MikeAdamsArtist.com Blog

Yes, it’s true. I’m here in Norway on a Fulbright grant to work on my sculpture. For more information about the grant, and other ways you can share this adventure, click here. You can also subscribe to the blog by clicking on the icon which gives you an RSS reader or email option for receiving updates.

I was reading Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos, which was quite interesting, being about space and time (now known conveniently as spacetime!). Science is always looking for miracle particles and rays and beams and the like, which isn’t bad, necessarily, except everything turns into a super-weapon somehow.
I digress.
When I was in Berlin, I had the most remarkable experience, which was not scientific, but aesthetic. As a nod, or more of a prod, to the scientific method, I want to call my discovery the Sir Neville Principle, after the great conductor Neville Marriner. He conducted the Orchestra of the Comic Opera of Berlin in a performance on March 16th, 2012, and I was there with my friend Thomas Hoelz. I’d heard Sir Neville conduct the Academy of St. Martin’s in the Fields in New York City about 25 years ago and thought it was an amazing performance. Well, this recent one was no less amazing. The final piece was Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which is widely known. The first two pieces, however, are not well known (at least I don’t think I’ve ever heard them). They were Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in A-Flat. Sir Neville conducted so masterfully, that somehow the unfamiliar work seemed familiar, but more importantly (and this is the Sir Neville Principle) these works under his baton seemed to create their own necessity, as if it were imperative to the universe that they existed right at that moment. That’s it. Very simple.

[You may discern that I start out on this post with vim-and-vigor, and get bogged-down with the weight of things that are so profound, trying to sort them out. Let's just say that this is an homage some of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. No wonder they wrote long books, trying to unwind complexities, which only a fool would try to summarize. . .Maybe more of a jester than a fool?]
On the reading front, I’m in the middle of John Dewey’s Experience and Nature. I’ve gone on-and-on about his Art As Experience elsewhere in this blog. I assume E&N is one of the books that he’s most famous for, because he radically tears Western philosophy to shreds. He wrote it before Art, and the tone is somewhat strident at points, making Art seem much more gracious. Also, Art is an easier read, but that may be my bias because of the subject. Nonetheless, Experience and Nature is dazzling. The basic premise is that the ancient Greeks elevated the idea of ideas (my awkward phrase) and separated mind from nature because they were, in modern parlance elitist snobs. The ruling classes in their leisure, wanted to legitimize the contemplation of their navels, and did so by elevating “ideas,” as a kind of “pure thought” into the realm of the heavens. They took thought out of the natural system in which it exists, and assumed it was eternal. (I’m poking fun here, at the both the ancients, and Dewey, for whom I have the utmost admiration, but that is the gist of the argument.) Dewey also points out that the Greek conception of reality was based on language. Reality had, or was described to be, a systematic analog to language. Reality had to fit into descriptions. As I understand Dewey’s view, the Greeks knew that language was an abstraction, so, if we talk about a “bed,” it’s a very generic, unspecific bed. It is natural then to see “bed” as a category, a universal, for which there must be an underlying category, a Platonic Form, somewhere, protected from the vicissitudes of change. For Dewey, here’s the rub: things exist in a constant state of change and transformation. That’s reality, not “conceptions of things.” Dewey was a level-headed radical, who I don’t think would ever intend to tear something down, without being able to replace it with something radically level-headed. This “what comes next” is where I am in the book. I think Dewey’s premise is that the power of things comes from our relation as social creature to those things (objects and ideas). And ideas themselves are part of our natural world, because they are thoughts that are thought by natural beings. This is an oversimplification on my part, of course.
The problem is metaphysics. . .
I forgot, in the fog of my exhibition at the Viking Ship Museum, to write a little homage to William Temple’s Mens Creatrix which I finished reading in February. It’s a warm-up to his Nature, Man, and God, which is dazzling. I read online, perhaps in the Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia, that NM&G was a response to Alfred North Whitehead’s mind numbing (but really cool!) Process and Reality. Whitehead’s book, in turn, is said to be a metaphysical response to Quantum Theory, and in the last chapter, Whitehead, who seemed to avoid the topic for his entire career, discusses the idea of God as a sort of Aristotelian unmoved-mover: a dispassionate kick-starter-of-the-universe (or at least of reality as we know it), who is not really here anymore. Well, to Temple, who was a man-of-the-cloth, this wouldn’t do. Temple, who was nothing if not brilliant, does not approach the argument the way a Fundamentalist would. He doesn’t say “’cause it’s in the Bible!” No. He argues upside-down, backwards, and sideways to methodically posit that our own minds are a reflection of the divine structure of the universe. We couldn’t be what we are without a personal, omniscient God. Although NM&G may be more of a response to Whitehead, whom he does discuss directly, the underlying theme is the same in Mens Creatrix. We are a reflection of a divine creator who is both inside the universe (oh, this is complicated!) in our normal time, but also outside of time. Immanent and transcendent is what that is called, I believe. This idea is sometimes called Panentheism.
Since my book review(s) is (are) spinning out of control, let me just close, because it’s bedtime, by drawing certain parallels between Dewey’s naturalism and Temple’s theism: they are both arguing that the realm of ideas exists within a system that does not segregate ideas from the world. Ideas are inherent in and integral to the universe.
Good night!

I do have a cold, though, and I feel sorry for myself when I’m sick. . .I haven’t been into ceramics studio for a couple of days, but I’m looking forward to seeing my glaze tests! When I left on Friday afternoon, the kiln was still at 270 degrees Celsius, which is too hot to open. (I assume that a sudden temperature change might damage the ceramic pieces inside.) I hadn’t planned to be sick, of course, so that means that a cup that I was working on may be too dry to allow me to put a handle on it. Maybe it doesn’t need a handle? Can I moisten the clay again?
Okay, I wrote that yesterday. . .or the day before. . .
Now I’m alive again! Here’s the stuff from the kiln! There were actually more pieces than this, but you get the idea. Tomorrow, I’ll glaze the sculptural pieces, referring to the glaze samples that were also in the kiln with these cups.

Well, well, well. Long time, no see!
I’ll keep this message brief, and let the pictures do the talking (and walking). There is something compelling about zoomorphic forms. Weird and cute at the same time.
An underlying theme, and one that I’ve explored for several months now, is that of ambulation. To experience a sculpture, for instance, you need to walk around it. You are unfolding the time-and-space – er, “spacetime” as we say now – from the sculpture. More on the metaphysics in a later post, perhaps.
Like in Skibladnir at the Viking Ship Museum, I want to convey a kind of portability and autonomy in my sculpture, even if it doesn’t (or won’t!) move. Putting legs on these ceramic sculptures (shown here prior to their råbrann or bisque firing), gives them a life of their own.

The first sculpture has a Chinese/Celtic/Viking thing going. It’s based on a bronze Chinese ding which is a ceremonial vessel. The second sculpture is (obviously!) a walking ship. Vaguely Viking. Vaguely deer-like, dainty ballerina tippytoes. Sculpture two needs to be celadon green, I think, as an offering to the Ceramic Gods. Number one needs to be garish. This is no time for good taste and refinement. Gold would be nice. Perhaps red, although that may make him (?) look like a fire hydrant.

The following is a proposal I wrote for an artist’s residency in the Midwest (USA). It had to be under 1000 characters, hence the brevity. I was also trying to write a kind of introduction, since there was no other written material except for the résumé/CV. I’ve been thinking about how my work in the studio is a result of touching and feeling materials, and I know that it’s difficult for people not to touch things in a gallery. It seems like tactility is such an important aspect of our being, yet we often forbid it. (Merleau-Ponty used the term skin, I think, to express the “interface” we have with the world. How “tactile” he thought this was I don’t know. . .I’m trying to get through the Phenomenology of Perception. . .It’s slow going. . .)

Next week I’m going to begin working in a ceramics studio called liv i leire (“life in clay”) here in Oslo. I took a crash-course in the Seattle-area from Liz Myers at Sugarshak Pottery over the Christmas break, and what struck me was that I didn’t really need to look at the wheel and my hands while doing many of the processes with the spinning clay. I felt it, and if it felt good, and then I looked at the form, it also looked right. Thanks to Bryan Park for introducing me to Craft Theory, which among other things recognizes that making objects links the artist to millennia of makers-of-objects. In other words, one taps into a tradition, whether one is conscious of it or not. And it’s interesting that this is a tradition of touching and responding to materials (and ideas).

Building upon ideas that I am exploring while in Oslo on a Fulbright grant, I would like to create “touchable,” interactive sculptural installations. Most of my work, while inviting, is not “supposed” to be touched. I would like to work with durable materials such as fiberglass window screen, carpeting, stone, ceramics, and wood, and entice the viewer to touch. John Dewey’s Art as Experience posits that art is part of a continuum of experiences, and that we artificially separate “High Art” from “Low Art.” I believe using humble materials and changing the way the viewer interacts with the work of art by making it more intimate, not merely on a visual level, can bridge a gulf between people. I would like to continue to use video elements as both a light-source and image generator, especially live video of the exhibition space itself. Video projections can be both otherworldly and familiar at the same time, so real and yet so ephemeral, creating a meditative “space” for the viewer.

Here’s another segment from my video projection for “Skibladnir” at the Viking Ship Museum. This segment is made of two moving images, one of the Tune Ship at the Viking Ship Museum, and one of walking through the forest south of Oslo.
I suppose this is a not-so-subtle way of making a connection between ships and trees, since ships used to be made from trees (remember that?). But the video also links the ship to the landscape, since looking inside the remains of the Tune ship is like looking in a mountain valley; it looks quite rugged and “natural.”
What interests me is not “exposing” these sorts of connections, since they end up being rather obvious after you see them, but as a way of getting to the next more interesting, ambiguous level, where I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m exploring.

I decided I can file this on under “outdoor adventures,” too, since I recorded some of the video on skis during the winter of 2011 (February 9, 2011 according to the file information) at Pebble Creek. This is a layered video (having multiple superimpositions of images) that I included, albeit briefly, in the video projected in Skibladnir at the Viking Ship Museum. Something didn’t seem quite right, so I removed it. One of the problems is that I didn’t need any more monochromatic sequences in the video loop. Another is that the subtleties of the layered images are lost when projected. However, I still like the video, so I thought I’d share it. It’s rather short, and just ends. . .rather odd. . .I added a “fade to black” but it still has an unsettling effect, as if it is demanding to be continued. I’m not trying to create a narrative, but to set a mood, or present ideas. I’m still conscious of “filmmaking,” which I try to use and subvert at the same time. I watched the video loop at the museum today, which runs about 24 minutes, and I am still not sure how the use of “fades-to-black” affects the installation. I have to have a “fade-to-black” to hide the point where the DVD restarts the loop, and I’ve used others intermittently to camouflage that specific break. Now I wonder, though, if using this cinematic convention is a good idea, thus, I’m inspired to removed the transitional “fades” and see what happens.

Here’s a two-minute-or-so segment from the video I am projecting in my sculptural installation at the Viking Ship Museum. The total length of the video loop (which I burn to a DVD) is about 28 minutes now. I really like this little segment. There is no sound at the museum, but here you can hear the dog panting (it’s Blü!) and the water lapping.

Harald Gråfell was one of the ancient kings of Norway. The name translates as “Harald (or Harold) Graycloak.” Harald met his end in northern Denmark in battle in 971 A.D. I came across a rather melancholy poem about him in Snorri Sturluson’s “Heimskringla” that is attributed to Glum Geirason, an Icelandic skald. I collected video imagery of the sea-shore nearby at Hvervenbukta, just outside the Oslo city limits. The trees, which I think are birches, or maybe they’re aspens?, were recorded in Idaho, on the Gibson Jack Creek Trail, just outside of Pocatello.
“On Limfjord’s strand, by the tide’s flow,
Stern fate has laid King Harald low;
The gallant viking-cruiser-he
Who loved the isle-encircling sea.
The generous ruler of the land
Fell at the narrow Limfjord strand.
Enticed by Hakons’s cunning speech
To his death-bed on Limfjord’s beach.”

Well, YouTube allows long video uploads, so I thought, “Why not?” Here is the video that I am currently projecting in Skibladnir. I change the video loop almost daily, making slight variations, as I tweak it to make sure that it’s bright enough, and that it “looks right.” This is the variation for today. So, if you have some time on your hands, let ‘er rip!

Well, I don’t really think I am a control-freak, but I am picky! Being an artist is like being a parent. You create things: your kids or works of art, but you don’t own them. They need you, but not forever.
Yesterday at the museum it was bright inside because the sun was shining (and it was a balmy -12C / 10F outside), and my videos were washed-out, although not invisible. I suppose I could have lamented the fact, especially as I was going to give a talk (hoping to sound brilliant, etc.), but Skibladnir is her own girl now. She can float above the ground in any kind of light. Actually, the bright light showed-off the zig-zagging grid, which is the framework that holds the fabric panels, and is an integral part of the sculpture visually. I am reminded of something I heard on a broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera. An orchestra member related that someone asked Philip Glass how they ought to play a passage from his opera Satyagraha, and Glass said that the work was no longer his, that it was for others to create. So, in my case, it’s for the viewer to create an experience with, and a meaning for Skibladnir.
I thought I’d share more of what I talked about yesterday with the group at the museum, but much of what I said has been covered before in this blog. What I don’t think I have mentioned is that Skibladnir is an opposite of the ships. She is feminine where they are masculine; light where they are dark; floating while they are sitting, soft where they are hard. I looked up Skibladnir on Wikipedia (notice the variant spellings if you view the page), and found the quote that Skibladnir “is the best of ships,” so it’s fitting that she is in the Viking Ship Museum with the real best-of-ships. She’s the same-opposite.