hello again. yes, this print of the month program is about two months behind schedule. and for those of you who have been anxiously and patiently awaiting: sorry about that. as a buddy said to me in an email the other day, "life can get... lifey." and then it all gets away from you and then you reel it all back in. but here's the new one.
THE PERSONAL PYRAMID AND THE NEW SPHINX
i read in a book recently ("The Shape Of Content" by Ben Shahn) which said that people make art as a way to cheat death, that part of them will live on afterward they are released from this life. But what ends up happening is that they just end up leaving a bunch of crap behind. Ancient egyptian pharoahs and such, they planned on taking it all with them: jewels, animals, slaves, pets,etc. i'm not quite sure what to make of all this. can you cheat death? do you really want to? is this really something we're supposed to be worrying about right now? maybe we should do our best to make our own monuments to joy and personal experience. maybe we should honor things while they are here to be appreciated. maybe we should embrace the temporary nature of all things.
another thing mr. shahn talked about (they were transcriptions of lectures, so he really was talking) was how the specific reveals the general. like it takes revealing a detail to make the whole visible. for me, i've been riding my skateboard a lot again. it was such a huge part of my life as a kid and i've been rediscovering the act in a different way lately. cruising the sidewalks, falling on concrete, and feeling old feelings that i forgot about: physical and mental, you know. so i guess in a way this is a very specific image about a very specific idea, to me, but to somebody else it's anything.
another thing ben talked about was his confusion at being asked to talk about his artwork. what could he say that could not better be expressed visually? is that a cop out? i don't think so. i just think there are different languages out there, and we don't always have to be so clear about everything. i would someday like to be fluent in these languages.
BONUS
so this also comes with a bonus. it comes with a cd-r of unreleased music by my good friend Daniel Saxon Judd aka Sorcerer. Dan has this great shirt that says "EGYPT" with a picture of a pharoah on it that got me thinking about pyramids and sphinx in the first place. Dan just had his debut album come out in england on Tirk records, "White Magic." it's an amazing slice of summer beach cat cosmic jammers, and he has been so kind as to let me use a handful (5) of tunes not on his album for this project. five slow burners that will make the summer an un-bummer. tropical cream. silkscreened sleeves, spray-painted discs.
-limited edition of 40, signed and numbered silkscreen 18 x 24 inches. cd-r is 5 x 5 or something like that. you get both.
-$25 each (paypal me at nb_russell (at) hotmail.com
-questions?: crookedarm (at) gmail.com
-print of the month #5... only one more to go. and you subscribers get the extra bonus, don't forget.
-feel free to pass this on to whoever you think might be into it
-thanks so much for taking the time
maybe check these out, as i have found them very inspirational in the past few weeks:
-Disposable by Sean Cliver
-The Shape Of Content by Ben Shahn
-Times New Viking Present The Paisley Underground
-ANP blog
