the rain on Venus

virga; noun

1. wisps of precipitation evaporating before reaching the ground

Ika

negotiating my experience of Irena Knezevic's work at Illinois State University. was really nice to see so much of her work in person.

 Irena Knezevic - Trained Girl (fiberglass, foam, hair, fabric, Donald Judd plywood box) 2010

 Irena Knezevic - Universe Girl (detail) (acrylic, leather, fabric, hair) 2011

found these two things around the ISU art building:

and found (got) a title for the wind-chime piece that i have in the works (see the sketch here):

Ghost in the Graveyard 

rhyme scheme

in the works, maybe done:

Adam Farcus - Schema (a-b-c-b-a-e-a-e-c-b) (cloths pins, acrylic, brass) 2011, 12" x 3½" x ½"

actually, on later thought, this piece needs to be bigger - the brass rod needs to be around 6 feet long, and the cloths pins should follow a specific poetic rhyme scheme.

Axes (Axis, plural)

Axis (after Jason Dodge)

i pulled this out of a lot of notes from about 30 minutes of standing in the Jason Dodge gallery in the exhibition "The Language of Less (Then and Now)" [or as it is read on the wall and in publication "Then The Language of and Now Less"] at the mca.
<3
i think this, and my 9/11 poem from this year, signal a poetic form that i need to explore more: axis - poems organized like compasses. a language of orienteering and orientating.

Jason Dodge - The Flutes are Filled with Poison (blockflutes, comium maculatum, silver) 2010 [a piece not in the mca show, but sooo nice]

haiku

we went over what a haiku is in NWA today. 5-7-5 and with reference to a season. i noticed the that the source (content) of the form wasn't addressed in any of the poems that were handed out. so i wrote one (my first ever, i think) that addresses something about me (a white american dude) writing in this form.

1945
summer in Hiroshima

and Nagasaki

yep- that's my second poem that references atomic bombs. (1st here)

"measure"

an idea to be explored:
Measure
a portrait of my immediate family and me
- Sears portrait? Photoshopped?
printed large (24" x 36")
placed in a large, hand-made, frame made of yard-sticks
-or all photos stuck in the frame of a yard-stick framed mirror (see below)
with other photos & memorabilia stuck in the edge of the frame (old and new)

(frame found on flickr)

 Kerry James Marshall - Untitled (Mementos) (c-print) 1998 [from the MCA collection]

my dad and mom in the hospital, right before i was born (i found this in my parent's basement a long time ago)

a Sears family portrait found on Google

Coal City High School Art Club at the Morris, IL Wal*Mart

what?

these two things are not the same. my childhood has changed.

<3 - Lawrence Weschler