Art Week #4

Photograph by Hannah Glass.

Found here.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things; of shoes and ships and sealing wax-- of cabbages and kings-- and why the sea is boiling hot and weather pigs have wings."

. . . 

Today, I have completed 14/15 pages of my final paper and am very happy with my focus and progress. Unfortunately, that means that art took a back seat. I planned for this.

Fortunately, though, today has given me another good sign of progress. In looking for a nice images of the sirens, I came across a very random blog called "Rambles from my Chair". Among all of the things to find, there was this quote at the top of his page, which you also found at the top of this entry. You don't have to have read the book to recognize Lewis Carroll. The cosmic relevance struck me.

If I take this as a sign, which I do, it seems that I am on the right path with my Alice Tree project. 

Take my time from time not wasted. 

Though I have not been able make art with a pen, I did manage to contribute to a little poetry that came together in response to the Facebook status of another hippy friend of mine. 

"We don't eat

We don't sleep--

Feels like dreaming--

Without the feeling?

Exactly that, that was rather perfect--

And even so, my head's still reeling"

24 juillet 2011

alex rosene, araf hossain, rossi walter

The triage of voices here brought to mind another fantastical image I have always been fond of: the Sirens of Greek mythology. Illustrator BreeAnn Veenstra did a marvelous rendition:

"The Sirens' Lure" by BreeAnn Veenstra

Survey her other work here.

That seems to be it for this week but I am not complaining. Academic progress in the foreground and a cooking plot for poor Alice in the background. Perhaps I can say I am using the whole of my brain. That would be magnificent. Either way, we all know what the Duchess would say.

"take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves,"
rossi

His First Gay Experience

16 juillet 2011

. . . 

Last week, after many students flew up to Paris to celebrate Bastille weekend, one of my good companions here in the summer program, originally from Bahrain, and I made plans to go to Nice to watch Woody Allen's Minuit à Paris. Though we made it to Nice and arrived at the Place de Garibaldi, our chill plan for  movie was derailed by...  a gay pride march. (How nice.)

After wandering in and out of the crowd teeming with smiling faces, rainbow details, and glistening drag queens, a young man with a gentle Australian accent introduced himself to us, admitting that he was want for company and was attracted to my shirt. His name is James Welsby and he is a dancer in Australia, currently traveling Europe on a grant awarded to him for his work. Having spent a spontaneous day with him and my friend, and then another night dancing and sitting by the sea in Menton, I can say with some certainty that we are fond of each other. Much to my displeasure, he could not stay longer, for he had to attend to some circus business in London. I gave him some vanilla tea and a red candle with which he could settle himself his first night there.

So this afternoon I finally emailed a handful of photos to my  Bahraini friend. This was his first gay pride/parade/march/rally/demonstration experience, which was a surprise to me but a very good one. I attached a little quip to the photos, to which he responded. His response touched me very much, prompting me to respond to him dearly and share my perspective on the meaning of "the pride parade".

. . . 

I.

"Remember this fondly and be ye not afraid to support equal rights with a little flare.

live on, "

II.

"Merci beaucoup cher Rossi...

Didn't I support equal rights with indeed a lot of flare?

Honestly, I was hesitant at the beginning (not because I'm against equal rights, but because I felt that I'm not concerned about this issue), but now that I have gay friends I feel concerned and engaged somehow.

However, do you feel a parade is a way to gain equal rights? I feel it's just a celebration... but if you want to get more rights, then you should convince us (politicians and diplomats :p).

Thanks a lot again for the photos, "

III.

"Dearest ,

You are right. Indeed you did celebrate equal rights with the flare that is contagious to the crowd. Well done.

I can sympathize to the feeling of being unconcerned or untouched. I often feel the same way when I am confronted with the decision to be active or passive or indifferent about gay rights issues. Though I have many gay friends and myself identify as gay, I feel that some key issues of gay rights do not yet apply to me (legal rights) and that the issues that do apply to me I espouse personally, in my daily life and interactions (criticizing intolerance, promoting person-to-person understanding).

A parade is not the way to gain equal rights. A parade is merely a legal and public display of the community support for gay/equal rights. You are correct to say that it is a celebration. Rather than a protest, the LGBTQS (lesbian gay bisexual trans queer straight) community, I feel, prefers to make a jovial spectacle, which in my experience is often well received and very engaging for more active activists, individuals, and families alike. Note the child sucking on a pacifier while sitting on his dad's shoulders in the attached photo.

The eccentric display is to demonstrate the overwhelming support for equal rights, which necessarily includes homosexuals and homosexual couples (e.g. our sign "homoparentalité: vite un statut"). As you saw, these demonstrations often include other pertinent messages advocating health and safety like "sortez-couvert" (funny how Yasmina mentioned that yesterday morning).

I am very glad that I was able to be with you for your first gay parade/rally/protest/demonstration/experience. I hope that with and without me you will continue to support them, even if it is walking in silence with the crowd. Your presence is as important as that of the loudest, most garishly dressed drag queen.

all my care and good luck with your paper,"

conversation is key,

rossi

"GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE BAD NEWS"

"The Moon & Antarctica" Modest Mouse

. . .

Today is the third of my six-day work week machining out words that best articulate my final idea(s) after two months of studying the histories of colonialism before unknown to me, Mediterranean and European authors of whom I had never heard of, and the implications and relevance of it all. I am doing well: 8 of 12-15 pages. 

To get me through the hour-to-hour days in my room, I listen to hours-and-hours of music. My iTunes search history includes one word filters: radio, mountain, weed, marijuana. Today, I started my day with a mostly-naked post-shower sit in the sun behind the villa. The dried, beige and red pockets of dead weeds made the little courtyard glow with age. Now, five hours later, I am sitting at my desk listening to "Life like Weeds". Thanks Modest Mouse.

So, I was going to share a budding conversation with a good companion of mine here in the program, but that necessarily takes a back seat (the next entry). In looking for the pleasant album art that you see at the top of this entry, I found (1) each cover on two different blogs.  

"Styrofoam Boots" (since 2009) and "It's Just So Overrated" (sassy, but true since March 2011) both go into impressive and, in the case of Styrofoam Boots, impressively personal detail about what there is to gain from Moon & Antarctica. As such, summarizing would be ridiculous. Check them out for yourself:

Styrofoam Boots   :   It's Just So Overrated

artists sharing artists,

rossi

UNDERSCORES
(1)  Reader: cease automatically clicking "Full-size image". Develop a curiosity for where the image is coming from; this is the Internet and cool things are out there in the wild.

"Gratitude; King Midas"

I. Reflection

"my days are amazing experiences
my friends are unique and timeless
my outlook is rich and positive
and my fingertips are covered in the richest paint;
as to all of this together,
that which makes up my conscious reality,
I bow humbly
in deepest gratitude."


II. Observation

"to be King Midas without the flaw,
touching lives and turning them to gold,
you truly do enrich us all"


19 juillet 2011


composed by rossi lamont walter and mathew maale


within 22hours of its posting,
this status received over 20 'likes' on my Facebook:
it seems that people enjoy being reminded
of something... but what?


where do you turn your life to gold?
rossi

Three Videos

Here are three videos to watch before bed. All of them contain dancing. One of them contains many smiles.

"Showreel" by James Welsby

"Window in the Skies" by U2

"Story of Bess" by Rossi Lamont Walter

How's that for an injection of creativity. You've seen what others can do, so do it too.

do it to it,

rossi

Art Week #3

"The Cursed Circus"

More photographs of this unique dance troupe here.

. . . 

I am listening to "Bilar" by Ratatat. The feel of this song goes something like how I would imagine walking through a dense metal yard stacked high with shadowed figures with sharp edges during deep sunset while tripping on some psychedelic. Or, just as fair, something like this. 

This week was another week of slow progress, but progress was made nonetheless. I have brought together my varying intimacies with poetry, art, and photography (geez) into five distinct "projects". One of these projects gained a new entry this week, with a poem I wrote entitled,

I sat by the sea

—Then I threw my body in

To let loose of it, be through it with

Voilà! C’est la fin.

For today, the sea was crashing

A mad thrash into the rocks

. . . 

14 juillet

In fact, that is not the end. The poem is only a bit longer. One day I'll share the rest. Here is where I sat.

Recall my obsession with all things Alice in Wonderland. Well, during a gay pride/rights march in Nice yesterday, a pleasant reassurance fell into my lap... 

I took this as a sign, if anything. So in good taste and due to my unlimited enthusiasm for Lewis Carroll's brain child, I have mentally dedicated most of my effort to a project that I started this past winter, one that concerns solely my poor Alice. It is titled The Alice Tree, for now, after the drawing I posted. Poor Alice, helplessly subjected to the tossing and trembling of my imagination... 

Last week I said I would fill 18 boxes. I filled 12, which suffices. 

This week, I enlarged two of the mini-sketches. 

Detail: the letter on each door. can you find the hidden detail in the bottom sketch?
hint: "You would find me in the Cursed Circus."

Explanation: this is "Mist/La Brume" and her distress, to which poor Alice has befallen. 

Can you see what is happening in the first sketch? 

Next week will see progress with Mlle. Haze and her own trickery. 

I really, really need to start practicing with paints and evaporate these ideas onto canvas. These sketches can't stay in ink on paper forever. I guess the saying is true: you can't have mist without heat. Meanwhile, I should get my hands on a pretty, hardback copy of Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Surprises, surprises, I have yet to read either one.

come fall, pedal to the metal, don't let the dust settle,

rossi

Art Week #2

. . . 

I'm late.
But that's not too important.
Granted, it is only two hours past midnight, so I very much am still in the fingerlaces of Sunday's night.
For all intents and purposes--and intended purposes--I am quite on time.
Sublime.

As far as my art is concerned, this week was slow getting started due to a lot of work. I've never read so much Franco-Algerian history in my life. (Never read any before, actually. Is this a problem with our World History education in America? Who knows, but the answer is clearly yes.) Lately I've had in mind a collection of word scrawling and pen illustrations that sit in a big black book back in Boston. (Nice.) Here is one of them. It is called, "The Alice Tree".

"The Alice Tree"

Here it is sliced up because I used it as the cover of a short story I submitted to a contest at school and mysteriously never heard back from them-- not with with the winner, a thank you, a disappointing remark on the scattered nature (beauty) of my submission, nothing. Thanks Harvard, for being sketchy. Anyway, I figured out how to pick up where I left off with the plot. It involves poor Alice (she is always the unfortunate, she has to be) happening upon three enchanted sisters, named Haze (L'Obscurité), Mist (La Brume), and Gloom (La Mélancolie). 

In class I managed to sketch out a rather tame picture. Here are the Fog Sisters (Les Sœurs du Voile):

Rendition 1

Like I said, pretty tame. I do like the tarot-card centralization of this sketch, though. Something about this length-to-width proportion just makes me giddy. 

So, the week goes on, I'm learning how France dominated Algeria in the 18th and 19th centuries with crazy effectiveness, and, in Google Image searching for inspiration regarding what exactly constitutes "melancholy," I find this guy: Ryohei Hase, digital illustrator based in Tokyo, Japan. Go to his website. I'm very impressed with his very skilled and patient use of the "digital brush" as one of my closer buddies called it. Using a little intuition, you will find his series of eight pieces done with this theme. For fun, guess which piece was my favorite. Hint: there are two. 

Ryohei keeps notes, which I looked through a little bit. In them, I found a technique that I've seen used also by Esao Andrews. I said to myself, "Well, there you have it. If two professional illustrator-artists use it, then you should use it, for at least try it for the benefits." And I did. Or at least I have started:

By the end of this new week, all 18 will be filled. I will be thrilled.

ciaociao,

rossi

Freshman Year at Harvard University

"Weight"

Click the photograph to see my entire set.

Leave a comment, either here, there, or both
but only if it pleases you.

"beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

so behold,

rossi

Ghosts and Memory

Photo found here.

. . .

A ghost is an apparition, a faint trace of a person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living. 

In other words, it is the manifestation of memory recalling the existence of a person formerly present.

In the same manner that memory is a shade of the past, a ghost is a shade of one's memory of a person.

Ghosts are very real. They only seem "dead" because they are hazy projections of memory.

They are the authentic living dead.

And I saw one today.

"Josiah"

One should really be amazed at how easily the human brain can invert reality to the extent that memory becomes imagination and the living becomes perceived as already dead.

to my brother Josiah, whom I love,

rossi

Touch Up: One after the Next

Minimalist bed from the collection "Living Divani". Found here.

. . . 

Evidently, I am not very up-to-date with the Internet. I know about Facebook, Google, Gmail, and all that is basic. Sure, you may call me a minimalist.

But it's more accurate to say that I can be pretty averse to technology, skeptical at least. For example, during the summer after our freshman year, my boyfriend registered a Skype account for me because I refused. In doing so, he taught me a new French word: "rossignol". According to WordReference.com, this has several meanings, which include "nightingale", "picklock", "bit of junk", and "out-dated merchandise". Unfortunately for me I have a very acute boyfriend who has an even more acute sense of humor. As was the case, all of these definitions pertained to me and were spot on. So there you have it:

"I, Rossi Lamont Walter, Jr., am indeed out-dated merchandise."

Now, slowly but surely, I become integrated with modern times and the fuller functionality of the Internet. I redeployed the Bucket, which you are now reading. I finally got a Flickr account. Through this, I became acquainted more deeply with Picnik. I don't know if I should thank someone or just be content that all of these services are free. I guess I could send a positive user report. I am very fond of those.

Change is change is change, I suppose. At least I keep others updated about my out-dated habits. At any rate, here is a photo taken of my school with my Android phone and edited in Picnik.

"The Yard"

Things just get curiouser and curiouser.

to be continued,

rossi

Art Week #1

"No Escape"
Rossi Lamont Walter

. . . 

For Esao Andrews, the Monday night art update was his resolution for the new year. He seems to be doing a smashing job. For me, Sunday night art updates are intended to be my promise to myself to do art every week. No more putting it off. No more complaining about putting it off. I spent some hours pouring over his webpage and his blog. Thanks for the inspiration, Esao.

So, I'm in Menton. During the first of what will be eight weeks here, the group was taken on a tour of three villages in the Alps: Gorbio, Roquebrune, and St. Agnès. I remember that in one of them there was a rather modern museum, you know, wood-floor furnished and all. The best part, though, was underneath the museum.  The space was essentially a small cave. Along the walls were framed portraits of detailed faces, often grave and all very French, drawn with pencil. Deeper into the cave were full-length drawings of young ladies at the age of puberty. They were all nude, with rather unspirited facial expressions. Anyway, that was one of the villages. We had lunch in St. Agnès. I had the wild boar and it wasn't bad at all.

After a while, I started wondering who this Saint Agnès (you know, pronounced in the very French way with the 'g' and the 'n' making the nasal sound, not like the American 'Saint agg-nez') woman was, what she was doing these days. I mean obviously she's dead; take any old village named after a saint you just assume that saint is dead, martyred or something maybe. I figured maybe her body was preserved somewhere, or her head. So, I sketched up a kind of classic grim reaper meets homeless crazy woman.

detail: the candle

explanation: friends and I played a little joke on the rest of the group. sitting in a dark common room with our heads covered with long blankets, we waited for them. friend #1 at the piano by the door (note: it was horribly out of tune) and me positioned behind a fake tree with a candle clutched in my palm. was very funny. 

I liked how it was going, but then I couldn't see what this had to do with the village named after this old Saint. I figured she wasn't all that bad, in fact probably pretty pious and pretty benevolent and that, after death, she would become specter guardian, watching over the village with her noble candle. You'll notice the added paper mountain over the original sketch if you hadn't already. Pretty keen job, actually, if I may say so myself. As far as the whole thing, I am pleased. I made a sketch to keep the idea clear. That's the thing about all of these. Some day, I hope to come back and turn these into large or decently sized paintings. I've always regretted not being able to paint. Thanks again to Esao for the inspiration to be diligent with my art. 

. . . 

The second sketch of this week was inspired by some stuff I saw in a window just down the street from the villa. 

That woman looks simply divine! She seems to have not a care in the world and I like that attitude. The grapes, glass chalices, and spectacularly spherical orb of a teapot brought Dionysus the Greek god of wine and festivity. I thought I would spin this into a vivid scene, with three plump young women being the center of it all.

detail: the angry nun and the young man

explanation: " Good Old Fashion Drinkin' "

I can't wait for this one to turn into a painting. It will be a real challenge, but all the better for the braver.

next week is "Alice",

rossi

"THE SECRET POWERS OF TIME"

The art above was done by this artist.

Readers, indulge in a very unique perspective on present reality.

This was shared with me by a brother in my fraternity and very good friend. I recommend sending this to those whom you think would appreciate the message and especially to those whom you feel need it.

The video is titled "The Secret Powers of Time" and the voice is that of Professor Philip Zimbardo. However, you never see him in the video. What you get instead is a visual journey on a white board. Please enjoy.

"What's your pace?"

wake up to yourselves,

rossi