October 2012 – Page 2 – WALKING ON THIN ICE

Reality tag

October 17, 2012 1 Comment

The Lady ‘n Smith Show – foto Smith

In bed-time-talk my artist wife says she thought we’d visited a local nature area together.

I say no, at least not in this reality. Maybe in an alternate one, or perhaps I’m not in my right reality right now and this me doesn’t know the usual me here has been there with you. That’s what I need — you know the way the good guys want to tag fracking fluids with identifiable markers, a different isotope for each natural gas well, so if they contaminate the aquifer we know who’s responsible? Well I need a different reality isotope for each possible alternate reality, a marker I can check to see if the where I think I am is the where I really am. Reality tag, biggest game in town.

“Speaking of gas, I’ve been farting a lot lately. Suffering constantly for two weeks. Beginning to think it’s the Universe making a comment on my anti-fracking activism.”

Natural ass gas?

“Yes, I’m the natural gas, not that unnatural fracking gas.”

Very unnatural; basically a big underground pipe bomb.

“And they smell . . . here comes another one building.”

Ah my little fart art tart, such sweet nothings before you slip into sleep.

“To sleep, perchance to dream” – foto Smith

part 2, End of Excess

October 16, 2012 No Comments

Crisis is Good, Why This End of Excess: 54 collages by Smith, 2010 – foto Smith

Sometimes sleep slides us
One trouble to another
With but dream between

By request, nine more of the fifty-four 7″ x 5″ paper collages made over a two week period three Februarys ago collectively titled *Crisis is Good, Why This End of Excess*.

Three readings sneaking up:

Smith-Shaffer-Smith book reading Thursday October 25, 2012 at Visible Voice Books in Tremont 7pm (Cleveland, Ohio)

Third seasonal episode of Poetry at Pat’s in the Flats Sunday October 28, 2012 from 11:30am to 3pm (Cleveland, Ohio)

Smith & Lady book reading Thursday November 1, 2012 6pm at the Lorain Arts Council (Lorain, Ohio)

Crisis is Good, Why This End of Excess: 54 collages by Smith, 2010 – fotos Smith

End of Excess, part 1

October 15, 2012 No Comments

End of Excess: 54 collages by Smith, 2010 – foto Smith

February 2010 I made a book of fifty-four 7″ x 5″ paper collages over a two week period and titled it: Crisis is Good, Why This End of Excess. Here are 9.

Now I must get busy shamelessly self-promoting the Smith-Shaffer-Smith book reading Thursday October 25, 2012 at Visible Voice Books in Tremont 7pm, and the third seasonal episode of Poetry at Pat’s in the Flats Sunday October 28, 2012 from 11:30am to 3pm.

End of Excess: 54 collages by Smith, 2010 – fotos Smith

5 x Smith

October 13, 2012 No Comments

Truss, 1985, 6″ x 9″ – collage/foto Smith

Mountain Music, 2005, 9″ x 14″ – assemblage/foto Smith

The Last Election, 2008, 12″ x 12″ – collage/foto Smith

Space Time Continuum, 1997, 22″ x 26″ – painting/foto Smith

Pharmacy Duchamp, 1986, 28″ x 25″ – assemblage/foto Smith

7 Smith art pieces

October 12, 2012 No Comments

My Fair Lady, 1996, 15″ x 12″ – collage/fotos SmithFirst collage I gave to Lady cuz she’s my fair Lady. She was 24 when I made this; now she’s 39 and still the fairest of them all.

Limbic Rock, 2000, 10″ x 12″ – collage/fotos Smith

I glued a bullet I found in the street over where our primitive lizard-like limbic system brain is. It used to have an upside-down NIXON button where the bullet was that said NOXIN, but when it was hanging in a show at the old Red Star Coffee Shop, a customer ripped it off the collage and took it home. Which is odd because the dead poet Steve Melton had given the Nixon button to me a couple years earlier at the same table in the same coffee shop the piece was hanging over.

Mammogram, 2005, 9″ x 14″ – collage/fotos Smith

Pine needles with rust eating through iridescent silver wash.

Nul-void, 1995, 6″ x 9″ – collage/fotos Smith

A postcard I made and mailed to my brother in Las Vegas.

Black Rain, 2003, 6″ x 5″ – collage/fotos Smith

Copper corrosion, brooch, costume jewels, wing nut, paint.

Afterthought, 1996, 6″ x 5″ – collage/fotos Smith

Grandma Moses print, rubber toy, sail sewing needles, copper corrosion, fire, dead bird

Plot to Get Whitey, 1996, 11″ x 9″ – collage/fotos Smith

Illustration from a late 1950s or early 60s Look or Life magazine, fire, paper, copper corrosion, silver wash

Me Ow

October 11, 2012 No Comments

Sun cat – foto Smith

Me Ow

Cat sick
urp beneath purr
white froths rug
I say don’t worry kid
get through today
start again tomorrow
sleep’ll tend your tatters

— Smith, 10.11.2012

Elvis cat – foto Smith

Cain in Isolation

October 10, 2012 No Comments

Complicated – foto Smith

Cain in Isolation

There lies a sorrow beneath this yellow
odor which rises on two legs and mocks
what little man remains behind. Shallow
selfish greed of love and lover’s talk
of trust in self made shadows mere shadow
of hallowed spell disguised by holy frock.

Varied the means of divination, certain
though time and dark demons conspire, despair
by this hand shall never rend the curtain
nor set wraiths cull delusions of lone fear.
What is, is, beyond lamenting, Canaan
isolation. Love and love alone stands bare

— Smith, 1975

Complicated 2 – foto Smith

art sparx

October 9, 2012 1 Comment

Caged Dice, 1997 – assemblage/fotos Smith

About time I blogged art again. No connection between these pieces except they’re what I grabbed off the wall on my way out back to shoot in the sun.

Lotus Blossom, 2000 – assemblage/fotos Smith

The Republic, 1994 – assemblage/foto Smith

I Want, 1997 – assemblage/fotos Smith

Vampires on the Beach, 2003 – assemblage/fotos Smith

Double Rainbow, My Good Luck Charmers

October 8, 2012 1 Comment

So for a week or so I’ve had this collage as my laptop background:

I like this photo of my grandparents a lot. Grandma is so beautiful, and it’s a nice vision of what being old can look like for me. And I love the expression of love between my grandparents. But what bothers me is that Grandpa was suffering physically so much at that time.

I have a weird way with the world. Or it has a weird way with me. It’s kind of a wonderful thing. Grandpa’s spirit has visited me perhaps hundreds of times. Grandma’s, probably dozens that I’ve perceived. I think, actually, if one has a good relationship with one’s ancestors, they might be available at any time one wishes to be around them. It’s just not always easy to perceive. But at times, it’s been very easy for me to perceive.

So, since I am feeling that there is some kind of afterlife, I take it seriously. And the way people are remembered might make a difference, because images are so powerful. Images have spirits, too. So I wish to provide Grandma and Grandpa with some samples of pictures that I find rather pleasing, and that they may as well. Pictures in which there was little or no physical suffering for them. Maybe this reflects in the afterlife and maybe this is something that they can tap in to if they wish.

I’m happy to worship my ancestors along with the pantheon of Mother Goddess, Mother Earth, Father God and Totality given that they have made me so happy and have been such good people to me and so many others.

This is a photo of my grandparents shortly before or after they eloped. It’s one of my favorites!