Tapping Your Inner Rothko
1 hour ago
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F O R E W A R D
On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or originalor both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an intro-duction to this book.At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far fromoriginal; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, byquoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz."Would you hit a woman with a child?--No, I'd hit her with a brick."Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precisionwhich creates movement.If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made mattervery little--somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions,the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interestin making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I shouldprefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses.It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Springelectricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and NiagaraFalls) that my "poems" are competing.They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and withEl Greco.Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one pricelessadvantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with themerely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in apurely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, uponthe title page of the present volume).
E.E. CUMMINGS

The Ellenville Public Library's monthly book discussion for July was on Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I read the book and partook in the discussion which was held on July 22.
This installation is based on the experience of reading the book and listening the reactions to it during the book discussion.
Water for Elephants traces a moment in the lives of folks living and working on an itinerant circus crew during the Great Depression.
What became clear to me during the discussion, was that the book unwittingly tapped into the trend in which financial analysts and commentators in the news have frequently compared the current economic and fiscal situation to the the crisis of the Great Depression.These comparisons have abated somewhat since earlier in the year, but it illustrates the importance of memory and history in contextualizing our current state of being.
This piece deals with those analogies of economic hardship, using a mixture of signals from the book and my own use of pattern and repetition which carries, for me, significance to familiar human activity and the flow and altering power of the passage of time.
The topical backdrop of the book is further made current by the very nature of the 10x10x10 exhibit which specifically announces the economic reality of vacant storefronts around Ellenville, and one strategy - that of utilizing the currency of an art industry - to revitalize, reinvent, or simply enhance the economic and cultural landscape of a locale.
Like Ellenville, there are thousands of towns and cities that have set the table to entice fortune to drop in for dinner.
I tend to produce a lot of 

Jenny's Lights, Out (ruby/amber, ruby/jade) oil on cardboard 14"x23"
Missive #1 collage on photo 4"x6"