Notes
(since the 1980s)
Apr. 15, 2014
Alex Powers
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Art Fields 2014 Competition
Lake City, SC, Apr. 25 - May 4, 2014; $100,000 in prize money
See an on-line gallery of all 400 accepted works (click below)
entries from 12 southeastern states
Click on any thumbnail for a larger view
to return to the thumbnails
scroll down below the artwork to 3 small black squares
click on the middle one with the 9 dots
to go to the next artwork full size, click on the one on the right
http://www.artfieldssc.org/art-gallery/# (Ctrl & click)
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Miscellaneous
o We are all too anxious to find a sacred image on a grilled cheese
sandwich. - Neil deGrasse Tyson
o … gravitational bondage.
o Maltese (Maltese falcon) - refers to the island of Malta, off the coast of
Italy and Sicily.
o I was the first one in my precinct in Richmond, VA to vote for Barry
Goldwater for president… - Alex
o The stodginess and the miss-chosen values of the 1950s were the main
cause for the social experimentation of the 1960s. - Alex
o … data journalist/graph whisperer Nate Silver.
o Is any word more reliably predictive of boredom than "interesting"
when applied to a creative endeavor? - Peter Schjeldahl
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o Dependency on private funding forces an institution into building an
infrastructure that allows it to gain support from foundations.
- renee c. hoogland
o Houston graffiti writer Sean Griffin, aka NEKST, was known across the
country for his huge, legible style. He died mysteriously at 33 years old,
but spent a good portion of his last few years in Detroit.
o In the South, pre-adolescent children are forced through a process
which indoctrinates them in all the dance skills to function in 18th
century Vienna.
o Ah, memory impairment - the free prize at the bottom of every vodka
bottle.
- The Big Bang Theory TV series
o Larry Page, the CEO of Google, asked Charley Rose, for their interview,
to change the conservative round table to something more casual, and
he did. - Alex (paraphrasing)
o I get no respect. Yesterday I saw my son and a milkman going to a
father / son dinner. - Rodney Dangerfield
o … always giving parties to take away the sadness. - The Hours movie
o Instagram is Twitter for people who can't read.
o Faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another
world. - Rosalind Franklin, scientist
o I like bird calls, but they repeat the same call over and over again. So, I
modify my preference to "I like multiply birds' calls". - Alex
o You should wear a double condom, and then wrap it in electrical tape.
o Book club: you're gossiping, not about people, but characters.
- James Atlas
o Don't worry, get Botox. If you can't frown, it may be harder to be
depressed. - Richard A. Friedman
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o Notable Baby Boomers (36, 625 Americans born between 1946 & 1964):
 arts & entertainment =
30 (out of 100)
 sports =
29 (out of 100)
 multiple fields =
16 (out of 100)
 politics =
9 (out of 100)
 science & academics =
3 (out of 100)
 business =
2 (out of 100)
 other =
7 (out of 100)
 religious leaders =
less than 1(out of 100)
 criminals =
less than 1(out of 100)
- suspiciously Wikipedia
o Was there a college nearby? Or cows?
- Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
o Get rid of Gods and Popes and paint what you see around you.
o 2 of my favorite painters are:
 Piero Della Francesca
 Francisco Goya.
- Robert Motherwell
o It takes a team of graphic artists 2 years to complete a film.
o A smooth-talkin' deejay spins the platters that matter. - Spike Lee
o St. Patrick was stoned and beheaded. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
o … a comforting church.
o We are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection.
o When you are on a bus and someone starts talking about how they've
gotten a message from God, do you move nearer to them or farther
away?
o As we evolve, we know less and less about more and more.
- Christopher Hitchens
o The movie The Wolf of Wall Street is about everything that I despise. It
is saying okay to the worst of America. - Alex
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o The movie Inside Llewyn Davis, like most of the Coen Brothers' movies
leaves me 'in-between', which is probably their intention. In-between
may be better than 'I loved it'. They challenge the viewers, which is
usually a good thing. - Alex
o It was the same kind of thing that made you break windows when you
were a kid.
o I've been to one world's fair, a picnic and a rodeo and that's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard. - Dr. Strangelove movie
o All happy families resemble one another. Each unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.
o I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet
assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease
his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
o Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing
himself.
- Leo Tolstoy
o “Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction” will feature mid-20th
century artists who were reinventing portraiture at a time when most
agreed that figuration was dead as a progressive art form:
Chuck Close, Alice Neel, Elaine de Kooning,
Robert Rauschenberg, Beauford Delaney, Alex Katz,
Romare Bearden, Fairfield Porter, Jamie Wyeth and Andy Warhol.
- National Portrait Gallery
o If I had only a few weeks to live, where would I go?
I'd go to New York City with all of its cultural possibilities. - Alex
Where would you go? __________________________
o It was the landscape of things felt rather than thought through.
- Roger Cohen
o The soul is healed by being with children.
o Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.
o It's very pleasant to break something from time to time.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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o When writing a sentence that contains "not to mention", a period should
be placed after the word "mention". - Alex
o Banks = the most highly distilled form and symbol of capitalism.
o Sub-prime bankers had worse personal real estate performances than
the average American.
o One of Smith Barney's top employees was fired for advocating partly
reimbursing clients for losses on high risk products that Smith Barney
sold them.
- Sallie Krawcheck
o Freedom is a largely uninhabited landscape.
o When she's about to do something while with him, she must appear
smaller, more feminine, and thus an object to be protected, not
criticized.
- Hilton Als
o In art, to appropriate means to borrow, recycle, or copy an image for the
purpose of a new creation.
o Appropriation has always been a part of visual culture.
o An appropriation artist wants you to recognize the image being
appropriated.
o Picasso's famous quote: "Good artists borrow. Great artists steal."
o Today, appropriation artists continue to challenge our notions of what is
and what isn't art?
o "Nostalgia" in Greek means the pain from an old wound.
o Achilles, in Greek mythology, was the bravest, handsomest and greatest
warrior of the army of Agamemnon in the Trojan War. One of the nonHomeric tales of his childhood relates that Thetis dipped Achilles in the
waters of the River Styx, by which he became invulnerable, except for
the part of his heel by which she held him—the proverbial “Achilles’
heel”.
o Charles Darwin used the term "Natural Selection".
He never used the term "Survival of the Fittest".
- Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, video
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o The death of God would give man absolute freedom.
- Fredrick Nietzsche
o Nietzsche was the first punk philosopher.
o Anarchism should be called Truism (where the people rule).
o No God. No master. - an Anarchist classic statement
- Noam Chomsky
o Do not use a Q-tip to clean your ears. - my doctor
o What you can measure you can manage. - McKinsey statistical truism
o Something happens to you and you tell someone about it.
Something happens to him and he tells you.
That's how we spend most of our lives.
- Steven Soderberg, movie director
o Paint Nite is the rage in bars across the country. Art painting and
alcohol.
o 126 franchises nationwide.
o In 2 years it has grown to 55,000 people attending 1,100 events per
month.
o 10 cities are being added each month.
o A friendly art instructor takes you step-by-step through the brush
strokes. That is not "discovering your creative side" or "tapping your
inner van Gogh". - Alex
o It's a paint and sip business.
o Paint Nite motto is "drink creativity".
o People don't do a lot with their hands anymore. We're all on screens all
day.
- Kathy Matheson, Associated Press
o Time-Warner cable has a Russian channel, RTTV. One of its programs
stars interviewer Larry King.
o Why did you put me on your spam filter?
Because you sent me pictures of cats with the title This is Funny.
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o Creationists groups demanded air time on Astro-physicist Neil deGrasse
Tyson's new space-science TV series. His reply was "You don't talk
about spherical earth with NASA and then say "Let's give equal time to
the flat-earthers".
o When you look through life's illusions, there is danger.
o The further back we venture, the stranger things get. We don't describe
our skin as scaly for nothing. - Kathryn Shattuck
o It is the uniformly flat-footed and sentimentalism of artist Jacob
Lawrence to which I object most strenuously.
o There are 2 major think tanks in this country for art scholars:
1. Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
2. the Getty Museums, Los Angeles, CA.
- Darby English
o You should never let a work of art get swallowed up in its category.
- Clement Greenberg, art critic
o President W. Bush admitted that the decision to invade Iraq had been
based on intelligence that "turned out to be wrong". - David Remmick
o A comment by Voltaire seems appropriate here:
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill
in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
o Obama lost among white voters in 2012 by a margin greater than any
victor in American history.
o It turns out Marlon Brando had it easy, because, when it comes to
Congress, there is no such thing as an offer they can't refuse.
- David Remmick
o The dot-com business is ideal because there is virtually no overhead
other than labor costs. - C.M. Steel
o Wikipedia is crowd-sourced.
o Woman and woman houseguest looking at paintings: "That's my uncle
Peter - notice how the eyes follow your breasts wherever you go".
New Yorker magazine cartoon
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o In the new movie Noah, the near totality of God's disgust for his
creation remains baffling.
o The movie director of Noah compounds his own myth out of grand
narratives, mashing together creationism, Darwinian evolution, the fall of
man, the end of days and radical environmentalism.
- David Denby
o American Pop Art = Capitalist Realism.
o American Pop Art was very ambivalent about the way consumerism
became the central fruition of everyday life.
- Hilarie M. Sheets
o The Good Andy and the Bad Andy = Andy Warhol and Andrew Wyeth,
respectively. - title of an art professor's lecture
o Andrew Wyeth defined rural America.
David Hockney defined urban America. - Alex
o As he is sharing his world championship ring with her, she says, "How is
it that the ultimate prize in the most macho sport ever invented is a piece
of jewelry?"
by Alex Powers
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The 2014 Whitney Biennial (at the Whitney Museum in Manhattan):
 a strong literary bent including the late novelist David Foster Wallace
 a large chunk of the exhibit resembles an art-school faculty lounge;
the curator's fellow Art Institute teacher Joseph Grigley, a cerebral
text artist and Oxford PhD who was in 2000 Whitney Biennial, is here
 nearly 25% of the 103 artists are primarily known for painting
abstractions
 there is a long-overdue effort to showcase older female artists
 there is an exciting scarcity of big traditional art
 social media
 artists from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)
community
 a hefty chunk of the show will be given over to time-based art:
 sound artists
 dancing
 film.
- Andrew M. Goldstein
o In Barbara Ehrenreich on "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion
of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America", she documents what
she says is the destructive power of the positive thinking movement in
the United States, from breast cancer to the workplace, to the economy,
to politics as a whole.
o Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ drained the spirituality
and understanding from Jesus' last days and replaced them with sadism
and anti-Semitic accusations. - The New Yorker magazine
o For those of you who skip the Baseball Benediction at the bottom of
these Notes:
Fortune mag: Jeter 11th greatest leader in world (New York Yankee
shortstop Derek Jeter).
See the next screen.
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Philip Mullen: “Morning Story”, 1974, pencil & graphite on painted masonite
Although Columbia, SC artist Philip Mullen was working with one of the
most traditional subjects, Mullen was exploring the figure in
contemporary, non-academic terms. His figures while drawn directly
from life, are nevertheless presented in dynamic composition of
simultaneous, multiple perspectives.
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Video
o Stanley Kubrick. The Legacy of 2001 A Space Odyssey
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 21 min.)
 Filmed in 1968.
 The first dialog in Stanley Kubrick's 2001A Space Odyssey is 30
minutes into the film.
 It was a silent movie in the sound era.
 It was more about music than it was dialog:
 The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss.
 Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss (is a book written
by philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche; much more importantly, it is
played as the South Carolina Gamecock football team comes
onto the field…)
 Viewers were convinced they were in outer space by the music and
special effects, not by being told (dialog).
 Director Stanley Kubrick's top 10 movies:
1. 2001 A Space Odyssey
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. Dr. Strangelove
4. The Shining
5. Full Metal Jacket
6. Barry Lyndon
7. Spartacus
8. Paths of Glory
9. Eyes Wide Shut
10. Lolita
It's amazing how different each film is from the others.
o The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci, Part I - Full Film
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 45 min. each)
There are 5 parts.
 He didn't have a last name because he was a bastard child.
 Da Vinci knew that flight depended upon air being forced under
the bird's wing giving it lift. (I can barely believe that's what keeps
airplanes aloft today. - Alex)
 I personally like Leonardo's first sketches better than his finished
drawing, paintings, murals or sculpture. They are so lively and
decisive. - Alex
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 Patience is a protection against insults.
 He looked upon religion with a deep skepticism.
 A day well spent makes for a happy sleep.
o Da Vinci's Demons - Trailer
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 2 min.)
TV series on the Encore movie channel.
It's surely different from anything you have seen. - Alex
o Composer: Meira Warshauer, Columbia, SC
LIVING BREATHING EARTH CD Just Released! (Ctrl & click; 9 min.)
The music is mixed with a wonderful short explanation of how the music
was originated.
Symphony No. 1 Living Breathing Earth
Read all about it!
 Some people hear music in colors. Some in images. Some in
harmonic analysis. Some as passive entertainment. But somehow,
we hear a search for meaning.
- David Lowry, Free Times, Columbia SC
o Neil deGrasse Tyson on Bill Moyers Full Interview HD
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 1hr. 12 min.)
 Science only knows 4% of what is happening in the cosmos.
 Google is a number: 1 followed by 100 zeros, before it became the
name of a corporation.
 Mathematicians should rule the world.
 If you are a hammer, all of your problems look like nails.
 The history of attempts to reconcile faith and reason has been a
failure, so I don't think they can be reconciled. The bible book of
Genesis is scientifically wrong.
 "The cosmos is all there is, or ever will be." - Carl Sagan
 God appears on the outer edge of the last cosmic discovery.
Those discoveries are ongoing pushing God farther away. That
doesn't seem like the correct God in which to believe.
 46% of Americans believe that God created human beings at
one time in the last 10,000 years.
 Human beings evolved over time is believed by:
 Democrats: 67%
 Republicans: 43%.
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 Science and technology strengthen the economy. So Republicans
should know that by trying to force the book of Genesis into the
science classroom is economically bad for them.
 Denial is not just the name of a river in Egypt. - Bill Moyers
 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming is increasing.
- Bill Moyers
(As interesting as he is, there is something about his current Foxchannels TV series, Cosmos, A Space Odyssey, that does not work.
- Alex)
o Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant on the Life and Art of her Father
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 1hr.)
It is a chronology of Richard Diebenkorn's life and paintings. - Alex
 President Obama has a Richard Diebenkorn painting in the White
House.
 Diebenkorn said his daughter became 'dead' when posing.
 3 thoughts when beginning a painting:
1. do search, but in order to find other than what is searched
for
2. mistakes can't be erased but they move you from your
present position
3. chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.
 Physical recreation was not of interest to him.
o Modern Art Documentary - A Complete Guide
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 1hr. 40 min.)
 There are many artists, with each only shown for 2 minutes or so.
 Commentary by Orson Welles
 Stylistic developments:
Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism,
Dada, Surrealism, Pop Art, Conceptualism.
 We are not understood, we are accepted.
- Eugene Delacroix on Modern Art
 We can see more by closing our eyes than by opening them.
- Max Ernst
 "What is art?"
"What isn't?"
- Kurt Schwitters
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o The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Extended Trailer - 6 Minutes [HD]
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com)
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY is James Thurber's classic
story of a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing
into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When
his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, Walter takes
action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an
adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever
imagined.
o Author Lewis Says Wall Street Is `Making America Worse'
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 42 min.)
An interview with writer Michael Lewis and former Solomon Brothers
trader on Wall Street.
 If the government had not bailed out Wall Street firms, the
Wall Street banks all would be out of business.
(And that would have been a good thing. - Alex)
o World's Most Powerful Speech
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 9 min.)
Martin Sheen speech:
 The 3 most important needs for humans are not:
 food
 clothing
 shelter,
as much as it is the need for:
 freedom
 justice
 healing.
 In the entire history of the world every truth started as a
blasphemy.
o Breaking Inequality - Full documentary
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 28 min.)
Breaking Inequality is a documentary film about the corruption
between Washington and Wall Street that has resulted in the largest
inequality gap in the history of America.
It is a film that exposes the truth behind the single event - going off the
gold standard - that occurred back in the early 70's that set us off on this
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perilous journey that we are currently on.
The inequality gap is presently the worst that it has ever been and
there is no solution in place to repair this crippling problem.
No country in the history of the world has ever remained a super
power without a middle class and the road we are currently
traveling doesn't include this all-important segment of the
population. The old saying "As goes the middle class so goes the
nation" holds true even more today than ever.
We live in a world where governments can create as much money as
they want in order to fund all kinds of wasteful projects, wars, handouts,
and banker bailouts. The current system by design has transferred the
wealth from average everyday Americans to an elite few who care not
about the majority.
Breaking Inequality exposes the truth behind the root of the problem
and it provides a solution to help end it.
Our goal is to make enough Americans aware of the current system
that is robbing them of their future, so that we can change the system all
together.
We have to change our destiny or the middle class will cease to exist
in the United States of America.
Middle class and sinking fast.
The financial industry employs 3,000 lobbyists. They have 5 lobbyists
for each member of congress.
o Untouchables on Wall Street
PBS's Frontline
(Copy & paste the above into YouTube.com; 56 min.)
 Government bailouts are criticized as corporate welfare, which
encourages corporate irresponsibility.
 During the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s 1,000 bankers were
convicted, 330 were top executives.
 Commit a big crime, do big time.
 Why is that not true for the 2008 Recession? - Alex
Continue to the next screen.
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Alex Powers watercolor, gouache & charcoal
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Alex Powers gouache (opaque watercolor) & charcoal
Baseball Benediction
o The 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers:
 Dodger Stadium seats around 56,000
 sold 35,000 season tickets
 which is 62% of total seats
 only 7 teams in all of baseball -- aside from the Dodgers -averaged more than 35,000 fans a game (Cardinals, Giants,
Yankees, Rangers, Tigers, Angels and Phillies). The Dodgers did
it with season ticket holders alone.
- CBS Sports
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o Blue Jays starting pitcher R.A. Dickey:
 was one of the subjects of the documentary "Knuckleball" which
was released in 2012
 his autobiography will be made into a Hollywood movie,
Wherever I Wind Up, the memoir about his unusual life journey.
o Fortune mag: Jeter 11th greatest leader in world (New York Yankee
shortstop Derek Jeter).
o During an interview Detroit Tiger 2B Ian Kinstler said an astounding
thing: "I don't want to talk about myself". - Alex
o Relief pitchers tend to rent apartments from month to month.
o From the time a baseball game starts until it is over, managers mean
zero to the game. Their work is done in spring training and before and
after games. Their in-game decisions make a range of 2 wins to 2
losses. - Keith Olberman and Nate Silver
o Student-athlete is an oxymoron. - Karen Crouse
o The Dodgers went 62-28 to finish last season.
o The Kansas City Royals were 67-6 last year when leading by 2 or more
runs at any point from the seventh inning on, according to STATS.
o On April 2 a baseball game was rained out in Oakland, CA for the first
time since 1998.
o Fast running Cincinnati Reds rookie Billy Hamilton's feats of feet.
Minor leagues:
 stole 2B without taking a lead off of 1B
 scored a game-winning run off an infield fly
 made a diving catch in foul territory near the left field warning
track; it would have been a high-light grab for the left fielder;
Hamilton was playing shortstop!
 in 2012 he stole 155 bases.
 Hamilton is 6 ft., 160 lbs.
……………………………………. end …………………………………..
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