Chuck Close and What Not to Do

I ran into a fellow painter at an art party two nights ago, and told him about the Anthony Hopkins interview with Charlie Rose. He returned the info with Charlie Rose's interview with Chuck Close, the marvel of a painter. I just finished watching it on Rose's site.

The seasoned painter had many wise things to say, of which I could mull over all day, but the most resounding bit was about the importance of "not to do" some things. To set (or construct in Close's words) limits, to know what one will NOT do is more essential than what one can do, has become the most significant lesson I've learned in the past few years. It sort of came to me like an epiphany applicable to both my art and spiritual combat.

I know I'm not being very articulate or clear about this. I need do a better job explain myself on that. But it's like many suddenly stumbled upon treasures, I fear not to do their service by explaining them. Sometimes I'd rather be vague.

This is not a "wet-in-your-pants" kind of artist, he does not emote all over you. (Notice all the negatives in that sentence?)

A good watch on a snow day. Our cattle look like buffaloes on some Tibetan plateaus.

WYD2011

Powerful video by Grassroots Films:

Mama's Hat

Mama got a new hat for Spring Festival, photo curtsey of my niece Mimi, delivered by Skype:

Anthony Hopkins interview with Charlie Rose

Sir Anthony Hopkins has made my heart sing, in this interview with Charlie Rose. Indeed my resolve to NOT to see the movie The Rite has been shaken.

It's almost painful to watch and listen to Charlie as he muddles around the topic of faith. It's like watching a man determined to measure a globe with a straight edge. I'm still unsure if the concept of "dark night of the soul" really penetrated Charlie's sophisticated, cosmopolitan intellect. When Hopkins credits his transformation to a person of faith to his past alcoholism, Charlie promptly suggests an analogy between that journey and the actor's cinematic career. It amuses me (as many things do to me these days, almost always leaving me inarticulate as hell) to observe Charlie's trying to put two and two together and seeing the end at the equation blurry as he counts Hopkins' splendid artistic career ending up in believing the silly Belief.

Snow Day

Snowed in.

And, snowed in again, tomorrow. Confirmed.

Yesterday I went in the classroom with my new lesson plan. The first installment went over like a charm. We did what I told my second graders "silly drawings." What would you call drawing parallel lines in curves, zigzags, waves, dots, or "puffy triangles," "marsh-mellow squares," "fluffy trapezoids"? Or calling the erasing of temporary lines "hiding your tracks"?

I had them excited about the more "serious drawing" that was to come in the next installment. At the end of the class, the kids were chanting "No snow tomorrow! No snow tomorrow!"

No school and two days in a row. The "silly drawings" were preparation for the more "serious one." Will they remember the "tricks"when they come back to the classroom?

I did have some fun making a clay bowl for the Empty Bowls fundraiser.

Then again, I was also half-hoping for no school tomorrow, that means I get to Skype with my Mama and the rest gang of kin in China, on the Eve of the Spring Festival. With thirteen-hour time difference, their midnight is 11:00am here.

As of now, I'm missing my dear friend Jan, whom I haven't heard from a while. And the latest post on her blog Runs with Angels is from more than a week ago. It reads like the John Lennon song "Cold Turkey," with its opening line "Fever's high..." Suffices it to say that I'm a bit concerned.

Over and out - like Jan would say.