I am on the ob blog today with Dear Loved One – a plea to the loved ones of anyone who is a writer.
Hope you will click over, here, and comment.
In Now’s black waters… by Daniel Dallabrida
All American Faggots, by Daniel Dallabrida
1.
Let me tell you a story...of a time, of a deadly decade in my city, San Francisco.
It was a time that already cannot be imagined, even though we lived through it. It was, here in the village-like Castro, a time when hope was hidden away so it would not die.
Let me open up a story that still rests on the shoulder of any person who lived among these foggy hills between 1981 and 1997. If you lived in San Francisco you were living with AIDS; you were living with death.
AIDS arrived among us like a stealth bird of prey.
The first death was recorded in 1981. A frightening curiosity. In 1983, 137 men dissolved in ways that were quick, mean and indescribable. The scent of fear rode every bus. Dread flavored every meal. The number of deaths doubled the next year. Then doubled again. And then tripled. By 1986, there were 907 deaths in San Francisco. Each of the following years, until 1997, the mortality count hovered between 1000 and 2000.
Four gay men died in San Francisco each and every day between my 30th and 40th birthdays.
Almost all these men lived within a one-mile radius of my home.
Wait. Stop.
Is this the story I want to tell?
2.
If humans are by nature inveterate storytellers, then artists are consummate storytellers.
In one way or another every work of art, literature, music, theatre, fashion and design presents a narrative. Narrative can be quite literal and documentarian. It can be historical or prospective. It can be metaphoric or metonymic.
Every story is a set of agreements. Each narrative provides symbols which speak of the human condition. A story is a pattern that helps explain the chaos that surrounds us. It calms the cyclones in our heads. Playing a reflective and socializing role in every culture, stories are a fundamental aspect of civilization.
The form of stories shifts from culture to culture. The idea that an event takes place in a temporal context is a constant construct. But there is not a universal construct of temporality. Some cultures layer time so that the notable deeds of ancestors may appear in stories of contemporary life. Transversely, the storyteller may place his own experience into the realm of his ancestors.
Within our Indo-European tradition we want to hold a narrative that reflects the way we experience our lives—as a sequence of events that follow a chronological order that includes a past, present and future. (From once upon a time to happily ever after.) We need stories—in structure and purpose—to provide an explanation. (And the moral of the story is…)
The artist, however, can step out of the linear form and capture that symbol or metaphor with stroke of a brush or the placement of a stone. The artist can manipulate time and space with to provide the message.
The opportunity, if not responsibility, of the artist/storyteller, is to see things that others cannot, and to offer ways for people to pay attention to their world. Writer Barry Lopez observes that the artist is not in the position to solve the problems of society; it is his or her role to illuminate and translate. The artist sees the disruptions and tears in the patterns of our lives long before others. It may be easier to make art about the darkness and disorder, says Lopez. Still, the opportunity exists to illuminate, to construct and share new patterns that are conducive to re-order. The artist can “take the darkness that was shoved down your throat and breath it out as fire.”
Damage is Done, by Daniel Dallabrida
3.
So let me step back a bit further.
Let me tell you a story of a time before AIDS.
I can’t say that I remember it terribly well. I was young and much too busy to be paying close attention.
It was the gay community’s Golden Age of liberation. It was a time of deliverance, impunity, sovereignty and immunity.
Each day held the promise of self-determination, ascendancy, enlightenment and cultural revision. Each night offered Bacchanalian delights.
The hippies, the faeries, the activists, the clones, the leather-men, the A-gays, the feminist dykes, the New Left, the artists, the sweater crowd, the separatists of both genders—I played in every camp. Being different was a condition to be treasured. We wanted to be “the people that our parents had warned us about.”
We lived wildly. We took on the patriarchy. We took on new names. We took drugs. We dressed to shock—in gender-f**k or leather. We ate brunch. We didn’t just build bodies, we used them. Sex wasn’t just fun, it was one of many ways to stimulate the imagination, to create instant family and build community.
In the chilly post-modern “critique” of today, our promiscuity was “maximized social contact and consolidated alliances,” our drugs “stretched human powers and consciousness,” and our dancing was “an effervescent release of compression.”
But, damn, it was fun.
In Now's waters burn the Stars of Then, by Daniel Dallabrida
4.
In the countryside of southern Tuscany rest the ruins of a 13th century abbey.
It was to be built next to the site of a medieval miracle to take advantage of pilgrims en route to Rome. Cared for by a community of monks, glorious gothic windows would vault to the sky liberating the spirit from this earth.
Before the Church of San Galgano was completed, the Black Death froze the hunger for commerce and the tradition of pilgrimage. When the practice resumed, the primary route to Rome had shifted to pass a different miracle site.
And so, the unfinished church sits as a shell. Thick stone walls stand against the wind, but hold no windows. There is no roof other than the azure Tuscan sky. Instead of benches and altar, grasses and wildflowers cover the floor.
There are no moldings, no icons, no tapestries. Only the cool pure lines of stone adorn the space. The morning field mist wanders through the gaping doors.
I imagine my community, my San Francisco, my Castro as that Church of San Galgano.
After the plague years, it lives abandoned at the end of a dirt road. The monks have moved away.
Without a community to celebrate its miracle, it has become a tourist destination, a photo opportunity, a not-so-sacred ruin.
We tell our story in generalities with statistics. We dare not touch the indignant rage, the unresolved grief or the invisible gap between generation. Like veterans of other wars, we live in silence. If we speak will we forget? Will we dishonor our proud past? Will the ghosts flee?
Or will the warmth of sun and new rituals burn away the mists and allow new memories to be built upon the old?
The stories must be told.
Passing Through Mirrors of Light, by Daniel Dallabrida
“I will tell you something about stories…They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled.They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.” L.M. Silko, Ceremony
__________
The artist at work
Read about Daniel at Visual Artist Daniel Dallabrida Damage is Done Call Revisit Aids Crisis Years.
View additional images of Daniel Dallabrida’s “Damage Is Done” on Flickr.
Check out Daniel’s contributions to a limited edition The Visual Aid Pillow Project Visual Aid Pillow Project.
Daniel Dallabrida
Meet Daniel at his upcoming solo exhibition at Magnet, 4122 18th Street, San Francisco, CA. Opening reception March 2, 2012 8-10 pm.
Daniel Dallabrida is a story-teller, una racconta favole. Like a story told, his art exists simultaneously on a continuum of process, performance, ritual, installation and artifact. Though he favors earthen materials—clay, water, metal, wood, fire and the body—he enlists any media, any dimension necessary to illuminate or illustrate the themes, elements, emotions or narratives of the story he wants to tell. He uses photographs, writing, sound and social gatherings to allow people to experience the story in a multi-dimensional yet non-linear way.
Prior to making art, Daniel facilitated relationships between the healthcare activist and pharmaceutical communities. His agency help non-profits, government and companies focus their objectives, articulate their ideas and find common ground. He also worked with the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation (http://pgaf.org/) establishing medical infrastructure in Rwanda and South Africa.
“Being a good facilitator often means masking your own voice to insure that others are heard,” says Daniel. “After 20 years of helping others speak, after 20 years of living with the virus…it was time for me to discover what I might have to share, what I had to say. And it was time to return to a love abandoned decades ago…making art.”
In 2003, Daniel stepped away from his corporate career. He moved to Italy to reboot and to learn the art, culture, and language of his heritage. He apprenticed at a family foundry in the Veneto. Attracted by the Tuscan tradition of anti-Fascist ceramic sculpture, Daniel received a post-bacc certificate from Studio Arts Center International in Florence. Last spring, Daniel received an MFA in Visual Arts from California College of the Arts.
Daniel has exhibited at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni http://english.palazzoesposizioni.it/Home.aspx, Museo San Giovanni de’ Fiorentini (Rome), Casellio Ovest di Porta Venezia (Milan), Silverman Gallery http://www.silverman-gallery.com/ (SF) and Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts http://www.wattis.org/ (SF).
Born in Wilmington DE, Daniel lives and loves with his partner Deary Duffie in San Francisco.
____
Featured Artwork –
All American Faggots (Mênis), 2011
Porcelain, earthen pigment, wood, hemp, cinnamon, terra-cotta
Limited edition documentation c-print
Damage is Done / Danno é fatto, 2011
Process / performance / installation / sound / artifact
Porcelain, earthen pigment, wood, hemp, cinnamon
Variable dimensions
In Now’s black waters burn the stars of Then /
Nelle acque scure di Adesso, brillano le stelle di Poi
(Memento Mori), 1990-2011
Artist’s archival image, billboard poster
63” x 92”
Passando attraverso specchi di luce – 2 febbraio 2008 – Passing Through Mirrors of Light
Incisa Valdarno, IT
Environmental installation of paper, water, ice, sand, flora, reflection, stone. 30’ x 20’
Metallic c-print, 45” x 32”
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A family of artists, by Todd Messinger and Calvin Messinger
Voodoo, by Todd Messinger
First, we need to preface this with a question: If you write, but your books are never published, does that mean you’re not a writer? If you play a musical instrument, but you never play professionally, does that mean you’re not a musician? We are artists, though you won’t find our works in a gallery catalog. We were both accepted into a nationally juried art show at a local gallery in December, 2010, and we are constantly improving our skills, talents and craft.
However, what we feel is art may not be the “marketable art” that people are searching for. Historically there are many successful portrait artists, success being defined as: they made money with their craft; but their work will not be found in galleries. Very often those artists we consider to be famous, and whose art we admire in galleries, never made much money with their art. There is a difference between monetary success and being a successful artist. Sometimes the most moving art, the art that means the most to us, will never be sold in an art gallery, or be found in a museum. We have found that we can use our skills in more marketable ways, while still creating the art that moves us.
Depression, Todd Messinger
Todd:As a father, I think it’s like the master and apprentice relationship. I am teaching Calvin and supplementing his high school and college instruction with what I know, to help him become a master artist. I am giving him an advantage I never had, which is a parent who knows the business and the craft of art, and who understands that sometimes art keeps you up all hours of the night, demanding to be painted. Having art materials around the house has given him an advantage, and because I know how to use those materials, and I teach him how to use them, he has an advantage over kids who don’t have that kind of support at home. I believe in him, in his abilities, and in his potential. I push him to be a better artist by challenging him to do his best. I critique his work, and give him suggestions to improve. We challenge each other to paint the same still-life within 30 minutes. Then we compare and critique each other’s paintings. We both grow in our artistic skills with these exercises, and Calvin learns how to see his work objectively, and how to improve. Calvin also sees that my work is not perfect, that I am still growing and improving my skills. My primary goal is for my son to be a better artist than I am, and my secondary goal is to make sure that I continue to improve so that never happens.
Catalyst, Calvin Messinger
Calvin: Bring it on Dad! It’s a blessing and a curse. Yes, I do get that “jump” forward, you know, that advantage of someone who knows about art and can teach me at a young age. But it’s a curse because sometimes I feel that I have an unfair advantage over others, and that I’m not discovering it on my own, that I have someone to tell me what to do
and to make those decisions for me rather than learning by experience and failure on my own.
Overeating, Todd Messinger
Todd:I know it sounds trite, but my inspiration comes from everything. My mind takes situations from life, or observations, and pushes them to explore emotions and contradictions and conflicts within the psyche. Most of my art has a back story, a moral or a message I’m trying to get the viewer to see and to understand. Sometimes the artwork ferments inside me, building up until it explodes out, only to have 3 more take its place. That’s why I always have many more sketches and ideas than I can paint fully.
Calvin:My inspiration comes from other artists, books, movies, music, video games, board games, things that happen to me, and basically everything around me.
Dark Ritual, Calvin Messinger
Do we sell our artwork?
Todd: Most of my artwork is not pretty pictures or landscapes and things that most people buy, so it’s not readily marketable. The artwork that people buy from me is my commercial photography and graphic design – which is a watered down sense of art. I use my artistic abilities and skills to ensure quality pictures and outstanding designs, but I would not call that “fine art.” Sometimes an artist has to use their skills in a different way in order to make money so that they can pursue what they consider “real art” or the true expression of art. My graphic design and advertising business is how I make money. It is frustrating to be limited to the customer’s idea of what is good design, but sometimes I have to sacrifice what I think is better design to make the customer happy. My photography sells, but only in the venue of portraits: family portraits, senior portraits, sports team portraits. I have never sold a photograph of flowers, buildings, or landscapes – the photographs that sell because they are more marketable.
Calvin: Do I sell it? If someone wants to buy it sure! I have been commissioned to do one portrait, but I used to do little drawings in middle school and high school that I’d sell to friends for a dollar.
Vasectomy, Todd Messinger
Todd: I market through websites and word of mouth. For commercial things, I use direct mailing, sales calls, trade shows and advertising.
Calvin: Word of mouth, and Dad and I were both in a juried art show at a local gallery this past December.
Where do you market?
Todd: Throughout the North East.
Calvin: Locally, although I do try to enter online competitions. I received a college scholarship based on the submission of art work and essays.
Who buys?
Todd: Campgrounds make up the largest part. For photography mostly families and wedding couples.
Calvin:Friends and family generally.
Time, Calvin Messinger
Do you work in publishing?
Todd: Yes. I publish hundreds of campground brochures and an annual camping directory for the Campground Owners of New York. I am illustrating a children’s book for my wife. But in today’s age, anyone can self-publish.
Calvin: No.
Why should you hire me?
Todd: If you’re hiring for graphic design, I bring an artistic eye to the design process. My design is sound. I have 15 years of experience. I know the printing process thoroughly. I can do all phases of the project: photography, writing, designing, illustrating and printing.
Calvin: Because I bring a more dynamic feel to things.
What do you feel is the biggest advantage or what do you love most about being two artists in the same family?
Todd: Having someone who is as passionate about something as you are. Calvin and I can go to an art gallery and stay there for days, while everyone else wants to skip through the place in hours. Calvin understands my frustration when I have so many ideas in my head commanding attention, yet I have only a little time to spend drawing them out. He understands how aggravating it is to have so many ideas you want to explore fully, but there just isn’t enough time to do more than one. Seeing Calvin succeed makes me proud.
Calvin: We give each other something to strive for. We compete, help, and critique each other. We build each other up. I have another person to teach me and to encourage me to better myself.
Todd Messinger
Todd Messinger received his BFA in painting and drawing from Binghamton University. He has served as curator at BU’s Rosefsky Gallery. He has exhibited in National juried shows in Idaho and New York. Todd operates his own photography and graphic design business. He enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.
Calvin Messinger, Self Portrait
Calvin Messinger received his High School diploma from Harpursville High School. He has exhibited in the “Young at Art” show, and the “da Vinci” show, also in Binghamton. He is currently enrolled as a student of Broome Community College. He has exhibited in a National juried show in New York. Calvin enjoys spending his time drawing, playing sports, playing video games, and reading comics and other books.
Links
www.talenthousead.com
www.talenthousephotography.com
www.conceptart.org/?artist=messioddt
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Pictures and Conversations, by Leah Palmer Preiss
Voracious, by Leah Palmer Preiss
“Without drawing I feel myself but half invested with language.”
–Samuel Taylor Coleridge, notebooks
I ran across the above quotation in a college class on Victorian poetry, and immediately wrote in response: “Without language I feel myself but half invested with drawing.” For as long as I can remember I’ve loved both words and pictures. My medium is visual, but I’ve never felt fully satisfied with my work unless words were involved in some way.
For many years now I’ve free-lanced as an illustrator and calligrapher, for books, magazines, newspapers and advertising. The visual-verbal connections in this sort of work are clear. In recent years I’ve been focusing much more on fine art pieces, but far from leaving words behind, I’ve become ever more obsessed with them!
Technique and text
My recent gallery work makes use of my collections of antique books and ephemera. I scan texts (and sometimes graphics) from these sources, print them out on archival paper, and collage them to canvas. Then I begin painting over them, using many thin washes and glazes of acrylic paint, applied with a variety of paintbrushes, some as small as 16×0. My work tends to be quite small, but crammed with detail. (I sometimes call my paintings “maniatures.”)
I like the way text adds layers of meaning and association to an image. Often it provides an element of humor as well. I also appreciate the purely visual aspect of letters, and the subtle presence of sound and rhythm introduced by reading. And I find the “buried treasure” factor appealing: it’s fun to reward the careful viewer with discoveries that a casual glance might miss.
Inspiration
I’m inspired by nearly everything I encounter. Medieval manuscripts, Mad Magazine, Alice in Wonderland, wunderkammer, Persian miniatures, Monty Python, flea market finds, Flemish Renaissance paintings, Japanese mythological beasts, scientific illustration and the art of the insane– not to mention the astonishing diversity of the natural world– all make me itch to make art.
Birdland, by Palmer Preiss
Curiotype
Lately I’ve become especially fascinated by figurative letters. (A brief article on the subject can be found at Giornale Nuovo.
Last summer I set out to do a figurative alphabet illustrating various scientific words, for my blog Oddments and Curiosities here. I coined a word to describe the series: “curiotype.”
Zoophyte, by Palmer Preiss
A.Word.A.Day
I’ve long been a subscriber to A.Word.A.Day, Anu Garg’s wonderful newsletter and website on vocabulary and etymology. I wrote him to ask if he might mention my curiotype alphabet in his weekly round-up of comments. To my surprise and delight, he asked if I would like to illustrate a week’s worth of words for AWAD. I jumped at the chance, and the results can be found here at Wordsmith.
Hegemony, by Palmer Preiss
Adventures with Etsy
For years friends have been urging me to open an Etsy shop. (Etsy is an online shopping source, mainly for handmade and vintage items.) I’d been putting it off, probably due to shyness about touting my wares, but after all the inquiries I received from AWAD, I decided it was time to take the plunge. I listed both prints and originals there and have been extremely gratified by the warm response. My shop can be found at Etsy.
Microcosmos (Flea Circus), by Palmer Preiss
Blogs
I have a terrible habit of creating new blogs on a whim. These are the main three:
Curious Art, my first blog, where I post mainly finished paintings and illustrations, show notices, and news.
Curious Art Lab, where I post sketches, process, occasional studio shots, and behind-the-scenes stuff.
Oddments & Curiosities, a year-long project blog where I’m posting “odd creatures on odd days.”
Social Media
Flickr, Twitter, Facebook (but honestly, I’m rarely there) and Google+.
Website
….and last (and least updated) my actual website. Here’s where you can find much of my older illustration and calligraphy work. I hereby vow to redesign and update this site in 2012!!
Leah Palmer Preiss
Bio:
Leah’s illustrations have been selected by the Society of Illustrators Annual, Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Print Regional Design Annual, and R.S.V.P. Her work has appeared in books and periodicals from Cricket Magazine to the New York Times. Her fine art work has been shown in galleries from New York City to Los Angeles, as well as overseas and in her home town.
Leah was born in Austin TX, lived all over the place as a kid, graduated from Smith College in Northampton MA, moved around some more, & has finally put down roots in Raleigh NC. She is married with twin sons. Through all of this she has never stopped drawing, and never intends to!
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