April « 2010 « WALKING ON THIN ICE

Archive for April, 2010

wall eye collage

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

I have these five collages spanning 33 years hanging in tonight’s Pink Eye Book of Collage art show and publication party at the Wall Eye Gallery

Last Election, 2008, 12″ x 12″, (made in Mexico)

The Coca-Cola Wars, 2007, 7″ x 9.5″, (made in France)

What A, 2006, 12″ x 16″, (made in Croatia)

Dice Cage, 1997, 18″ x 18″, (made in Cleveland)

Free Bird, 1977, 16″ x 20″, (made in Cleveland)

I’ll also have an as-yet unseen multi-page spread in the just-published Pink Eye Book of Collage, available at tonight’s show for $20, which is less than 40 cents an artist

Here’s the press release.

The Pink Eye Book of Collage Release Extravaganza
(An Art Exhibition and Book Release with Live Music)
Friday April 30th 6pm â€“ 11pm
Free
Wall Eye Gallery
5304 Detroit Ave. Cleveland, OH 44102
walleyegallery.blogspot.com/

Join the folks from Pink Eye Magazine as they celebrate their move from magazines to limited edition art books. Their first book release, The Pink Eye Book of Collage, features over 50 local artistsâ€™ collages in full glossy color. The opening will exhibit the works selected for the book (plus many more) as part of a large (over 150 pieces) salon styled show. Many well known local artistsâ€¦in fact, too many to list, will be taking part in this exhibition of awesomeness, a must see for any fan of collage art. So come early â€“ art will be sold affordably on a â€œgrab and goâ€ basis, and leave late â€“ there will be live psyche-rock music provided by Freedom and Umm Qasr, as well as a plentiful bounty of beer supplied by (sponsor) P.B.R.

And the fun doesnâ€™t stop thereâ€¦the after party will be moving two blocks down the street to the Happy Dog (5801 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44102) for more live sonic debauchery supplied by Hot Cha Cha, Film Strip and Beardo Bandini.

More Information at: pinkeyemag.com/

Pre-Order you book online at: pinkeyemag.com/shop/

Cheers! – Leigh & Ian (the Pink Eye People)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Posted in Art | 3 Comments »

broken fish

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

this way – foto by Smith

A few folk read one of my haiku in last Sunday’s blog and thought it was a metaphor for me saying I felt like a trapped rat. I can see where they’re coming from.

Rat trapped in being
a rat in rat trap world
rat man maze amaze

Well, I have felt rat-ish and rat trapped in my rat past, but these days my rat thoughts are more along the lines of “if I’m the rat, you best step back, cuz I’m not the one gonna jump” (from 8 Ball Boogie).

I’d written a haiku about me holding our cat in my lap when she didn’t want to be held and had a good cat foto to go with it for my blog but felt two cat fotos would be too tacky so I looked through my fotos and the only thing that fit was the rat foto. But the cat-cat-rat didn’t flow right so I quickly wrote a rat haiku just to segue from cat to rat. No need, no truth, no metaphor – simple segue.

My poems aren’t always biographical. For example, in the letter tile poems below, I was stoned when I wrote “no pot”. Each poem has its own needs — sometimes truth serves, sometimes lies. In this case my sole constraint was the limited number of letter tiles to choose from – 3 of each letter with 3 extras each of A, E, I, L, O, R, S, T. The letters come from a children’s name bracelet kit – I got three out of a vending machine at a poetry reading for fifty cents each.

Making tile poems is rather like being an old Linotype setter – one must physically pick up and set each letter in place. Plus one composes poetry by seeing what words can be created from one’s ever diminishing lair of letters.

letter tile poems numbers 5 thru 7 – foto by Smith

Posted in Poetry | 1 Comment »

the eyes are never full

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Maybe Mona Lisa – Lady’s latest collage

Lady gets her computer back today or tomorrow with a new hard drive installed, at which time I’ll get my laptop back from her. She’s had to use mine to do her paying work, so I’ve been set adrift without my cyber symbiot to help me dip into my online all-the-time internet addiction of blogging, researching, and harvesting headlines.

Been reading Wolf Hall to pass the time, a novel about the court of Henry the VIII which won last year’s Man Booker prize; but while the story is sweet and well written, it hasn’t captured my interest after 150 pages, so I’m sending it back to the library.

Simultaneously rereading Sartre’s Nausea. Read it in my twenties and thought it okay but never really understood his nausea with life; now that I’m 64, I understand him much better. But while the book is well written, the anti-hero’s constant whining doesn’t make me want to rush back to it, so it sits in the bathroom to be read a few pages at a time over months, taking turns with an anthology titled “A Geography of Poets“.

Anyway here’s some unrelated mind candy to feed your restless eyes; for as the Old Testicle states, “The eyes are never full.”