Postcard poem

This one's going out to someone out there. I haven't sent you one in a while, but I have no doubt you'll figure out its provenance.

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Throwback Poem

Was rummaging through my files and found this prose poem I had written way back. Thought I'd do some revisions.

[Twilight 3 (2002) by Viggo Mortensen, from "45301".]

Beholder *

Gait still unsteady, he stops awhile, shakes off the last lingering moments of sleep, picks up his steps, bare feet trailing gravel as he ambles down the path, where everywhere is quiet, save for the whispering breeze, a grove of glistening beeches, a fluttering carpet of rustling leaves, muted scurryings of some nocturnal animal still savoring the thinning layers of darkness as it yields to the first slivers of dawn.

In one hand he cradles a Hasselblad, that battered black box, cherished companion and aide, spies a vast canvas overhead, readies supple fingers flecked with paint. Aiming this extended eye, he minces memory into a succession of frames, striving to capture what he knows will not keep still.

The ephemera he collects are as elusive as he, as silent, unobtrusive, fleeting manifestations in a world revolving too fast for appreciation, instances too rare for mass distribution. Furiously he shoots frame after frame, now and then shifting vistas on a single scene, oblivious to the observers who gather at his feet as the tide of day washes over the beeches that now seem to cover all the lands.

They look on in awe, marvel at how his feet barely touch the ground.

For he is both collector and subject, both hunter and hunted, both light-painter and point of interest, perceived only by the sharpest of sights. Magnified under lenses, he stands against sky, a quiet light blazing, burning his own hole in the sun.

*[This piece was a pre-cursor to Beholder II, which I posted here.]

From my postcard collection # 5

Michelangelo's David by Antonio Ciccione.

A taste for the surreal

My friend Ninfa introduced me just recently to the wonderful work of Maggie Taylor. Taylor creates images using a scanner, photographs, assorted objects and Adobe Photoshop. Here are samples of her work.

Twilight Swim ©Maggie Taylor / The Scientist ©Maggie Taylor


Woman Who Loves Fish ©Maggie Taylor / Distracted Cats ©Maggie Taylor

Check out her online gallery here. There are images that are whimsical, funny, strange, even disturbing. In June 2008, Modernbook Editions will publish an illustrated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland featuring Taylor's creations. For those interested in how the images are made: the downloadable Adobe Magazine (June 2007 issue) from photoshopsupport.com has a feature which shows Maggie Taylor's creative process (very aptly entitled "Building A Dream"). Perhaps when I have time I'll try my hand at this. *excited*

From my old files

A hack dreams of Klimtian Viggo / Viggoesque Klimt.
[Larger.]

Beholder II

See here, that odd congregation of flags,
those black dogs vanishing in a haze,
a leaf on a chilled forest floor,
curled trunk, stained tusk, white camisole,
cluttered graffiti on the walls.
These random abstractions,
recent forgeries of the ways of things,
they are what I revere,
the elusive, the fleeting, the evanescent ---
the moment that passes over once, and fades.
You say I take far too many,
that I seem to be in constant vigil
of scenes at the periphery.
Is it some coincidence of memory
that compels, some urge to mark
the ebb and flow of days,
lest they go stale, lay mundane?
And I say, what does it cost to remark on
the lines of this silhouette,
the graceful fall of fabric beside decorated skin,
the eloquence of ghosts dancing, or
an ineffable fleck of pale wings undulating in green?
What is there to remember: a tail, a hand, an ear,
a baby’s foot, dead fish, or calf, pig, or bird,
passing through the desolation of Tamdacht,
disappearing into Chetwood’s otherworldliness,
the bright chaos at Odense, the prospect
of a snowstorm at Te Anau,
even the daily grind in Venice.
It’s all I know to take, how can I disengage?
These are my points of focus, uncertain
exposures now merging in a blur.
See, underneath this assemblage
of traces, evocations, ephemera ---
Wanyánkin ye yo. Look at it:
Beholder.
Miyelo. It is I.
Kholá, it is you.

19 October, 2003

Note. The digital collage was an entry I submitted for a creativity contest at viggofanbase.com a couple of years ago. For the collage, I drew the lizard, took the swirly light photos, and used a poem I had written the year before for the background text. Beholder II above is that same poem. I won a Viggo Mortensen CD for the collage (or was it a book, I forget). I can't remember if I entered the poem simultaneously for the poetry category. I think I won something for that, too.

Flash poem, anyone?

You know how things turn up when you're not looking for them anymore? Well this file is something I had been trying to find for ages. Finally found it when I cleaned up during the holidays. (Good thing the diskette is still working.) A few years ago I attended a Macromedia Flash workshop. This animated poem was one of my projects. I must say, the poem itself isn't one of my better pieces, but it was rather well-suited for translation into Flash. The thing wouldn't convert into a Quicktime movie for some reason, so I just made it into an animated gif.

(Click on image to view a slightly larger version. Point the cursor on the image; if you see a "+", click again to further enlarge. The poem loops continuously. Just refresh the page if you want to see it from the very start.)

From my postcard collection # 4

Dragonfly, Pear, Carnation and Insect (detail)
Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Model book of calligraphy);
Vienna, 1561-62 and ca. 1591-96
Inscribed by Georg Bocskay and illuminated by Joris Hoefnagel
16.6 x 12.4 cm (6 9/16 x 4 7/8 in.)

[Click image to view larger version.]

This is from a very beautiful postcard book I got from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Picturing the Natural World. The back cover notes that:

"In 1561 and 1562 Georg Bocskay, the Croatian-born court secretary of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I in Vienna, created the Model Book of Calligraphy to demonstrate his unrivaled technical mastery of elaborate and inventive writing styles. He arranged the calligraphy cleverly, giving each page of the book an independent beauty. About thirty years later Joris Hoefnagel, a court artist of Rudolf II, Ferdinand's grandson, was asked to illuminate the manuscript. He added captivating, carefully composed illustrations of flora and fauna to nearly every page and contributed a new section of intricate designs that provide instruction in the art of constructing the letters of the alphabet. The result is one of the most extraordinary collaborations between scrive and painter in the history of manuscript illumination."

Take note that each page from the book was only a few inches wide (check out the measurement above). Hoefnagel illuminated Bocskay's manuscript (whom he had never met, by the way) in miniature, with gold, silver and vellum. The level of detail (as seen in the image above) is astounding! For more on illuminated manuscripts, go here.

For more commentary on this art piece, check out the Getty Museum website here.

From my postcard collection # 3

Recently sent from Bordeaux, France. Acquired at Venice. (Thanks Ninfa!)

Fritellino drawn by Maurice Sand, published in 1860. Commedia dell' Arte character wearing a mask and a plumed hat. Beard. Wooden sabre.

Ganesha, remover of all obstacles

Ganesha. Collage by Nick Bantock,
from The Venetian's Wife (1996).

"The one who moves towards knowledge of the timeless is never afraid." -- The Arthava Veda, Ganesha Upanishad

Off the shelf: Fantastical Field Guide

A couple of the creatures found in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, currently my favorite art book. Not that I've ever read any Spiderwick book before. When I saw this Field Guide, I just had to have it. More information and images here. For larger versions so that you can actually read the text, click here for the wood elf and here for the sea-maid. (Pardon the semi-crappy scans, I didn't want to torture my book too much.)

More info on the illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, can be found at his website. You might also want to check out the Spiderwick writer, Holly Black.

From my postcard collection # 2

Le Trocadéro
Vintage postcard by Cavallini & Co., San Francisco

Le Palais du Trocadéro was constructed by the architect Gabriel Davioud and inaugurated in 1878 for the Universal Exhibition. For some time it was a venue for various society events like art exhibitions, concerts and public ceremonies. It was destroyed in 1937. The Pallais de Chaillot now stands in its place. A crying shame, imo. (More images here.)

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(Special thanks to the contessa for help with the research on this magnificent structure from the past.)

Pssssst California-based people!

Friends, relatives, anyone! If you happen to swing by the Sta. Monica area next week or so *cough*Jan 14 would be a good day* ahem* till Feb. 14, there's an art exhibit you might want to check out *cough*going on opening day would be very good*ahem*can you take piccies for me pretty please?*ahem* in my stead, if no one else's ehehehe (clickie to enlarge invites):

George Gudni is an Icelandic artist who does gorgeous landscape paintings and photographs. His latest book, Strange Familiar, was recently published by Perceval Press (which is owned by Viggo). Viggo's abstract photographs will be on exhibit from what I gather. His newest book is Linger. I like some of his abstract colored photographs such as this:

Pukerua Bay by Viggo Mortensen

Quite beautiful, isn't it? More info about the exhibit and sample pics at the Track 16 website.

From my postcard collection

Konrad Gessner (Swiss, 1516-1575)
Rhinoceros
Hand-colored (watercolor) woodcut, 39 x 22.9 cm (15 3/8 x 9 in.), from:
Konrad Gessner, Historiae animalium...
Liber 1: De quadrupedibus viviparis, Zurich, 1551
The Getty Research Institute, 84-B13226

For centuries, Dürer's engraving above remained the only picture of the rhinoceros in Europe. Konrad Gessner, a Swiss natural historian, published a facsimile in his Historia Animalium, regarded to be the starting point of modern zoology.

Ernst Gombrich, in his book Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, used this engraving as an example of how artists, before the advent of photography, were necessarily, always influenced by existing schemas even while they strive to record the truth. He noted that "The familiar will always remain the likely starting point for the rendering of the unfamiliar." Even the Dutch artists, the realists who supposedly drew from life, were known to make mistakes. (There is, for instance, an existing late 16th-century depiction of a beached whale with ears!)

According to documentary evidence, the King of Portugal received the rhinoceros as a gift from an Indian sultan in 1515. He then intended to send the creature, named Ganda, to the Pope, but the ship was wrecked before it reached its destination. The spots on its skin were purportedly caused by dermatitis suffered from being confined at the bottom of the ship during the 10-month voyage. Gombrich contends that Dürer, in rendering the rhinoceros, relied on second hand information (a sketch and an account by a Moravian painter from Portugal), which was coloured by Dürer's own conception of the mythical dragon and its armoured body.

(Special thanks to the Contessa for sending me material on the subject matter. Supplemented with Google.)