Friday, January 25, 2013

rain paintings

Dear blog o sorts,
Speaking of sorting, how do you sort out what is "art" and what is not? You commit the subtle yet radical act of caring enough about a small visual thing that comes upon you:
Snake or dragon?
These two images sited by Susan Needleman:
Discussing their Financial Affairs
This scrappy high contrast moment makes the Art Ranger want everyone to read this article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104#ixzz2HIrDzuGl

 Please take the time to wonder and be amazed and disgusted and informed by our financial "system".

 Phew, let's change gears:
How poetic  - complete the circuit and you may gain entry to the inhabitants
from the series, Rain Paintings
That's all for now..... what's in your now? or wow? send to FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Friday, January 18, 2013

Found Art Friday 109

Dear Blogosports,
We're back, after chewing the fat on Lance Armstrong and rendering it.  The artist has to stop to draw things or take their picture in order to try to understand them. To keep moving.
"Displaced Debris" by Julian Granier in San Diego.  Julian also tells riveting and elaborate stories in person. He knows how to witness things, then relay them.  Elegant, this one.
5:01 in La Jolla, also Julian's
You can forget we're on earth for a second.  Are you sure that is not your laser pen Julian?
Just a spoonful of sunset please.

Now some recent images from Jim Lindenthal, often our bird specialist based in Pacific Grove:
Yellow Rumped Warbler. (Oh the eyes).
We are glad about the play of colors on bird and lichen and the actual lack of yellow rump. Bird names are treasures.
Now how is it that one image can just instantly go click and remind you of another image stored in your head? 
Such as Jim's Snowy Egret
Which immediately takes Art Ranger to this:  
 They just go together.  Words can't do that exactly.

One more from Jim, now a series of ... backs of birds?, flexible necks, birds from odd angles
Have a fruitful week and don't hesitate to be slightly moved by what's right over there. Varied images very welcome at FAF@homelandinspiration.org.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Art Ranger chews the fat

Okay, Art Ranger has gone off on a tangent, all because of Oprah interviewing
Lance Armstrong this week. 
Lance was always in the top tier of our family’s American hero list, so we have been personally pondering the fall. During the last moments of my dad’s life, he had just watched Lance win the Tour de France in July, 2004. Dad was in the hospital (with cancer) trying to recover from brain surgery. Minutes later, he suffered a pulmonary embolism. He left this world feeling triumphant. Following Lance’s story has been inspiring, stirring. And now disillusioning - like i can't believe i ate the whole thing. 
  What follows is a riff, a rap, a rant in 3 parts.
Part 1: Born this way?
Well his name was Arm Strong, so he goes through life wanting and needing his Arm to be strong.  
And forever looking for the approval of the lost father.
Lance was from Texas, a big boot big hat big talk kind of place.
Growing up, he watched the Bionic Man on TV.
 
He became a promising young athlete. 
As time went on, he began to inject himself with substances to enhance the Lance and re-use his well-rested blood cells, shooting up left and right to add might to his right and meat to his compete.
Soon, it got to his TESTICLES and to his brain,
the CANCER. But then they FIXED IT. The Doctors did!
We watched a tv show about how he “pissed the cancer” right out of his body and got back on the bike.  We were awed!  Lance was a dance that intertwined man, science and perseverance.
Part 2: Invincible
So Lance trained and trained and trained and he pedaled his narrative, his brand, his success.  He sharpened his Lance.
And he fulfilled our hero journey over and over and over again.
Led us to the top of mountains flanked by his stoic servants; his highness beat the odds, and beat the evens, and said the right things.
Lance embodied the american puritanical values of hard work that we relish about ourselves (when it pays off). He also infused his narrative with entrepreneurial ingenuity. The American ideal of being good at marketing, at making things happen, of seizing the moment. Of birthing yourself up to greatness from common origin raised by a single mom.
And with the beatific beating of cancer, the hero fiction amplified, Livestrong softened his egotism with a sweet flow yellow rubber bracelets and cast a wide net of goodness and gladness over any badness or sadness or shady doubt.
Why not also have the best equipment. The best fighter plane, the best spaceship, the best bike, the best legs, and the best chemical inputs in the business. Have the best doctor to doctor the doctors who doctor it up with some monies.

Like Spiderman, he was injected with the serum and then forged a superhero’s record of accomplishments while having a secret life. The man, the athlete, the cyborg, the philanthropist, Lance, continued in that pumped-up vein and could not stop injecting or bullying his disciples to become lesser.

Meanwhile we, America the beautiful, were booming in our bubble, baby. 

It’s what your grandmother would say: “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is”.

Or, there’s something fishy here ….

And one should never count your chickens before they hatch .....

Part 3) Bubbles Bursting
It was a winning formula, the brawn, the brain, and the chemicals all working together. While in America, we whooped it up all hogwild on the internet with the dot.com bubble and the mortgage bundling binge with lines and lines of credit and bigger and bigger tvs based on the not real, but betting on the falsely fattened future with a small group of insiders.
Lance just another version of our Hubris, the doping a sort of Ponzi scheme for crafting the most powerful thighs. For unreal endurance. Like unreal cash returns on investment.

That mad mad squeeze to win at all cost, even though he sleazes through it, overspends it, the gift of life.  
He is also the Greek god who cheated at Discus.  And the one who flew too close to the sun.  And like the god Heracles, he used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice. Heck, what would Jesus say?  About all the hard work anyway
Or Mahamoud or Buddha?
Gods fall
Men flail
And people love to have someone to worship…
Lance high on the hog with all those the masquerades of victory.
All those logo lockjaw smiles - swish this swoosh that.
Stuffed animals for all of us left to wonder what would have been
if none of them did?
He inspired so many to rise from their couches and pedal their bikes
He gave us what we wanted.
Until the Bubble burst, our America, our hero
The Deception Center will not hold.
Oh open can of worms --  what will happen to our story?

Friday, January 4, 2013

Welcome, New Year

Dear Friends and Blogosorts,
Well here we are beginning an new odd year.  Welcome to the Department of Homeland Inspiration, a place where we collect, sort and make note of images in everyday life, where the art may unfold right past our nose.  A few days ago, on an adventure in Sonoma County, the Art Ranger was idling in a parking lot while her boys went inside to buy fishing worms. 
She saw this one out of the corner of her eye.  (Hey wait a minute, eyes are these oval things so how'd they get corners?)
a different sort of parking meter
 living right next to this,

(which suggests that F   ing half-heartedly is probably to be avoided).
Art Ranger has always admired the structures of cacti revealed after the green is gone.  So many uses. Next, thing you know, the parkinglot Opuntia cactus display triggers a whole side appreciation of the loofa sponge.
http://wanderingchopsticks.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-make-loofahluffa-sponge.html
From the same plant, comes the prickly pear fruit jam and its outrageously lovely color.
The protective spikes can be understood. Very interesting idea:


Back to the service of art, we deliberate about the light and the angle when we take or choose a picture. You want your heart to be a window or an eye, why not. And the background matters.
Simultaneously, the deliberate scarring of plants as a form of expression.  All those grafitti's upon nature, tatoos made with a knife or a stick, dug into the epidermus of a plant, making it grow up differently.  People like to make their little mark.
someone feels less, and doesn't yet equal
there is math in love
you try to add to it
Please feel free, during this 2013 year to send images of your Homeland Inspiration to us at FAF@homelandinspiration.org
Sali go bye bye