Life ain't nothin' but a bowlful of Tango Bango.

Details from a work-in-progress. Self-portraits. Still questioning, What is/constitutes a photograph? What is a photograph's role in a piece of artwork? (And also, text's role, too?) What is a portrait and its role? What is pretty/acceptable? What does a self-portrait convey? What is Tango Bango?

JP’S PARENTS EMIGRATED FROM SICILY TO THE UNITED STATES IN 1911. I NEVER MET THEM; THEY BOTH DIED LONG BEFORE I WAS BORN. SICILIANS WERE NOT WELCOME IN AMERICA, OR EVEN IN ITALY. IN AMERICA, THEY WERE CALLED THE N-WORD. EVEN TODAY, SOME OF MY MOST INTELLIGENT, LIBERAL FRIENDS HAVE MADE DEROGATORY REFERENCES ABOUT SICILIANS. THEY’RE NOT REALLY ITALIAN. THEY’RE ALL CRIMINALS. I KNOW THIS IS NOT WHAT THEY THINK OF ME, THAT I DON’T MEASURE UP TO SOME HIGH STANDARD OF WHITE, EUROPEAN HERITAGE. STILL… SOMEDAY I’LL BE DEAD, TOO, JUST LIKE MY GRANDPARENTS AND JP.
 
ALICE ANNE’S PARENTS WERE BORN IN AMERICA, BUT THEY STILL SPOKE GERMAN AT HOME. GERMANS WORKED HARD TO ASSIMILATE INTO AMERICAN LIFE BECAUSE GERMANS WERE THE ENEMY IN TWO WORLD WARS. ALICE ANNE TOOK THIS PICTURE OF JOSEPH AND JOSEPHINE. THEY ARE SITTING ON THE PORCH OF THE “OLD HOUSE,” A TWO-STORY LOG CABIN JOSEPH BUILT. ALICE ANNE EVEN INCLUDED HERSELF IN THE LOWER RIGHT. ALICE ANNE WAS BORN IN THAT HOUSE IN 1917. (THEY COULDN’T GET TO THE HOSPITAL IN TIME.)  ALICE ANNE WAS EDUCATED ONLY TO THE EIGHTH GRADE, BUT SHE WAS VERY SMART AND SENSITIVE. SOME DAY I’LL BE DEAD LIKE JOSEPH, JOSEPHINE, AND ALICE ANNE.

2022 continues to kick my ass. Health issues both for Sue and me. Three dear friends died! I can't take much more! Work seems to be slowing down, which I'm taking as a blessing. It means I'll be able to work on art more, than keep putting it aside for the almighty dollar. But I did finish these two. Family continues to baffle and intrigue me.

So seductively time seeps
out through your veins
pooling around your wingtips
            Or you, Ms. Corporate I'm Going Places
            be careful of your patent-leather pumps
            step carefully around the sticky puddles
            collecting beneath the conference table
            do not soil your white stockings.
Your smile will soon turn to a grimace
            as lost opportunity twists your heart
            like an old rag, unknowingly you’ll strangle
            as the intoxicating sound of your own voice
            replaces the importance of your life
            with the irrelevance of your action items. 

A polar bear grows a thick white coat, paws broad as snowshoes, armed with sharp claws, and mighty jaws with razor teeth to be the supreme killer in a harsh, ice-bound environment where food is scarce, where being a ruthless killer is the difference between life and death.

Can you imagine a polar bear feeling remorse for killing a seal?

The polar bear has adapted.

We are a species capable of destroying ourselves. There is a reason we have developed emotions such empathy, kindness, and hope. Just like the polar bear, we developed them out of survival.

If we hadn’t, we probably would have destroyed ourselves long ago.

Humans have adapted.

And while you are not perfect, I maintain because of the love and care you have for other human beings, there is a very good chance that you are further along the evolutionary scale than some of your fellow beings.

You might very well represent a higher form of the species, while the others will go the way of the dodo.

That is what it means to be human.

The act of making art is a political act because it entails the act of destruction as part of the process. For the piece to become what it needs to be, nothing can be too precious--a word, a brushstroke, a scene in a play, an image. You have to be willing to destroy for the greater good of the piece, for what the piece needs to be. There is a very good chance that what is uncovered in the debris will be the truth. Admittedly, it may not be the truth that is uncovered, but it will be a step toward the truth. Staying put will not lead you to the truth.

Our politicians and idealogues could learn from artists as they attempt to make their societies. They should note as we delete, paint out, tear up our work. When their statues and ideals are so precious in the name of tradition, society stagnates. When a statue or an ideal becomes more important than the greater good in the pursuit of truth, society fails, no differently than a novel would fail if it weren't edited aggressively.

Also, it is important to understand that art is the pursuit of truth. That statement seems to baffle many people, including many people who self identify as artists. There is no denying the truth when it appears. But if you're clinging to your art school ways, the longer you've been out of art school the more you'll stagnate and your work will lapse into cliche. If you refuse to abandon what many artists I've met passionately defend as tradition, not because tradition is bad, but because they hide their fear of risk under the flag of tradition, refusing to acknowledge aesthetics that don't fall under their definition of tradition, they will stagnate, become idealogues clinging to their tradition like a drowning person would cling to a plank of wood in the ocean. No one would consciously desire that about themselves.

A Work in Progress....

A polar bear grows a thick white coat, paws broad as snowshoes, armed with sharp claws, and mighty jaws with razor teeth to be the supreme killer in a harsh, ice-bound environment where food is scarce, where being a ruthless killer is the difference between life and death.

Can you imagine a polar bear feeling remorse for killing a seal?

The polar bear has adapted.

We are a species capable of destroying ourselves. There is a reason we have developed emotions such empathy, kindness, and hope. Just like the polar bear, we developed them out of survival.

If we hadn’t, we probably would have destroyed ourselves long ago.

Humans have adapted.

And while you are not perfect, I maintain because of the love and care you have for other human beings, there is a very good chance that you are further along the evolutionary scale than some of your fellow beings.

You might very well represent a higher form of the species, while the others will go the way of the dodo.

That is what it means to be human.