Alter-Ego Mandala: Dreaming Of The Albatross (For Bukowski)

Alter-Ego Mandala: Dreaming Of The Albatross – 8/52 (Gogyohka), 8/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 8, February 27th 2011, scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Medium: Drawn by hand with a black Ultra Fine Point Sharpie & Sharpie Peel-Off China Marker on Canson Mix Media XL Series 98lb drawing paper. Colored with Faber Castell 6 PITT Artist Brush Pens, DecoColor Glossy Oil Base Paint Markers, Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels, Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Water Soluble Wax Crayons, Sharpie Medium Point Oil-Based Opaque Paint Markers.

alter-ego

1530s, from Latin phrase (used by Cicero), “a second self, a trusted friend” (cf. Gk. allos ego); see alter and ego.

A second self, a trusted friend. Or a dark half that emerges when we least expect it — in art, writing, and poetry. When I viewed Never (Found Poem) from Lotus, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s work The Continual Condition, these were the lines that resonated for me:

Our problem is
that we divorce ourselves
from ourselves

howling
and scratching their bellies,
and dreaming of the albatross.

I looked in the mirror. I started drawing. An outline emerged, a person I vaguely recognized. The longer I drew, the more familiar the image, the less it looked like me. An alter-ego. I went to the studio, pulled out the Royal typewriter Liz bought for me at a garage sale (turns out, it’s French), and while Jimi Hendrix’s Rainbow Bridge played on the stereo turntable, wrote a gogyohka:

Rock, Paper, Scissors – 8/52 (Gogyohka), 8/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 8, February 27th 2011, scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Medium: typed on Crane paper stock with vintage Royal typewriter. Scanned as TIF, saved as JPEG.

I’ve long been a fan of Charles Bukowski’s work. He was the kind of poet that didn’t pull any punches. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, lived hard, knew how he would die, wrote about the veneer that crumbles over the steely hardness. He wrote to the end, died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 and is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, near his home in San Pedro, California.

It is the honesty in his work I am drawn to. After I read Never (Found Poem), I saw that a reader had left a link to all things Bukowski. I was surprised to find a whole page of his artwork, dotted with self-portraits. Bukowski’s portrait paintings and Never (Found Poem) from Lotus sparked the mandala. The quote stoked the fire:

The difference between life and art is art is more bearable.
— Charles Bukowski

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, March 5th, 2011

-related to posts: Best Of BlackBerry 365 — First Quarter SlideShow, BlackBerry 365 Project — White Winter Squirrel, Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, Searching For Stillness, icicle tumbleweed (haiga) — 2/52, The Mirado Black Warrior, Waning Moon (Haiga), The Void — January Mandalas, ybonesy’s self portrait (part of her Farewell To red Ravine)

Lotus and I will continue our call and response by posting a BlackBerry photo for the 52 weeks of 2011. Feel free to join us if you wish (learn about the project’s beginnings at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration).

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haiku for Kohler Arts

Sink Mandala, Kohler Design Center, Kohler, Wisconsin, October 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

sinks, tubs, and faucets
beauty in beholder’s eye
form follows function

dazzled by bathrooms
Zen nests of relaxation
“sink into our tubs”

preconceived notions
dance and spin down spotless drains
life imitates art

We visited the Kohler Design Center after a writing retreat on Lake Michigan in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. Most fascinating to me was the history of Kohler Company, founded in 1873 when Austrian immigrant John Michael Kohler purchased a cast iron and steel  foundry in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The company made anything you can imagine out of cast iron and porcelain — from radiators to the first sink dishwasher. From farm implements to a generator for Admiral Byrd for one of his Antarctic expeditions.

Many of these vintage items are housed in the basement museum where we spent at least an hour walking around last week. The top photo is a shot of the inside of a black porcelain sink reflecting daylight through a large picture window. Sinks, tubs, and toilets never looked better. After you visit Kohler Design Center, you’ll not only want a new bathroom, you won’t be able to imagine spending time anywhere else.

Last time I was in Sheboygan County for a writing retreat, our host Jude took us to visit the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Same family,  in full support of the Arts. The museum’s director is artist Ruth DeYoung Kohler, granddaughter of John Michael Kohler (her portrait hangs in the Kohler Design Center). She must love her work; she’s been the director for 37 years. The museum is housed in the 19th-century Italianate mansion that once belonged to her grandfather.

An hour north of Milwaukee, the Kohler Arts Center is known for giving back and building community through the Arts. Each year, between 16 and 22 artists are selected from hundreds of applicants to spend two to six months working in Kohler Company’s Iron and Brass Foundries, Pottery, and Enamel Shop. Kohler Arts is also on the map for exhibiting Outsider or self-taught art with particular attention paid to large scale installations and architecture. You can read more about the Kohler in the New York Times article by Jori Finkel, Way Off the Beaten Path, Letting the Outsiders In.

Another thing the Kohler is famous for? Its 7 theme based bathrooms painted and designed by artists. What could be more natural? According to the website, “the washrooms were one of the few public spaces where permanently installed works of art would be considered, serving to uphold the Arts Center‘s philosophy that art can enliven, enrich, and inform every facet of our everyday lives.”

If you’re ever in Sheboygan County, add the Kohler Design Center and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center to your list of enriching experiences. And prepare to start saving for a newly designed bathroom.

The Arts Center shall continue its leadership roles of nourishing diversity and building community through the arts. In all programming, the Arts Center shall cultivate connections: between artists and audiences, between artists and communities, between emerging and established artists, between local and visiting artists, between the Arts Center and other organizations, between art forms, and between past and present.

Luxury Bath, Swirl, Black & White, Above: Wall Of Toilets, Kohler Design Center, Leave It All Behind, Everyday Art, Things That Are Round, Kohler Design Center, Kohler, Wisconsin, October 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, October 15th, 2009

-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), State Of The Arts (haiku for Kuan-Yin), Walking Your Talk (Do The Arts Matter), Martín Ramírez In Rain Taxi, Gripped By Cathy Wysocki

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