Learning to Swim

This is my new favorite poem in the newest publication Poetry, Volume 194, Number 4, July/August 2009.

Bob Hicok
--

Learning to Swim

At forty-eight, to be given water
which is most of the world, given life
in water, which is most of me, given ease,

which is most of what I lack, here, where walls
don't part to my hands, is to be born
as of three weeks ago. Taking nothing

from you, mother, or you, sky, or you,
mountian, that you wouldn't take
if offered by the sea, any sea, or river,

any river, or the pool, beside which
a woman sits who would save me
if I needed saving, in a red suit, as if flame

is the color of emergency, as I do,
need saving, from solid things,
most of all, their dissolve.

Paradise

steps 220 through 235 of the Google Directions for walking from Chicago, IL to Paradise, MT:
[somewhere in Southeastern Montana]

217.	Turn right		0.9 mi
218.	Turn right		4.8 mi
219.	Turn right		5.2 mi
220.	Turn left		0.9 mi
221.	Turn right		1.2 mi
222.	Turn left		5.2 mi
223.	Turn left		2.8 mi
224.	Turn right toward Sarpy Creek Rd		0.7 mi
225.	Slight right at Sarpy Creek Rd		0.9 mi
226.	Turn left		1.5 mi
227.	Turn right		0.6 mi
228.	Turn right		230 ft
229.	Turn left		0.9 mi
230.	Turn left		0.5 mi
231.	Turn left		0.9 mi
232.	Turn right toward Sarpy Rd		1.9 mi

View Larger Map

Skyspace

Finished my whiskey and ginger ale, put on my flannel, and took my umbrella from the studio out into the rain. It was dusk and the south end of the sky was full heavy blue. As I passed James Turrell's, Skyspace I noticed the water was turned on. The small water falls were doing battle with the weather. This piece, turquoise and stucco - a bit of transplanted southwest on a busy Chicago intersection - was finally starting to do it's thing. The sound of the fountain and jets of water blended the traffic: hurrying and turning on the flooded road. I left and the flow stuck with me as the passing tires meeting the wet pavement were influenced and driven by a display of light; obvious but fleeting, like the UFOs over Marfa.

all photos of Skyspace and the street near it were taken with my camera phone

Dots

The Light of God Dot, acrylic on found paper 2009

memory and color

found
rough red truck
parked in a grey lot
billboards above shed their halftone ads
candy gumdrops from Target
grave for hand written notes
the streets and sidewalks glitter
.......with cultural flotsam and jetsam

he finds his surrogate history
he makes his mark on time
he makes his mark on time he makes
his mark on time
he makes

***

I've been making these "Dot" pieces for around 4 years now, and I'm still trying to figure them out. This should be viewed as a presentation about my pieces involving dots and their relation, in concept and form, to the following information.
The dots began a simple color tests and a way for me to teach my self color theory and interaction. Soon there after they became more structured. The dots are always painted, one circle in the middle of another, usually on found paper. The color of the dot parts are always in response to each other, with slight respect to the color of the found paper. The middle of the dot is always gloss, the outside ring is always matte. They act as my own stamp, or symbol, on top of something that is lost and ephemeral. I've realized I'm drawn to circles because they are the most complete and contained shape; in a way, they are inescapable (a thought completed and borrowed from Thomas Downing).

Thomas Downing, Red Plum, acrylic on canvas 1961

The exhibition catalog for Thomas Downing's show Origin of the Dot (Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, D.C.) contains a series of letters from Thomas Downing to Vincent Melzac, from which the following quote was taken.

"One of the more intelligent questions asked regarding my work was asked by a child. The question was 'Why do you paint circles instead of squares?' My answer at the moment was 'because circles are easier to paint. There are no corners to go into and then get out of.'

---

Dealing with color requires full attention... When from two to twenty-two clearly different colors must also be taken into consideration, nothing short of total absorbtion (sic) is required. Nothing more difficult than a full round circle will allow either the time or energy to deal with color."

Another circle painter god is Kenneth Noland. But these forms are not only found in art and I am also drawn to them in culture; in particular targets and graphic design.

Kenneth Noland, Mysteries: Afloat, 2000

Bridget Riley - Untitled, gouache and pencil on paper 1970

sponge target and Ohio flag in my studio

Barack Obama's 2008 campaign logo

On Kenneth Noland and his circles Terry Fenton writes:

"When the center of art shifted to New York in the '40s, this abstracting Cubism was inherited from the School of Paris. By the 1950s, it was under pressure from many American artists. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell -- all made abstract paintings which had a vague, symbolic association in their imagery.

So did Noland's early 'Circles,' which were surrounded by painterly penumbras. Realizing that these target-like motifs could stand on their own as simple, geometric layouts, by 1960 he'd turned to unadorned unsymbolic circles. These latter concentric circles were just circles; every vestige of representation or allusion in the drawing of them had been expunged. Graphic allusiveness had been taken over by color."

Fenton, Terry. "Appreciating Noland." 2001. Tue. 9 Jun. 2009. http://www.sharecom.ca/noland/apnolandindex.html

Funeral Dot, acrylic on found paper 2008

Mission Read Dot, acrylic on found paper 2007

Party! Dot, acrylic on found paper 2008

installation of Dots

And because I can not avoid a pun and what might be perceived as bad idea:

Dots, acrylic on box 2008