More Prints

Case was home yesterday cutting linoleum and getting the last five prints ready for his show (see Case's Art Is Up). Everything got printed, signed, framed, and delivered. The amount of detail on the octopus (with coffee cup) is truly amazing. Said it took him over 100 hours to carve it. [NOTE: Love the reds in the top image].

Abundance of Art

So wonderful to live near an art museum that has Matisse's Dance (I), as well as an exhibition of Bjork's work.

Way to go, MOMA. You are much loved. 

Case's Art Is Up

Oldest son, Case (see Case and Phearoom), has an art show of this linoleum block prints hanging in the R Patisserie Cafe and Tea Boutique in New Rochelle. Six pieces are already up (see Steal Yourself and Ganesh with Coffee) and four or five more on on the way. [NOTE: Just so you know, the pieces are for sale at reasonable prices].

Buddhist Art of Myanmar

Saw a beautiful exhibition of Buddist art from Myanmar this weekend at the Asia Society. Seventy pieces, including stone, bronze and wood sculptures, textiles, paintings, and lacquer ritual implements, from the 5th through the early 20th century. Was the first time that most of the objects had been outside of Myanmar. Go here for a nice video of the restoration process involved in getting the pieces ready for travel to the exhibition. [NOTE: Photos weren't allowed, but I purchased the exhibition catalogue and will try to scan and post some images at some point. Really amazing stuff]. 

Berry's Drawing

Lovely sketch that Berry Brosi (now Dr. Berry Brosi) drew for a workshop that I gave in 1999 at the Instituto de Ecología in Xalapa, Veracruz, MEXICO. Shows clearly, step by step, how to make a dendrometer band (see How to Make Dendrometer Bands). Beautiful illustration (thx, Silvia, for digging this up). [NOTE: Wonder if Dr. Brosi is still drawing?] 

Wu Kang and the Katsura Trees

This, from the Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Entitled "Wu Kang on His Way to Fell the Katsura Trees on the Moon", a beautiful color woodcut by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, (1839 - 1892) from the Meiji Period in Japan. [NOTE: Just a thought, but this woodcut would make a terrific t-shirt. I mean, really, what forester wouldn't love this].   

Head Over Heels

Beautifully realized stop-motion animation from Timothy Reckart. A student project that went on to be nominated for an Academy Award. For those days when you and your partner seem to be occupying completely different gravitational spaces. It happens. And can be resolved. Love this little movie. Level of detail is amazing.     

Three Years Ago Today

Three years ago today I was standing in front of this exquisite pagoda-like structure at the Royal Palace complex in Phnom Penh. [NOTE: I remember that there was a delicious, cool breeze in the shade where I took the picture]. 

Thoughts on Science and Nature (From the Archive)

This from C.S. Lewis in English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Oxford, 1954, pp.3-4:

What was fruitful in the thought of the new scientists was the bold use of mathematics in the construction of hypotheses, tested not by observation simply but by controlled observation of phenomena that could be precisely measured. On the practical side, it was this that delivered Nature into our hands (emphasis mine). By reducing Nature to her mathematical elements it substituted a mechanical for a genial or animistic conception of the universe. The world was emptied, first of her indwelling spirits, then of her occult sympathies and antipathies, finally of her colors, smells, and tastes. 

Man with his new powers became rich like Midas but all that he touched had gone dead and cold. This process, slowly working, ensured during the next century the loss of the old mythical imagination: the conceit, and later the personified abstraction, takes its place.

This passage rewards re-reading slowly. In spite of what I do for a living (see What I Do), there is much, very much, that I agree with here.

[NOTE: These thoughts go well with several of my recent post, e.g. A Song of the Rolling Earth, Planetary, Zen and the Art of Planetary Crisis]. 

Office Bulletin Board

A small section of the bulletin board behind the computer in my office. Selected items:

1. The Indonesian license plate from our Land Rover in West Kalimantan

2. Arrival card from my first trip to Myanmar in 2005

3. Trading card of Son Goku in his Super Saiyan form 

4. Ticket to 2007 Farm Aid concert on Randall's Island. Row B (second row), Seat 5.

5. Mr. Yu's handwritten list of plant species from our transects in Guizhou

6. Pamphlet from the USDA Plant Pathogen and Quarantine Program about how to set up an appointment to have your shipments from overseas inspected. We had just moved back from Indonesia and had lots of boxes. 

[NOTE: It's amazing that I get anything done with all of this to look at].