The Asian influence in drawing II
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
The Asian influence in drawing
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Su Shih (1037-1101)
Writing about a painter and one of his paintings:
Bamboos chilled but preeminent,
Trees lean but enduring,
Rocks homely but distinctive,
These are "the three beneficial friends."
Their brilliance makes us befriend them;
Their independence forbids their being constrained.
I think of this man-
Alas, can I ever meet him again?
From Early Chinese Texts on Painting, Compiled and Edited by Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1985, p. 201.
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(Mary) Heilmann's language is not - and cannot be - unique, any more than any writer's is. It is often claimed that there are no new forms in abstract painting, and that all the formal possibilities of abstraction have been codified and used up. This misses the point: the drive for formal innovation is not the only thing that motivates the painter. There are other ways in which artists innovate. It is all a matter of a tone of voice, a temperament, experience and drive.
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Here's what I was going to say today...
My point the other day, not terribly well hidden in the mockery, cynicism, sarcasm, and rage, is that if and when the President, who was given the authority by Congress to attack Iraq, does decide to involve the US in war, the people who are going to be actually in the war will be the young adult generation, the 18-30 crowd, not the people making the decisions.
And I wanted to make clear the fact that among the members of the Berkeley weblogging community it will be the brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors of the younger webloggers, and possibly even the younger webloggers themselves, who will go to war. And maybe eventually some of Laura's students. And other ATDPers who aren't weblogging. And boys or girls you don't know who you checked out in the other car at the red light on Saturday night. And that kid who was your best friend in second grade and then his or her family moved away and you lost touch but you still remember what they look like because every once in awhile you run across your school pictures that you've saved all these years.
And I was going to say today that in all the writing of the last few days, much of which I admittedly read pretty quickly, mostly I read folks trying to find or express their position on war.
But I didn't see one person say they did or didn't want to personally go to war themselves.
Until Cole, "However, one thing is for sure: If there is a draft, I'm going north, taking the train."
But that shouldn't have to be his only option.
So now I guess I can't write about nobody talking about this issue on a personal level.
This was my point: war is not a political position, an argument, or an abstraction. When it happens, it is real: blood, guts, and bone, red, pink, and brown, ugly, stinky, and repulsive.
If we get a real war, and there is no way of saying that that won't happen, and there are plenty of scenarios around that talk about how a simple military action can spin out of control into a multi-national, regional conflict, spilling back over our own borders, it will not be a video game. Here in the US we have the apparently unfortunate luxury of that unreality, and it could be our undoing.
Gently position your feet flat on the floor. Breath in and hold. Quiet your mind. Smile inwardly. Exhale. That is real. That is life. It is right. War will snuff that out. Doesn't that make you angry? suspicious? sad? frustrated? motivated?
Ask your parents, teachers, and friends if they'd like you to go to war.
And still, in the back of my mind, is my hope that I am overreacting, and that there is no threat, and I'll look back fondly on this period as the time when I got all crazy and upset about nothing. If that happens you can just call me Chicken Little.
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I am a happy lifelong Giants fan.
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Margaret Fay (Allison) Ewing
February 9, 1910 Stanton Texas- October 15, 2002 Hayward, California
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