A Time In Arcadia

I have a piece in this group exhibition at Curious Matter in conjuction with the 

Jersey City Free Public Library

WE DREAM of Arcadia. Whether it’s called Eden or Shangri-la, we long for a verdant and fecund place where food comes without toil and peace fills our days. Some cultures have taken a more proactive approach to attaining this dream and set aside land to build their own Arcadias. Persian paradise gardens and the Italian Renaissance Mannerist gardens were attempts, by those with the means, to create a place separate from the dreary drudgeries of life. Extravagant fountains and statuary complemented clipped hedges and trellised vines, all surrounded by a wall to protect the sanctuary.

Not all gardens were so grand and ornamental. Medieval monastery gardens could be intimate in scale and cultivated solely for food and medicinals. The plants themselves being the most vital component. For most life on Earth, plants are the base of the food chain. Their importance is nearly absolute. Relying upon the plentiful light of the sun for survival, plants create their own food. Often they produce more than they need at any one time. These stored reserves feed the rest of life on Earth. Roots, stems, leaves, seeds and fruit are all exploited by the diversity of living things to obtain their own nourishment for survival.

To read more, please go to Curious Matter.

THE ARTISTS

CURIOUS MATTER

Lasse Antonsen
Aaron Beebe
Ewelina Bochenska
Arthur Bruso
Robyn Ellenbogen
Stephanie Guillen
Jamie Isaia
Kit Lagreze
Richard Lapham
Ross Bennett Lewis
Joe Lugara
Sabina Magnus
Marianne McCarthy
Julie McHargue
Joan Mellon
Vikki Michalios
Raymond E. Mingst
Robert Mullenix
Samantha Persons
Gilda Pervin
Robert Schatz
Corinne Schulze
Leona Strassberg Steiner
Margaret Withers

THE JERSEY CITY
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Lasse Antonsen
Kristi Arnold
Jessica Baker
Aileen Bassis
Greg Brickey
Eileen Ferara
Jessie Horning
Richard Lapham
Joe Lugara
Sabina Magnus
Anthony Heinz May
Sarah Pfohl
Debra Regh

Lion

Lion:  6 1/2” x 7” x 4 1/2” - oil on canvas, plastic, archival board, steel wire, wood, acrylic paint, glass

Hercules may well be the first lion tamer. His struggle with the Nemean Lion ended with him getting a super powered cloak impervious to weapons, and the vanquished lion becoming immortalized as the constellation Leo. These days the lion act at the circus may consist of an aged cat prodded to jump through a ring of fire, while PETA members protest that lions belong in the wild. PETA may have a point, but lions and humans have been pitted against each other since the gladiators fought them.

Lions are apex predators that bring down prey often larger than themselves. They are designed by nature to be efficient killers with their powerful jaws, long fangs and sharp talons. For a man to beat a lion he must have great prowess in fighting and courage. Throughout history these qualities have been coveted, lauded, and rewarded across civilizations.

The lion is also a sun symbol. Their mane resembles the corona of the sun and their golden color mimics the sun. The sun shines from Leo during the hottest time of the year, late July and early August. August is also the month when the Nile floods. Because of this, the head of a lion is often used as a font on fountains to symbolize the sun and the source of the Nile’s life giving water.

My inspiration for Lion lay with the banner. I have long held a fascination with circus and carnival banners. Their loud colors and sensational imagery would fire my imagination, often in ways that would make it impossible for reality to compete. There was also something horrific and frightening about the subjects they were advertising. Provocative and voyeuristic, they relied on our baser curiosities to capture our attention. As a child, my parents firmly forbade me to enter into the dim and creepy recesses of the sideshow. When I was finally able to quench my long held curiosity, there was crushing disappointment. What was so tantalizingly appealing on the banners was in reality often a fraud, or nearly so. The banner images could set the imagination running, but the reality was a tawdry ruse. This became one of my major life lessons in disillusionment. Was it my fault for expecting something impossible, or was it the fault of the circus for advertising falsely? A little of both I believe, even if Barnum did call the public suckers.

Still, the imagery on the banners stayed with me. On them the lions looked more fierce, regal and frightening then their pallid and toothless real life counterparts. The banner images lived and fostered a world of my own creation where such perfection and magic could exist, where the impossible seemed probable, and however horrible our fears, they were never a danger. -AB

Lion was part of the exhibition, Dangerous Toys

at Curious Matter, October 13 - November 11, 2012

Dangerous Toys

I was selected for participation in the Dangerous Toys exhibition at Curious Matter. Dangerous Toys was curated by SASHA CHAVCHAVADZE.

OCTOBER 13 TO NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.
Step on a nail, put your father in jail.
Step in a hole, break your mother’s sugar bowl.
Step on a line, you break your mother’s spine.
Step in a ditch, your mother’s nose will itch.
–Children’s Rhymes

 

Playing With Matches

I’VE BEEN PLAYING WITH MATCHES FOR YEARS. I make assemblages of multi-colored matches that I display with historical documents and photographs in a “one-room Cold War museum” called the Museum of Matches. When I work with matches I feel a sense of danger and risk, but also the imaginative excitement of a child playing with a toy. The imminent possibility of both creation and destruction is always at hand.

To read more visit Curious Matter.

Artists selected for participation:

Aaron Beebe

Zoe Bellot

Arthur Bruso

Sasha Chavchavadze

Anthony Heinz May

Raymond E. Mingst

Heather Molin

Douglas Newton

Neal Anthony Pitak

Debra Regh

Margaret Roleke

Lance Rutledge

Haunted Hallway

Haunted Hallway

3 photographs, vintage wallpaper, acrylic medium

each image 5" x 7"

Stairs can be dangerous places. My grandfather died from a fall down a flight stairs. While carrying a watermelon up the stairs, the leg brace he wore caught a tread and he lost his balance. My mother some years later fell down the same steps and survived with just two broken arms and a broken leg.  Was it a misstep or was the spirit of my grandfather now haunting those stairs? Ghosts are said to hang around the place of their tragedy, often inadvertently causing further mishaps. Or, perhaps it was some other demon cursing the stairs that was to blame for both disasters. We can only guess. Those stairs were no longer used
after my mother’s accident.

In folklore, the stairs of a house fall within the realm of transitional areas.  While a part of the house, they are not part of the living space. They exist in a twilight place, making them vulnerable points of attack for evil to invade. Like their attendant hallways, they connect rooms, but one does not live on them. Stairs are also full of corners and turns which collect negative energy. Because of this build up of negativity and vulnerability, there are rituals to keep the evil spirits at bay that may be lurking about to trip up an unsuspecting soul. Superstition advises when climbing stairs, that one should always keep ones hand on the railing and the railing should always be made of wood. Wood comes from trees and trees, since the time of the ancient Greeks have been accorded their own deities. The Greeks called the tree spirit by various names: Melia for ash, Epimeilad for apple and Caryatid for walnut, but dryad, which has its literal translation of “oak wood,” has come to represent all trees. Pagans, when collecting fruit, cutting branches, or felling a tree, would ask permission from the resident dryad first. There would often be an offering of thanks left behind. Over time, this ritual devolved to a simple knocking to acknowledge the spirits presence in the wood. We still “knock on wood” to obtain the favor of the resident spirit. This is also why we are to keep our hand on the railing as we walk on the stairs, to implore the dryad to protect us from falling. 

Symbolically, stairs are the path to the higher self, which is why many public building were built with grand stairs up to the entrance. Such a monumental flight of stairs provided both the visual and physical experience of being elevated to the place of mankind’s highest achievements. At the top of the steps, the sojourner is ascendant; somehow greater than before, or they are about to have an experience that will enlighten. Since stairs are an ascension to the higher self there is a superstition that you should not pass people on them. Encountering someone else as you go up stairs is an impediment to your lofty goal. To
negate any negative impact of the encounter, cross your fingers or make the sign of the cross. The cross is an ancient symbol of balance. The two opposing lines restores the equality of energy and the central crossing point binds the object of the spell. This is also why it is believed that tying a knot in a string can bind a magic spell. The knot is a form of the cross. Crossing your fingers has the same effect – the binding of positive energy. Similarly, in Catholic ceremonial practice, the act of crossing oneself is an act of consecration. The movement, in the form of the cross of Calvary, is a supplication to bind a blessing and thwart whatever evil may be present.

Haunted Hallway is informed by these concepts of folklore, superstition, ascension and transition. The confusing space, peeling walls, unnatural lighting and the addition of shards of wallpaper from the site lend an eerie quality to the images. There is something that emanates from objects that have history. An anima perhaps. This hallway in a 19th century building is purported to be haunted. By incorporating pieces of the ancient wallpaper onto the images of this space, it is my hope that the residual energy of age, or of the possible presence, are now a part of the piece.

As you make your climb, hold onto the railing and tread your steps carefully. The dim and steep stairs of life have many a bogie which has been enjoined to keep us from reaching the top. If we know the secrets, we can ascend these dark places with protection. - AB


Haunted Hallway was exhibited in The Fool's Journey at Curious Matter.

The Fool's Journey

I participated in this exhibition at Curious Matter.

APRIL 1, 2012 – MAY 20, 2012
AT CURIOUS MATTER

APRIL 14 – JULY 1, 2012
AT PROTEUS GOWANUS

The Fool’s Journey is a collaboration between Curious Matter in Jersey City, NJ and Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition will be presented in two parts concurrently at Curious Matter and Proteus Gowanus. The exhibition is a complement to the yearlong, multi-disciplinary inquiry hosted by Proteus Gowanus on the theme of Migration and will be exhibited in parallel to its Future Migration show, exploring where we may end up as we embark into the future.

. 

“Every voyage is a journey…. who knows/if the old men/who shine shoes on the Staten Island Ferry/carry their world in a box slung across their shoulders/if they share their lunch/with birds/flying back and forth/upon an endless journey/if they ever find their way/back home.”

Audre Lorde, excerpt from “A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry”

The Fool’s Journey

And so we begin…

THE MOST COURAGEOUS PART of any undertaking is always the beginning. Making the difficult decision to begin pushes aside the doubts and fears of what may lie ahead and calms the expectation of failure. This energy of beginning is the Fool who sets out into an unknown to discover whatever he may find. In the tarot, the Fool is represented by the numeral 0: nothing, emptiness, void. The fool is a blank slate without knowledge, an acolyte who is seeking. He starts out penniless and ragged, carrying all of his meager possessions with him; a young man, just leaving home to make his way in the world. He is a naïf full of dreams, willing to let the Universe show him the way.

Read more at Curious Matter

I was proud to be included with the following artists:

Curious Matter

Lasse Antonsen
Arthur Bruso
Elaine Su-Hui Chew
Travis Childers
Clair Chinnery
Brian Edgerton
Peter H. Everett
Mustafa Faruki
Laura F. Gibellini
Tom Hollenback
Cat Jensen
Matthew Jensen
Charles Printz Kopelson
Ross Bennett Lewis
Marianne McCarthy
Raymond E. Mingst
Alex Nathanson
Gilda Pervin
Ari Richter
Dave Rittinger
Roger Sayre
Garric Simonsen
Claire Watson
Ellen Wiener
Sasha Zhitneva

PROTEUS GOWANUS

Fanny Allié
Lasse Antonsen
Louise Barry
Angela S. Beallor
Joseph Cavalieri
Gail Goldsmith
Ian Addison Hall
Joe Lugara
Marianne McCarthy
Anatoli Savov Monov
R. Wayne Parsons
Sarah G. Sharp
Melissa A. Stern
Claire Watson
Katarina Wong

A Narrow World

A Narrow World is my latest book of photographic images. There are two essays to accompany the images. The first is:

A Narrow World

Tall and decorous, the house where I grew into adulthood stands iconic in my mind and my artistic output. It has become a symbol of home, family and a reconstructed past that hopelessly intertwines the truth and fiction of how things were and how I wanted them to be. A Narrow World, is a collection of photographs which explore the garden space of my childhood home at 56 Elm Street. I spent a lot of time in the Elm Street garden, initially as a place of play and elementary exploration with my brother Michael. We would devise ever more imaginative and impossible deaths for our toy soldiers throughout the garden and we had an insatiable desire to see what monsters and mysteries lurked in the darkness beneath its rocks. We were allowed to experiment with rudimentary gardening, each getting a package of seeds to plant. The successes of pole beans and zinnias encouraged further youthful experiments and offered me a sense of the earth’s cycles. I was a curious child; always inspired to learn something new or try something I had read about. I was only temporarily disappointed by failure and encouraged by success.  The garden became one of the first projects where I tried to impose my vision upon something and as such became vital soil for the nurturing of my art education. ...


The remainder of the essay can be found in the book.

A NARROW WORLD - No. 8 - Three Structure for Capturing Light

3 color photographs, each 5" x 7"

A NARROW WORLD - No. 2 - Migration

 color photographs, 5" x 7"

A NARROW WORLD - No. 13 - What Keep Us Separate

2 color photographs, each 5" x 7"

A NARROW WORLD - No. 17 - Abandoned Room

 color photographs, 5" x 7"

The second essay is titled:

The Second New York Trip

I was bored with school by third grade. Every subject was too easy. While the class was working through our assigned primer at three pages a day, I had skipped ahead and read the entire book. I even mastered drawing 8’s, which had nearly kept me back in the second grade. Mrs. Maloney knew all of this. She knew just how her students were doing and what they were capable of.  Mrs. Maloney believed I had potential, which is why she had me tested for gifted classes. I wasn’t so sure. I hated tests. You had to remember things, which I didn’t do well. Knowing things was different.  You didn’t have to know something exactly for it to be right, but remembering things had to be exact. ...

The remainder of the essay can be found in the book.

THE SECOND NEW YORK TRIP - No. 1 - Crowd Control
3 color photographs, each 5" x 7"

THE SECOND NEW YORK TRIP - No. 3 - City Triton

color photographs, 5" x 7"

THE SECOND NEW YORK TRIP - No. 6 - Cloud Piercing

2 photographs, 7" x 14" overall

A NARROW WORLD book can be purchased from Amazon or from Curious Matter.

Selene

Selene

  9 1/2” x 8 1/2” x 4” - porcelain, gold plated copper, plastic, stainless steel, glass beads, 

air drying clay, archival mat board, steel wire, wood, acrylic paint, glass

The Greeks found Endymion in Turkey.  The Anatolian Turks worshiped a masculine moon god they called Men.  Men was a chthonian deity, spending his days in the Underworld, while at night he would rise to cross the black sky, causing terror and madness among the people. Endymion was a shepherd who spent a lot of time studying Men, as the god transformed fromå a horned demon to a round faced guide. Endymion was especially curious where Men went during the day and on those three nights a month åwhen he was absent from the sky when the perils of the night were at their most dangerous.

The ancient Greeks had heard the Anatolian stories about Men and Endymion from their trading and travels, but for them, the moon was the goddess Selene. Her waxing and waning nature was associated with the monthly cycles of mortal women.  When they retold the story of  Endymion, his interest in the moon became a mortal man’s infatuation with a beautiful goddess.  Selene took notice of the young shepherd’s ardor and finding him handsome and strong, fell in love.  She began spending a lot of time with the young Endymion. So much time in fact, that the other gods noticed she was often late or absent from her lunar duties. Finally, Selene’s erratic execution of her job became so severe that Zeus, chief among the gods, had to find out what was the problem.  Selene confessed to her dalliance with Endymion.  Zeus, in his wisdom, lay the blame on Endymion, since the moon cannot be faulted for her very nature and sentenced the young shepherd to death for interfering in the workings of the universe.  But Selene’s pleading and grief was so great that Zeus relented and offered an alternative; Endymion could live, but he would sleep forever.  Endymion sleeps in his cave high atop Mt. Latmus, eternally young, while bright faced Selene watches over him from her place in the heavens – and she still steals away now and then to lie with and tend to her love.

The ancient Greeks noticed a marked difference between the behavior of the sun and the moon. Both rode across the arc of the heavens, but Helios (the sun) brought day to the earth with regularity and stoic consistency. His sister Selene seemed flighty and inconsistent. It was clear that she was supposed to ride her silver, bull drawn chariot across the night sky as Helios drove his golden, horse drawn chariot during the day, but Selene did not show the regularity that Helios did.  She was often late to her post. Sometimes she hadn’t completed her crossing when Helios began his. She would be absent for days, leaving the night sky black and then only gradually return to her work.  What was it that kept the moon from being as reliable as the sun the people wondered? There had to be something or someone that was distracting her from her heavenly tasks. Since the ancient Greeks envisioned their gods as immortal and supernatural beings with human traits, they knew that when a single woman was dreamy and not concentrating on her chores, there was usually a man involved. So it was with Selene.  Endymion (he who dives in) becomes her lover and that state of physical presence but mental absence will forever be called moonstruck.

As man became more sophisticated in the study of astronomy, the orbit of the moon became understood as a constant. We can calculate the moons position with accuracy, determine the exact dates of the phases and predict to the second when there will be an eclipse. But with the knowledge that the moon is a lifeless rock with a predictable orbit, so goes her reckless personality as Selene, the goddess whose shining face brought Endymion to his eternal rest. 

Selene was part of the exhibition, Dividing Light Measuring Darkness 

at Curious Matter, October 1 - November 6, 2011