THE BIOLOGIST

"The Biologist (Area X)" by Troy's Work Table. Carport chalking for Friday 27 February 2015.

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"The Biologist" swallowed up "Fungal Conversion," incorporating its colors and "shape" into its being, the latter of which was itself an appropriation of "The Pious Pelican."

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The inspiration for "The Biologist" was two-fold. The first was the biologist as she appears in the three Area X novels of Jeff VanderMeer—Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. The second was the 1960 painting Nightwatch by Lee Krasner, which is included in the Seattle Art Museum's The Richard and Jane Lang Art Collection catalog.

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I can't say too much about this piece (which takes some liberties with the text) without spoiling the story.

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View more pictures of "The Biologist" HERE.

NORTHWEST COAST

"Self-portait" by Troy's Work Table.

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I taught art to third- and fourth-graders this afternoon. They are studying the culture of the Northwest Coast indigenous peoples, so we are exploring some of the art. We talked about the two main shapes (ovoids and "u"-forms); the two minor shapes (crescents and wedges); the overarching shape constructed by the others (formline). (And all of this shape work is an evolution of the drawings we did the couple of sessions prior). We talked about the four primary colors—black, white, red, and blue-green. We talked about which shapes are which colors. We talked about symmetry.

Then we talked about when to use the rules and when to break the rules, as we created paper-cut self-portrait "masks" in the art style of the Northwest Coast peoples. (We broke a lot of rules!)

Next week, each student will "adopt" an animal and create a mask of it. The following week(s) they will "translate" their animal onto a story pole, along with at least two other animals. Their class will also be taking a field trip to see totem poles and other native art.

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(It now appears that the kids and I are all looking forward to art on Fridays in equal measure. Even some of my initially-resistant boys have come to asking when I'm coming into the classroom for art.)

LENT and ROBINSON JEFFERS

"If I could find the right words, if some god would lend me a touch of eloquence / I'd show you my heart. I'd lift it out of my breast and turn it over in my hands, you'd see how pure it is / Of any harm or malice toward you or your household. [She holds out her hands to him.]" 

—Medea to Creon, from Medea (1946) by Robinson Jeffers.

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I've decided to explore the poetry of Robinson Jeffers as Lenten devotion. I've visited him before, but not with such intensity since college.

I'm in love with his long, lithe lines that threaten to break earlier than he has planned. They are often unwieldy, but they are his.

I wrestle with and against his own wrestling against God and the cosmos. I can see the stars and the rocks and the cormorants and the hawks through his eyes.

I wonder if there can be such a belief as Christian Inhumanism. I wonder if others have arrived at such a conclusion much earlier than I.

FUNGAL CONVERSION

"Fungal Conversion" by Troy's Work Table. Carport chalking for Saturday 21 February 2015.

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I brushed away most of the chalk of "The Pious Pelican," leaving only shadows and outlines, and then chalked over the remains, using them as guidelines.

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I was originally thinking of the notion of metamorphosis until I was nearly completed and the idea of a converted heart popped into my mind. I liked the latter much more, with its religious overtones, although conveyed through the growth of mushrooms and mold.

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And we've got some impressive mushrooms and other fungi growing in one of the corners of our backyard, so I had some great natural pieces to study.

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View detail pictures of "Fungal Conversion" HERE.

BARKER of the STARS

"Barker of the Stars" by Troy's Work Table. Sidewalk chalk and chalk pastels on 2' x 2' concrete panel board. Monday 16 February 2015.

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Barker of the Stars is the plasma canine "pet" of She, the Mother Octopus.

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Inspired by the great dog guardians of the netherworld(s)—Cerberus and Garmr—Barker of the Stars was born from a small metal egg (Sputnik 2) containing a street dog (Laika), which was launched into the celestial skies and abandoned. There, this egg-and-embryo was discovered by She, whereupon She transformed this castaway mutt into a beast to be reckoned with.

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She sits to the left of She in the night sky, a constellation in relation to the Mother Octopus much like Canis Major to Orion in our realm of constellations. And, as in Canis Major, her nose is represented by the brightest star in the night sky.

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View more pictures of Barker of the Stars HERE. 

WATCHER of the DEEP

"Watcher of the Deep" by Troy's Work Table. Sidewalk chalk and chalk pastels on 3' x 3' concrete panel board. Monday 16 February 2015.

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Watcher of the Deep is the consort of She, the Mother Octopus.

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Inspired by modern Coast Salish masks of Octopus (Man), Watcher of the Deep inhabits the dark fathoms of the celestial sea, waiting for the seeking arms of the black star octopus.

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He sits to the right of She in the night sky, a small constellation dwarfed by the more brilliant and numerous stars of the Mother Octopus.

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View more pictures of Watcher of the Deep HERE.

THE PIOUS PELICAN

Detail of "The Pious Pelican" by Troy's Work Table. Carport chalking for Friday 13 February 2015.

Blood.

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"One-legged surveillance and the stealth of a stork / Probing the shallows and measuring the depth / He catches a morsel he’s bound to regret. / Change!" 
—from "Stealth of a Stork" by Wire, as found on the album Change Becomes Us.

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"Who shot the shot to break the blood clot? / Who shot the shot to wake the dark heart?"
—from "Coagulate" by Snapcase, as found on the album End Transmission.

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The weather today in the Puyallup was sunny and 60ºF. Not quite what one would expect in the middle of winter, but it was perfect weather to chalk.

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I've been sketching various pictures of hearts over the past few weeks, searching through various anatomy books to see the texture of tissues and the dendritic patterns of arteries and veins. So the heart seemed something that needed to meet the sidewalk.

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The past few days, I've been searching for various pieces of art related to the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. One of the items I discovered was a paten (the plate used to present the bread of communion) depicting the piety of the pelican. Apparently, the people of late-medieval Europe thought that the pelican would pierce its breast in order to draw blood and feed its chicks. This blood sacrifice, this "nourishing love," was thought a good metaphor for the sacrifice of Christ and equated with another metaphor of the same—the bread and wine of Holy Communion. (And these patens depicting the pious pelican were rather common in churches during the late-medieval and early-Renaissance periods.)

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Since both images have been pecking about in my brain for a bit, I decided to marry them together, along with a bit of foliage to support both and some flowers sprouting from the wakened "dark heart."

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View more pictures of "The Pious Pelican" HERE.

CITIZEN: FIRST READING

"Yes officer rolled around on my tongue, which grew out of a bell that could never ring because its emergency was a tolling I was meant to swallow."
—page 105, from "Stop-and-Frisk: Script for Situation video created in collaboration with John Lucas" as found in Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine.

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I'd been hearing a lot of buzz about Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Some of my favorite literary people (and organizations)—authors, bloggers, fellow readers, poets, lit journals—had been recommending it for some time. I knew that it was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award in Poetry. I knew that Louise Glück won and that a lot in the literary community felt that Rankine was slighted. I didn't understand the hostility and lamentation. Upon reading Citizen, I realized that Rankine not winning the award could easily be another chapter in the book.

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I picked up Citizen this afternoon, sat down, and read it straight through. Now I don't know what to say or do.

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I'm paralyzed.

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I need to confess of my own culpability with racism. The moments that I've been less than generous to someone because of who they are and/or the color of their skin. The inappropriate comments that I've made here and there. The stereotypes that I've engaged. The times that I haven't spoken up and stood alongside someone who had to endure racist language or behavior in my presence.

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Is confession enough? Probably not.

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The concepts that jumped out at me when I read: Bodies. Invisibility. Erasure. Being passed over. Internalized rage. Actuated rage.

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The sections of the book that resonated most deeply with me: II, which focuses on Serena Williams and her experiences of racism in the world of professional tennis; V, for its explorations of not being seen as a black person in America; and four sub-sections of VI—"August 29, 2005 / Hurricane Katrina," "Stop-and-Frisk," "October 10, 2006 / World Cup," and "July 29–August 18, 2004 / Making Room."

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And then there are the other works I've read recently that echo in my mind as I read.

Pip, the Pequod's cabin boy, drifting in the ocean in "The Castaway," chapter 93 of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. The depictions of Babo and the other African slaves aboard the Spanish slaver, the San Dominick, in Benito Cereno by Herman Melville.

Joseph Conrad's depictions of the African natives in Heart of Darkness. Chinua Achebe's response to Conrad in Things Fall Apart, as a more representative (and complex) depiction of members of Igbo communities.

Joe Wenderoth's satire of the adoption of Martin Luther King, Jr. (as an "honorary" white person) by white people in "The Souls of White Folk."

C. L. R. James's post-colonial ruminations on Moby-Dick and race relations therein in Mariners, Renegades & Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In.

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I need to sit and ponder and let all of this sink in. The essays and poems that Claudia Rankine uses to expose the racism that is all around us. My own unwillingness, conscious or unconscious, to stand as witness and to speak out against racism. The echoes. The echoes. The echoes.

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I need to go back and read again. Slower. With less urgency, but not with less intensity.

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My words and thoughts don't provide this book the justice it deserves. It needs to be read. You need to read it. (Then we can talk.)

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"This endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful."
—page 128, from "October 10, 2006 / World Cup" as found in Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine.

CANIS MAJOR

"Canis Major" from plate 30 of The Box of Stars, held over a "lightbox."

ICE MOON

I was out searching for Orion and Canis Major, but all I found was the moon clothed in fog and crowned in ice.