I saw her laugh

Many years ago. A tall awkward looking girl staggered through the campus with her two friends. They were drunk. She saw me and gave me a kiss. Asked me to call her the next day. And not to forget her. I did not call her. But I never forgot her.

And The Meaning Of The Word Was Lost On The Fire

We need a God. All the great works of art. War – the conquest of one group over another. The sacrifices.  The accumulation of wealth. Valor. Honour. The pledges of love. The waste. Time lost. For everything. If our civilization disappears. As it will. Like so many before it. And everything returns to dust.  We need to feel that someone noticed we were here.

Down on the farm under the apple tree

My grandfather had a farm on Prince Edward Island. It lay in the folds of a small valley. (There are no hills on the island.) There were four girls in my mother’s family with similar laughs. Their laughter was contagious. When one would laugh the other three would join in. Their laughter echoed throughout the vale. It was like music.

Our Lady of Fire

I created this piece under the influence of Leonard Cohen. He had written a song called Joan of Arc and I was struck by a line about Joan – ‘If he was fire, then she must be wood.” Cohen is a riveting character.

Perhaps I should change my name…

Its very odd to share a name with other artists. There is of course the famous French rock’n'roller David Halliday, son of the famous rock’n'roller Johnny Halliday. There is a physicist who goes by my name. I got a check for him in the mail. I thought about cashing it. It was an oddly conflicting moral dilemna. I returned the check. And then there is a photographer whose work appears here.  And it is beautiful work. But it isn’t mine. I’m thinking of changing my name. How does Napoleon sound?

The World of Apostolos

There is a sight I have discovered that creates collages that blew me away. Its a Dutch sight. The artist’s name is Apostolos Panagopoulos, a Greek who immigrated to the Netherlands. I haven’t investigated the sight totally but I shall go back. The collages seemed to have been created in layers of plate glass windows. That is the illusion. Its difficult to explain unless you visit it yourself. The World of Apostolos.You will notice that many have ancient references. But they are mixed with a modern context. There are also movies created to go along with the collages. The films are mostly of a surreal nature. Anyway, take some time. Have fun.

The Lonesome Thoughts of Bob Dylan…

When I was in college at the University of Windsor a friend of mine invited me to a party in Detroit. I declined. I’d had problems crossing the border. They thought I was a slug. My hair was too long. Or I was the wrong sex. He went. There was a bunch of people in the room. Smoking dope. Listening to loud music. Eating blocks of ice cream. One of the guests was Bob Dylan. He sat in the corner. Talking to no one. His head bowed. Lost in some thought. My friend said Dylan was like that all evening. And I couldn’t lose the impression of Dylan in a world by himself. His mind, drifting.

Line as Abstraction #2

Abstraction. What an odd concept. Why did it become the obsession of the 20th century? In music. Painting of course. In poetry (Andre Breton)  and the surrealists). I suppose Kandinsky represents this urge to move from the canvas to the soul of the observer while avoiding or leap frogging over reality. Kandinsky is the one painter who has fused music and the visual. (I saw an episode on House where a patient suffered from an affliction where he saw music. In my old bad days I recall a number of trips on acid where I saw music. It looked like paisley as I recall. Rather tacky when you think about it. )A close friend of mine, Ed Kuris, has spent a life time painting the inside of his soul. Although he has not abandoned the figure, the abstract lives inside it. The abstract is the soul. And isn’t this what nature looks like when you examine it closely. A leaf, a snowflake, your skin.

Landscape As An Abstraction #1 and Mondrian

I really don’t like Mondrian’s work. But I see it everywhere. It is civilization. And if one were an alien approaching the planet one of the signs of sentient life would be patterns in the landscape. Apparently the Great Wall of China can be seen from the moon. As one draws closer one sees the lines of highways, fields of crops, hydro lines, airport runways. Everything is so neat and orderly. The order reminds me of Mondrian’s work and his neurotic obsession with line and rectangles, neatness, simplicity, flatness. And yet as you draw closer things change. You see crowds of people but still inside boxes, lines (cars, trains, airplanes). It is only as you draw close to actual human beings that things get messier, more dangerous.

The Private Thoughts of Lonely Girls

Puberty is a terrible time for everyone. There are people who suggest that high school was the best time of their lives. They are either liars or morons. I did meet a girl once who felt as if she had her best time in high school. She was a cheerleader, the girlfriend of the quarterback of the football team. She was pretty… no she was cute. But when she got to college she found all these things meant little. Cute became stale. Ideas became… interesting.  In high school I am sure that I was invisible to her.  Ironically we were both red heads. Red  heads are either interestingly ugly or gorgeous. I was not gorgeous. In college there was a whole new standard for who was cool (what a terrible criteria). To be brief she asked me out. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. I hesitated… And everything sort of hung there for eternity. She went on with the rest of her life (I’m not sure what became of  her) and I went on with my life (I’m not sure what became of me).  And yet, what if I had responded?