sounds while dancers in two, threes, and fours moved about the stage in precise chaos. I spent most of the performance trying to construct a story: modern humans are suffocated by the industrial nature of the present. The organic realm withers, slowly, until we see that man is actually evolving. Like ivy covering a two story highway barrier, the automatic will to live succeeds, supplanting past restrictions and notions that we are a staid species. I may be projecting my own beliefs upon an abstract creation, but I feel strongly, either way, of our ability to adapt. Beyond physical evolution, of course, I believe it is our responsibility to sustain relationships with the earth and each other that bolster mental and physical happiness.

• on a side note I am reading the most amazing thing I've come across in my life. Actually it was a gift from my father, a book called Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg. It dwells heavily upon metta, the Pali (Buddhist) word for loving kindness. The books holds all sorts of loveliness, including the importance of mental and physical happiness, freedom from danger and ease of well-being. I would suggest everyone read this book.

Number One.

Resistance has delayed my arrival into this universe, the blogosphere. But I came across a quote of Kurt Vonnegut's and caved: "I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex. " This blog claims little novelistic resemblance; Vonnegut's quote is simply one that brought about a personal microscopic epiphany. To ignore the existence and accessibility of the net is to refuse a now vital part of our modern culture.

Originally I thought I'd call this experiment Vonnegut Peripherals, in a nod to Mr. V's cosmic other-worldliness. Here, another of his quotes: "I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." I hope this too will exist on a plane outside of the mainstream, regardless of its address. As he loved outlines, so too do I. Here, among the ever evolving variables are some constants I hope to rediscover:

• 
  
  found art [and hidden masterpieces]
• 
  
  poetry, stories, obscurities
• 
  
  ironies
• 
  
  etc., i.e., ...