Patti Smith, "Just Kids" : My Reaction

Where to begin...when love, art, fame direct a life forward. Ironically, Patti Smith appeared to be in the background, a source of strength for Robert Mapplethorpe, yet all the while drawing and writing and developing the diverse facets that would lead finally to a synthesis of her talents to create a unique art form and ultimately fame. And now, gracious as she has always been, she elevates Robert through her tribute, explaining the man, his motivation, his charm and draw for her, the rationale and vision of his work.

We are ultimately the path we chose to walk. Patti chose the path that was not in any way easy; she couldn't help herself. It seemed destined that she and Robert's paths would converge. Easy at first: the newness, the youth, the electricity of New York in the 60's; there were many art icons to aspire to and breakouts to fame and fortune were all around. It was strangely fashionable to live the life of the beatnik artist, literally starving in the name of art! But no mistake, starving is pitiful stuff; scrounging for food in the back of restaurants does not make for glamour. Still, Patti writes with love in her heart, caressing those years because they were tinged with the excitement of love and of possibilities and the discovery of the self.

Such a gracious memoir, filled with giving and praising and tribute! That is what would bond two people together, people who both were searching for their own way to fulfill what each knew was inside of them. It is not really an unconventional love, but a true one, that allows each person their own space to grow into what they are capable of being...what they want to be...what they feel their nature is telling them.

Patti Smith has been following her heart and for her thankfully, it has lead to family and the appreciation of the talent that was developed through an uninhibited search. Drawing lead to poetry lead to song, and the envelope of performance was always there. Joy and ease in performing is such a gift, adding that immediacy of art and the audience's part in the process.

Later in life, it may seem that all roads pointed to the result, but the growing up and in to it is foggy and often filled with obstacles that, funny, you don't always think you remember, once you reach a desired goal. But people do remember...you can hear the edge in their voice, sense it in their visual art, the struggle, hunger, desire, love, the desperate need to create in order to be whole.

Robert's humanity and yearning to be remembered and achieve fame like his beloved Andy Warhol, grew stronger with Patti, who was his source of strength in life. She is a window to his motivation, and while his impulses eventually overtook him and robbed him of life, his work speaks of a stronger power and innovation that is groundbreaking. "Did Art get us?," he asks on his deathbed.

Thankfully, one of this symbiotic pair is here to tell the story, and make art of the story, which is the gift of this book to all. It is amazing how Patti Smith succeeded, without succumbing to the vices that dragged down so many of her contemporaries. In a loving and informative way, "Just Kids" gives a powerful portrait

of the struggle of artists to live the life, while trying to earn a living, break into museums and galleries, be recognized and gain appreciation from others for what they do - which is to speak of what is happening in their 'now' in the language of art.

Patti always seems to be going forward. On her own, her belief in herself seems to elevate her to the level of one who will eventually make her way to a place of grace...where she can look back and say that her life was hard but uncompromised and therefore well lived. To receive a National Book Award for this book that she wrote out of love is an achievement of a lifetime in itself.

During Patti's National Public Radio interview on "Fresh Air" - Patti said this about initially 'performing' her poetry:

"I figured if I had fifteen, twenty minutes on that little stage, it was my stage and I'm gonna fight for it." She noted that her performance was about how she and the audience "could both serve the night together."

So there it is. The answer. If it feels good, it is the right thing.And so, when you made all those decisions in the past, and then felt guilty for doing them, it was because you had gotten used to thinking you should be doing what other people wanted of you. And that never felt good. And then, when you did something that was for you, you wouldn’t allow yourself to feel good about it. You were worried what others would think and so you beat yourself up about making right decisions for yourself. Sad but true.

And so now you can look back and say that those decisions were not wrong. They were what you wanted to do at the time and felt was right for you. And there was NEVER any reason to feel uncomfortable, guilty or bad about yourself for choosing those decisions. They were your decisions, based on your feelings, based on love for yourself and even those around you. For it is better for everyone if you choose what is best for you. In the end, that is what matters. In your life and theirs. The choices you make out of respect and love for yourself will emit their own ripples out into the world. Hesitating to be yourself, to act on your feelings, you deny the very nature of you. It is what gives you your essence and how you are special and unique.

As noted, people who are on the same plane, which are the people most important in your life, will recognize and ride along on these ripples unconsciously. Effortlessly, you will find these people, these relationships. They will be filled with rewards, materially and spiritually, without you ever asking. They will come to you floating along as welcome gifts and amazing unexpected treats, just because you are reaching the unlimited heights of being yourself.

As each day begins and ends, another wonderful page is written. The story of you.

My thoughts on the book "The Power"by Rhonda Byrne

That whole concept of joy, and child’s joy, and how it should not leave! As a child grows, and has to deal with learning to behave, discipline, correct manners, obligations of school, how do you keep the joy? Parents use criticism, guilt, and other methods to control their child’s behavior. There should be a class, in teaching parents, and teachers for that matter, to direct a child toward acceptable and reasonable behavior without destroying the enthusiasm and naïve innocence of discovery as the child grows. Love, if it is the answer to all, has to be the emotion that is shown to be the most powerful tool. If the power of love can motivate parents, and teachers, to guide the child, there will be no guilt or shame or ridicule or punishment. Only a light to the path of understanding. Methods should be developed for new parents, new teachers, and anyone dealing with children, to guide with love as the motivator. Each child’s ego will remain intact, and free to express the individuality that is their rightful gift.

Here is where parents and teachers go wrong, if they try to narrow the child’s world to the grown up’s unfortunately stilted image, not having been taught themselves how to free their spirit. Once in a while, we encounter the fortunate child of parents who instinctively knew that raising a child is not molding them into a restricting set of rules, but nurtures the child’s own instincts for creativity and individuality. That child will grow into an open minded, giving adult, who fulfills his dreams and lives his life unencumbered by guilt or repression. This is the life we are all meant to live.

Life as fun is not immature! It does not mean we stay a child forever. It means we take all that is fresh and new about children and use it as a lesson for how to feel and how to think. Our joy, our curiosity, our enthusiasm, our sense of excitement, should carry through and just expand as our world widens with new experiences, new relationships, new endeavors. We should be doing in adulthood what we did as children if we were given the chance…to play, to learn, to enjoy, to share with open enthusiasm, all that is meaningful to us. Our feelings about what we are doing are our guide to what is good for us. These feelings, which we trusted as children, are just as reliable for us as adults. They are the basis on which we should be making decisions. Understanding what makes us feel good will free us from worry and hurt and save us from anger and wrong turns. Trusting our feelings is the best way to know ourselves, and to surround ourselves with the people, jobs, foods, pastimes that will fulfill our souls. Anything that does not feel good in our heart is not good for us. And it is the best indicator of how to make decisions.

Life is a gift and every day is an opportunity to unwrap the joy that is ours to have. Feelings and love go together and nothing else is really as important. Any time something comes between, just return to feelings and love and all will resolve into goodness and peace.

Alex Katz and "Cool"

Serene with a hint of vibe, An Alex Katz painting, print, cutout, wows without sweat. Appearance and style rule, as the artist himself confirms. Every move that the sleek haired Ada makes could be freeze framed. Alex looks at a person's gesture, or that person against a certain atmospheric condition, an iconic printed scarf, a dappled pond surrounded by, for example, birch trees....and says that's it! And through all the process he incurs to make the resulting image, the one-look remains.

The vibe occurs from the juxtaposition of subtle color which, at first seems contained. Yet each color plays off the other to create rhythmic images that jolt the eye of the viewer: the Wow. People and scenery in the paintings seem familiar, their features pleasant and unchallenging, gazing slightly away. Clothing, draped attractively on figures is simple and no trinket adornments occur to compete for attention. Leaves and tree bark are often silhouetted against a clear sky. But patchy, yet controlled eye movement sets up when reflections in water surface assertively point out the light, as if our camera's flash worked overtime to highlight the individual oddity of these surfaces. We know we are looking at a fleeting moment, and yet...

The cleanliness of the painted surface is refreshing every time. Painting with confident strokes, the hand of the artist, the brush stroke, is implied just enough to use the word painterly. Although obviously enamored of the scene before him, the artist refuses to let it get in the way of the music he is making. Think piano technical ability, which is all but forgotten as we are swept up in the beauty of the music.

Katz is a painter's painter in his loving application of broad sweeps of clear tones and subtle contained shapes indicating form. But at the same time, his gift for universalizing his subject matter comes from his ability to make icons at the same time. While certainly painting individuals, he sees their pose as a type, and this type, painted with strong areas of color that appear fresh, intimate, and 'cool,' immortalize the subject matter and stamp it in our minds, long after we leave the gallery or museum. We come away with a sense of looking at and thinking about the world through the eye and language of the artist.

Just as Keith Haring developed a unique form of symbolism to communicate, Katz sees the world through his own rose colored glasses,. He gives us a way to navigate the every day commercialism all around, to elevate our conception of the observable world, and make painterly sense of make painterly sense of the mosaic of stimuli that we encounter every day.

Women in Today's World 2010

Something to think about:

Women today can do anything,

yet as they go through their chosen path

do they (want to) feel like a woman...

Dress, act, move, work like women,

Make-up, nails, clothing, jewelry, shoes.

Men's department, Women's department,

Men shopping in 'housewares'

Women shopping in 'hardware.'

Car repair shops, Barber shops,

Beauty Salons, "Outdoor stores.

Dentists, Lawyers, CEO's.

Truck drivers, Mailmen, Lifeguards,

Firemen, Policemen - and women.

Working Mothers,

Stay-at-home Mothers.

Stay-at-home Dads

The Women's Room (c)by Marilyn French 1977

page 437 (Penguin edition): " She was the woman for everyone;" ..."but it was not good enough. She would have to find a little man in her, whatever that meant. It did not mean being a champion sailor, or canoeing in white water, or being able to fence, all of which she did very well. It meant insisting on self, not the way they did, God forbid, but a little. Otherwise you were the tramping ground of the world."

and

page 441: "It is at moments like this that a lifetime's formation is revealed. People write plays or movies about agonized decisions, but I think our important decisions are made instantly, and all the talk is simply later rationalization."

Review of book: "Look Both Ways" by Debbie Millman

My Review of Look Both Ways, by Debbie Millman (c) Louise Dunn Herman, July 25, 2010

…like the sculptor who looks at a stone and realizes what it could be, Debbie Millman has transformed the book form into her own creation. It has become, in addition to it's message, an object.

While reading the book Look Both Ways, by Debbie Millman, an enriching experience takes place. The cover is conventional, yet the palette and overlapping comma symbol on it’s front take on greater significance as the ‘story’ unfolds. Opening the book, you first find a series of pages that resemble the chalkboards of childhood. As you begin to read, you are drawn, literally, into the text by the casual conversational way it is written. You might be reading someone’s notes in their lined hard cover black and white school composition book. Or perhaps, it could be a diary. But soon enough, easyness in reading starts to give way to weaving eye movement as you are forced to follow the types' gradual uneven changes. Along the way, you encounter some cross-outs and smudges which speak of first drafts, or suggest the spontaneity of only one draft, or the innocence of a child's first efforts.

Periferally, you sense something more. The blackness of the chalkboard appears painted on. And toward the edges, color, quite pleasant, peeks through. This ‘underpainting’ or layering suggests the artist’s hand, or brush as it were. And the white chalk-like script is immediate, and familiar, and common. So, there is a lot to see, and read, and think about on each of the pages. Sensitized now, you notice as you read, that the pages appear to take on an ever increasing sophistication as the ‘child’ grows up, moves to the city, begins a career. This build-up increases in a gradual curve, almost imperceptible until you realize what is happening. The style is changing along with the author, as she reveals the various foibles and traumas of school, personal relationships, and work-related choices.

In the last two essays, a fully realized marriage of art, style, and content suggest the satisfaction of having realized a dream. In one essay, the direction lines, flow chart-like, pace the author and the reader in a choppy but purposeful stride. The final essay contains shadowy, ghost-like echoes of words, barely perceptible in strategic yet visually scattered places (read between the lines). Floating on a sophisticated evolved backdrop, this final piece displays a secure and fully realized artist’s hand as well as a firm control of the medium. Millman has, despite her aha moment of choosing ‘branding’ as a practical career, achieved what she tells us she really wants to be: an artist and a writer.

The Need To Share

The Need to Share, an Essay ©2010 Louise Dunn Herman

Once in a while in a conversation, you perceive that someone feels uneasy, perhaps threatened by what you are saying, responding with hesitation. This unfortunately might morph to ridicule or criticism, questioning your opinion, or the validity of your experience. Upon recognize this in the person you are interacting with, you could just exit after the hesitation, but before the negative questioning (ex.: "how can you read that stuff?"), or the opposition begins ("why are you wasting your time on that?").

Remarks of this type are often evidence that the person you are talking to is disturbed by what you are saying, or how you are feeling. They may be unfamiliar with the subject and/or not at all interested in engaging in a conversation about it. Or they might feel they ‘should’ know more about it. You are enthusiastic and in addition have your arms around this topic. They are uneasy at your obvious delight in something they do not trust.

Time to hang up the phone, leave gracefully, end the conversation. A satisfying solution compared with trying to convince the other person of the worth of what you are saying or doing. Trying to persuade another to read or do or buy what YOU found to be meaningful, is as if you were to say that your favorite color should also be theres'. It only leads to frustration and feelings of inadequacy on your part, as they continually rebuff your misguided efforts.

Interestingly, they feel no remorse at their rebuttal, having convinced themselves that their path in life has fences on each side. Your remarks are a weather event threatening these fences, and you have to be ‘put in your place’ in order for them to continue on their chosen path. Staying on that road means security; everything is familiar. They have learned to deal with rocky parts by breaking them into little pieces, stomping on them, kicking them out, and then going on their way. Looking back is dangerous, revisiting past episodes is to be avoided. Visits often lead to questioning the way those episodes were handled, and that questioning is unsettling.

Why try to share your opinions, enthusiasm, or experiences with such people? You may think you are being generous to recap something that you find wonderful. Conversely, does the other person you are interacting with share their own special finds and passions? Usually not. You often find out accidentally after the fact that they have done or experienced something special. They may not even have thought they needed to share it with anyone.

People who appreciate what you have to say and who share your enthusiasm for an event are not threatened by your obvious delight in an experience. They know what it’s like, as the same desire for sharing often happens to them. They too, enjoy a conversation about what has transpired or been felt, not necessarily to evoke change, but to bestow upon another a little of their own flavor. When not in the presence of such kindred spirits, when your gift is about to be rejected, it's better to turn inward, continuing to grow in an ever widening world of your own making.