Brandl Exhibition "The 'Hood in miim Chopf"

"The 'Hood in miim Chopf”

Mark Staff Brandl

Text for the show in English:
 

"The 'Hood in miim Chopf
Mark Staff Brandl
 

My exhibition is titled "The 'Hood in miim Chopf." This is a combination of American English slang and Swissgerman dialect. In full English "The Neighborhood in My Head" and in Hochdeutsch, "Die Nachbarschaft in meinem Kopf." I show largely outside my living area nowadays. In the gallery that represents me in Zurich, Jedlitschka Gallery, or in Italy, New York, Chicago, elsewhere in Europe and so on. When I was asked to exhibit in the exhibition space of the Vadian bank, I had to think of something appropriate to being there. That is one of my joys as an artist, to work in what I call "Contextually Specific" ways. My work generally merges painting with installation, sign-painting and sequential art, often with a central conceptual framework that comes from the context of where it is being shown.
 

I decided that since the location was somewhat local, I would make it a celebration of the VERY local. I decided to do portraits of people who live near me in the village of Trogen, AR, people with whom I have regular contact. Thus neighbors. That is my "Viertel", or as we say it in the US, my " 'Hood." However, then I thought to expand it a bit, to bring it into our mobile present. I added to the group people who I see regularly, who I feel to be my neighbors, but who do not live directly near me. Thus, the neighborhood in my head, in my thoughts. These are people in Trogen, St. Gallen, the local artworld, Liechtenstein and more. Ones I talk to and think about.
 

Each portrait consists of two panels. The first is an image of their face in my style, in a variation I call "drawing-paintings" as they are somewhere between those two media. The second panel is of a thing they chose, or I chose for them, that represents them in some way. Die verschmelzen Einflüsse von Jackson Pollock, R.B. Kitaj, Jacopo Tintoretto, Schrift-Malereimeiner Vater Earl Brandl, und dem Comic/Sequenzielle-Kunst-Zeichner Gene Colan. Sie scheinen mit geschleuderten Tropfen von Schildmaler-Email-Farbe gestaltet zu sein. Aber die Striche und Linien verwandeln sich zu Repräsentationen ihrer selbst. I do visual philosophy in slang. In the Renaissance and Baroque arists would often paint objects that were synecdoches from the interests of the sitter. I always loved that, this is my version. In the Vernissage, you can ask the individuals what the objects are and why.
 

One more conceptual aspect. The paintings are for sale in pairs, as together they make up the portrait. However, the individual subject, those people who I represented have also the option of proposing a barter with me. A Gegengeschäft or Tauschhandel. Especially since most are not collectors: What they could do or the like for me in exchange for their portrait.
 

Welcome to an aspect of my world in the Ostschweiz. Thank you to Walter Ernst and the Vadian Bank, and all the people in the pictures for this possibility and allowing this strange trade.

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Der Text zur Ausstellung in Deutsch:

 "The 'Hood in miim Chopf
Mark Staff Brandl

Der Ausstellungstitel "The 'Hood in miim Chopf" ist eine Kombination aus amerikanisch-englischem Slang und Schweizerdeutsch. In korrektem Englisch hiesse der Titel "The Neighborhood in My Head" oder in Schriftdeutsch: "Die Nachbarschaft in meinem Kopf".

Ich stelle meine Kunst heutzutage hauptsächlich ausserhalb meines Wohnorts aus. In der Galerie Jedlitschka in Zürich, in Italien, New York, Chicago, anderswo in Europa und auf der Welt. Aber selten Zuhause. Als Herr Ernst mich angefragt hat im Gewölbe-Ausstellungsraum in der Vadian Bank auszustellen, wollte ich mir etwas Spezielles, etwas Geeignetes dafür ausdenken. Das ist für mich die grösste Freude als Künstler, "Contextually Specific", Kontext-Spezifisch, zu arbeiten. In meiner Kunst verschmelzen vorwiegend Malerei mit Installationen, Schriftmalerei und Sequenzieller Kunst (Comics) in einem zentral-konzeptionellen Rahmen, welcher wiederum in einem Zusammenhang mit dem Ort steht, wo sie präsentiert wird.

Ich beschloss, da der Standort lokal ist, eine Serie zu malen, die das Lokale zelebriert und verkörpert. Ich porträtierte Personen, die in meiner Nähe im Dorf Trogen AR wohnen und mit denen ich regelmässigen Kontakt habe – also meine Nachbarn. Das ist mein Viertel oder wie wir in den USA sagen: mein " 'Hood". Dann überlegte ich mir, wieso ich den Kontext nicht ein bisschen erweitern sollte um die Serie in unsere mobile Gegenwart zu holen. Ich fügte Personen zur Gruppe hinzu, die ich als Nachbarn betrachte, obwohl sie nicht direkt nebenan wohnen. Es sind die Menschen, die die Nachbarschaft in meinem Kopf, in meinem Gedanken bilden. Diese Leute kommen aus Trogen, aus St.Gallen, aus der lokalen Kunstwelt, aus der Schule, aus Liechtenstein und so weiter – Leute, mit denen ich regelmässig kontakt habe und über meine Gedanken und Überlegungen diskutiere.

Jedes Porträt besteht aus zwei Tafeln. Die erste Leinwand ist eine Darstellung des Gesichts „des Nachbarn / der Nachbarin“ in einer Variation meines Stils, den ich "drawing-painting"/ Zeichnung/Gemälde nenne, denn diese Arbeiten stehen irgendwo zwischen diesen beiden Medien. Die zweite Leinwand ist ein Bild von einem oder mehreren Objekten, das/die Person repräsentiert und die von der Person oder von mir ausgewählt ist/sind. In den Bildern kommen Einflüsse von Jackson Pollock, R.B. Kitaj, Jacopo Tintoretto, Schrift-Malerei meines Vaters Earl Brandl und die Comics des Sequenzielle-Kunst-Zeichners Gene Colan zusammen. Die Bilder scheinen mit geschleuderten Tropfen von Schildmaler-Email-Farbe gestaltet zu sein. Aber die Striche und Linien verwandeln sich zu Repräsentationen ihrer selbst. Ich mache visuelle Philosophie in Slang, auf Dialekt. In der Renaissance und im Barock haben Künstler oft symbolische, synekdochische Gegenstände in Gemälde integriert um die Interessen der Porträtierten darzustellen. Ich habe diese Bilder immer geliebt und hier sind meine Versionen. In der Vernissage können Sie die Individuen nach den Gegenständen und ihren Bedeutungen befragen.

Noch ein letzter konzeptueller Aspekt: es gibt der Preis pro Tafelpaar als Diptichon, weil die beiden Bilder jeweils als ein Kunstwerk zusammengehören. Allerdings gebe ich den individuellen Personen die porträtiert sind, auch die Option mir ein Gegengeschäft oder einen Tauschhandel vorzuschlagen. Ich mache das, weil die meisten Porträtierten keine Sammler oder Angehörige der Kunstwelt sind und ich bin gespannt, was sie für mich machen werden oder mir geben können im Austausch für ihr Bild. So entsteht ein eigener Wertraum – was wiederum spannend ist in einer Bank.

Ich heisse Sie herzlich willkommen zu meiner Nachbarschaft im Kopf, einer Facette meiner Welt hier in der Ostschweiz. Herzlichen Dank möchte ich Walter Ernst, der Vadian Bank und allen hier dargestellten Personen aussprechen. Danke, dass Sie diese Ausstellung möglich machen.

Kul Magazin, Liechtenstein, Porträt Mark Staff Brandl

A three page article about me in the cultural magazine from the Principality of Liechtenstein. In German. Ein Artikel "Porträt" zu mir in dem KUL, dem Kultur-Zeitschrift der Fürstentum Liechtenstein, auf Deutsch.

"Subsumption and Misprision: Transumption/Metalepsis as a Thought Process" by Mark Staff Brandl

I have long been considering writing this article, but have been daunted by the realization that the idea would need, indeed deserves, a long, comprehensive discussion. It could easily become a whole book. So let this short text serve only as an exceedingly superficial introduction to an idea which I intend to expand at a later date.

My notion is rather straightforward, yet involves some fairly arcane vocabulary to describe it. Bear with me. I am suggesting that challenging and changing dominant important ideas, epistemological paradigm shifts as Thomas Kuhn calls them, are only truly accomplished by subsuming them within a perceived larger idea — not by countering them with their diametrical opposite. These “larger ideas” both encompass the ideas they are critiquing as truth, yet also contradict them by envisioning them only as a detail of this new larger whole. A profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events thus occurs when we are able to metaphorically step back and see them framed in a surprising new frame of reference. This, I suggest, is best modelled in art, yet is also the truth for all paradigms, be they philosophical, religious, scientific or artistic

This involves the trope of metalepsis, also called transumption in an expanded form. As I have written about previously on this site, I am particularly inspired by Harold Bloom’s theory of misprision, which stresses the prominence of allusion and the trope of metalepsis. Metalepsis, also called transumption, is that figure of speech which plays a trope on another previous trope, often in an anachronistic or “frame-breaking” fashion. This trope-of-tropes becomes the tool for an allusive yet affirmative struggle of reversals, performed with purposeful discontinuity on a stage of one's own knowledge, with psychological and spiritual desire. The precursor’s, and history’s, presence is nether simply negated, denied in feigned or sought out ignorance, nor granted a forfeit win through worship. It is sucked into a new and more encompassing revelation, it is subsumed.

I will give only a handful of examples now, with the promise to delve into this idea of mine more deeply at a later date.

First the Ontology of Art
 
We are perhaps all aware of the dominance of the Dickie/Danto institutional theory of the definition of art nowadays. To sum it up superficially for those unfamiliar with it, it is the proposal that an object becomes art by being presented within the context of the institution known as “art” or “the artworld.” This I myself find it to be the truth, having been proven in Duchamp’s oeuvre and widened in Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and elsewhere. (In fact, as an aside, I would hope that this ends the generally primitive arguments about the definition of art and allows us to get to the much more important yet thornier issues of quality, value and meaning. But that is an issue for another discussion.)

Yet the institutional theory feels somewhat limited. This can be seen in the exceedingly superficial and trendy version of this theory generally embraced in the artworld, especially in Neo-Conceptual Art. How could this theory, which seems to be an important kernel of truth, be overcome? By widening it. Subsuming it into a broader understanding through purposefully re-understanding it, misprision.

In his essay “Refining Art Historically,” Jerrold Levinson has proposed a logical, historical widening of the Dickie/Danto institutional theory into an interpretive one emphasizing conscious tradition. He sums his theory up in one sentence. “In short, it is [the view] that an artwork is a thing (item, object, entity) that has been seriously intended for regard-as-a-work-of-art, i.e., regard in any way preexisting artworks are or were correctly regarded.”¹ This is a promising re-reading of the institutional theory, subsuming it into a wider and yet more personally delineated field. (I would add that part of the definition of art is to explore this “regard” through tropes, that art seeks to defy previous definitions and redefine itself. Art has a metaphoric, agonistic ontology, which is procedural and functional: things made to be regarded and interpreted as art-as-before and not as-art-as-before.)

This variation is brilliant. It advances a theory which can appear to limit art to dry decisions made by momentary art power mongers to include the practice of making art in studios, in society and in the thoughts of creators and their public. The key metaphor of what the “describing/deciding judicial body” is, is broadened in a healthy fashion.

Second Religion
Christianity grew out of Judaism, began as a sect of it. Their beliefs are in many ways highly similar: One God who is almighty, eternal, righteous, just, loving, forgiving, merciful and so on. They share the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) as the authoritative Word of God, although Christianity includes the New Testament as well. And much more. The phrase Word of God, though was a great barrier for the early Christians. The all-important difference between Christianity and Judaism is the Person of Jesus Christ. Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah or Savior. Judaism often recognizes Jesus as a good teacher, and perhaps even a prophet of God. Judaism does not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but even more importantly, it sees the written Word, the Scriptures, as the most important of all authority. The religion’s core and chief trope. Christians see this in the man Yeshua ben Yosef. Yet still felt that the Word was still paramount. We see a problem. How was this overcome? By transformative metalepsis. Jesus was declared the Word embodied as a human. The incarnate word. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”² He is envisioned as a transcendent Logos, a widened conception of the Word. When simply described this appears a bit farfetched, in the concrete sense — they stretched far to get this idea. The ultimate misprision. Yet it was a masterful subsumption based in Biblical hermeneutics and scholarship, which resolved an important issue for believers.

This has often been the case when religions have been peaceful transformed, rather than abandoned or attacked. As another example, several “esoteric” groupings like Theosophy and particularly the Bahá’í faith attempt to emphasize the spiritual unity of all humanity by likewise subsuming the conceptions of Prophet and Messiah in Judaism, Messiah and Son of God in Christianity, (Last) Prophet in Islam, Avatar in Hinduism and more under the notion of “divine messengers.” It would allow each religion to retain its vocabulary (which is very divisive now), yet see a new unity. It does not appear to be working, but I believe such metaleptical ideas are indeed the best, perhaps only, path to success in a peaceful fashion.

Thirdly Science
As Thomas Kuhn, discussing science, points out, these shifts are often NOT peaceful, however. Indeed, create short periods of great discord and battle. Kuhn furthermore saw the shifts as revolutions radically overturning earlier beliefs. While this seems so on the surface, I believe if one delves deeper, it can be seen that in truth most were only revelations because those “in power” violently resisted them. The ideas themselves can be seen to usually have been instances of comprehensive subsumption and metalepsis.

As an example, these changes tend to be overly dramatic in sciences that appear to be established. One of these was physics shortly before Einstein. Physics seemed to be a simply assembling the details of a largely conceptually cast-concrete system. Lord Kelvin legendarily lectured in 1900 that “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”³ 1905, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which disputed the rules of so-called Newtonian mechanics. It did indeed radically change understanding, but primarily by showing that Newtonian physics was correct (and still now useful) only in smaller limited arenas such as on the Earth but ignoring anything larger. Newtonian physics became a subset of Einsteinian relativity physics. Subsumption. Metalepsis. Gravity exists, but only as a local description of curved space-time.

Closing

In art, we need to do that right now. One example lies in composition. The tackling of the practical and philosophical problems of composition in art (especially painting) has been an impatient, important, agonistic, metaleptical struggle. Not in order to simply form novel conventions, but to move on to distinctive organizational structures, new tropes useful for the embodiment of arisen desires. Now we need one beyond the affected maniere a la Duchamp of Postmodernism so far; one for our new critical anti- purism.

To sum up: you want to change a constricting, seemingly somehow-incorrect conception in any field of human thought? Then attack it not by simple inversion, but by creatively seeking a vision that encompasses in while making it more progressive, accurate to experience, or useful. This is done through creative purposeful “misreading,” misprision, of the earlier metaphor. Find a new metaphor that metaleptically contains yet widens the one you are struggling with. It is my assertion that this is what has most often been true of important re-imaginings of the past.

Notes:

1. Jerrold Levinson, “Refining Art Historically,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47, no. 1, (winter 1989), p. 21, italics in original.
2. The Bible, John 1:14.
3. Weisstein, Eric W. “Eric Weisstein’s World of Science.” Wolfram Research. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#cite_ref-4

Philip Ursprung Laudatio für Mark Staff Brandl 2013

Laudation, Vernissagerede, von Prof Dr Philip Ursprung zur Painting-Installation Ausstellung "My Metaphor(m)" in (28 February - 18 April) 2013 in Jedlitschka Gallery, Zürich. Speech by Prof Dr Philip Ursprung for the Opening Reception of the painting-installation exhibition "My Metaphor(m)" in (28 February - 18 April) 2013 at the Jedlitschka Gallery in Zurich Switzerland. In German. Auf Deutsch.

I was very lucky and happy to have Dr Philip Ursprung, the best art historian in Europe as my PhD prof/advisor ("Doktorvater" in Deutsch) and to get him later to speak at my opening (he never does that as he is so busy). And he was very amusing! Opening Reception speech, Vernissage Laudatio, in German, auf Deutsch. A short film excerpt by Axel Kirchhoff.

The exhibition is documented here.

Gratefulness fb Challenge

I was challenged by my cousin, Dr Michael Brandl, in a facebook chain. He picked me as one of his choices to do as he had jus done (and very interestingly): list and explain three things for which they are grateful (or positive thoughts) for the next 5 days. I decided, at the encouragement of Alexandra Samios Nelson, to post it here too, in order to refer to it easily again in the future!


Day 1. The first three things I am grateful for:

1) Art. Of course. Here, fine art. The interest and technical drive and first education I inherited and got from my Dad. The calling came to me later, at 13 I gave myself fully to art. Although I have done lots of stuff on the side, even becoming an art historian and theoretician of art, that was and is all for additional fun. i do it ail as, and see myself as an artist. And have never wavered. I love it!

2) The experience(s) of living in foreign cultures. Not just visiting, living. I am 99% of the time in places I am not "from," living in Europe, having lived in the Caribbean, etc., --- being often in other parts of the world, seldom in Chicago, where I am from. It is a great eye-opening experience. One is often treated according to local clichés of what an American is, a Midwesterner, a Swiss (if they take me for that), etc. Both positive but usually negative stereotypes that have little to do with oneself. So as a white American man, it gives a bit of the feel of what it is to be a minority, a foreigner, etc,. to be subjected to stereotype-based judgment. It has made me a much better human, made me try to do this myself as little as possible. Although I am from the workingclass, and thus not privileged, I could not notice it so clearly and see the otherside if I did not constantly have these experience. Living in other cultures and in other languages is thrilling in other ways too.

3a) African-American Culture. The Blues and what grew out of them, especially, like Rock. But also African-American Christianity. They both often gave me hope when I had lost all, when I was younger especially. The Blues and all its interaction, Rock, Jazz, Soul etc. gives me wonderful models for my “creole” approach to art. I owe that community tons, as do we all.
3b) Jewish-American Culture. Verrrry similar. Most of all, their great creativity in Sequential Art, Comics, during my youth! The word, the book, storytelling, the image. It is much of the basis of my aesthetic. And seeing myself as a Christian, I did a lot of research into its basis in Judism, in what Jesus would have believed, not just what he was later made into. This I found very interesting and eye-opening and inspiring.

Day 2 of gratefulness. I was challenged by my cousin, Dr Michael Brandl, in a facebook chain: list and explain three things for which I am grateful (or positive thoughts) for the next 5 days. I did 1 - 3 last time. Now 4 - 6.

4) I am extremely grateful for, to, and in love with my wife Cornelia. We have been together 27 years, married 25. I feel gifted. After having made a career of making really stupid choices in partners, screwing things up, or getting screwed over, and then repeatedly doing the heart-of-stone thing and having truckloads of sexual escapades, I hardly deserved the gift of her presence in my life. As Frank Zappa said, true love is not the answer or end as much as it is the beginning and basis of everything else. beyond love and emotional and intellectual support beyond what I have ever experienced, I also greatly appreciate what she does with her life, such as her profession for the last several decades of building, fixing, organizing social and health programs. She achieves in a very real way many of the things I value, but only point at with art. Smart, pretty, hilariously amusing, strong, independent. I love her!

5) My animals; right now that is two shelter dogs (each found on the street in Spain and then in shelters in Switzerland), River and Ola, and a cat rescued from starving, being left behind in an abandoned "hoarders" house, Babette, and a cat from a shelter, Emma. And all the earlier ones. Bimbo, my first dog buddy, Mousie my first cat, then Buddy and Gina, two dogs, Mosquito, Nuris, Lil Blackie, Toby, Grisu, all wonderful cats. My life is so enriched by having them share it. I learn continually and appreciate them. I love giving them a great life.

6) My two countries, The USA and Switzerland. Both for their positive elements and what I can learn from their negative elements.

America: (esp the Midwest) independence, self-reliance, straightforwardness, how to work, opportunity to become an artist; Esp. Chicago: starting me off, becoming the place I really feel at home. Its music and literature. New York being such cultural wonder. Inspirational. My friends and family from their. Producing people like Martin Luther King and Gene Colan. A large part of my joy in America I described in my gratefulness in 3 a and b above (gratefulness for our "mongrel" culture!)

Switzerland: teaching me how it really IS possible to have a great social, supportive society that looks after its weakest as well as strongest and how to have essentially free education for all, and still be a hardworking place that supports individual achievement. How to run a government based on consensus and referendum. Even the conservatives are social and green. As close to a real democracy as it gets to nowadays. The value of treasuring nature. The Appenticeship system, the best on earth --- not every one has the college-or-nothing choice. Something that has largely disappeared since the 50s elsewhere.
 
The negatives ... but I have learned there too.
America: arrogance internationally, destroying friendships there; becoming one of THE most rightwing-propagandized nations on earth while believing (as they are told) the opposite --- the US has largely drunk the Goebbels's Kool-Aid. Racism. Switzerland: smugness; addiction to consensus (which is good in politics but horrendous for art and culture); hidden racism (foreigners, particularly asylum seekers, are accepted more or less --- and the Swiss pride themselves on this --- yet usually only when they are submissive and accept a secondary-citizen status, and this most Swiss deny).

In both countries, destroying the middleclass slowly while worshipping wealth too much and without enough day-to-day Lebensfreude!

But, in general, I love them both and would defend them both, and try my best to do my little part to preserve what is good and help progressive cause to improve what is not! I am thankful to be both American and Swiss.


Day 3 of gratefulness. I was challenged by my cousin, Dr Michael Brandl, in a facebook chain: list and explain three things for which I am grateful (or positive thoughts) for the next 5 days. I did 1 - 3 and 4 - 6 already. Now 7- 9.

7) I am grateful for my friends, those who have stuck by me and believed in me even when I probably did not deserve it, or was doing everything to be a pain, or when I was making yet another of my crazy changes. Like Thomas Emil Homerin since age 10, Verena Koller since about 1988, Daniel Ammann by inspirational and best intellectual partner for about 26 years, and so many more.

8) My Students. I never intended to be a teacher, and although I only do it part-time, being so completely an artist my whole life. I do not think I am much of a "real" teacher, but I work hard to be a good influence, to get people excited about art, art history, and just pursuing knowledge. And to become themselves, not someone else, to build their identity by following their own star, not mine, not the consensus, not whatever. And so many have indeed done that and do wonderful things. perhaps because I do not have my own children, but they are all my "kids" and I love to see them develop and do great. You see many of them on my facebook page. As a matter of fact, my teachers too, like Dr Philip Ursprung in art history, Dr Clemens Müller in Latin, and others.

9) My acquaintances. Those who are not close friends, but yet enrich my life so much. An artist spends way too much time alone, alternating with superficial meetings with people in openings and so on. Acquaintances who truly interest you, and come from the "rest" of life, not only ones chosen field(s) or profession. Like Edy the retired Master Gardener, the Swiss man living near me, who is the greatest lover of animals and nature, with whom I can discuss in German so many things other than art! 

Day 4 of gratefulness. I was challenged by my cousin, Dr Michael Brandl, in a facebook chain: list and explain three things for which I am grateful (or positive thoughts) for the next 5 days. I did 1 - 3, 4 - 6, and 7- 9 already. Now 10-12.

10) I am grateful for my parents. Although there were difficulties in our relationship. From my Dad, Earl Brandl, I inherited my art ability and love of art. He also gave me all my initial instruction. Where he got it from no one knows. Self-driven. He had a very difficult life.  Largely rampant poverty while growing up in the Great Depression, due to which he had to work full time from the age of 11. He told me he had never had enough to eat until he was in the Navy in WWII. Thus, he got his education from self-study, books. He had several art-related careers: sign painter, display man (now called Polydesigner, before that visual mechandizing, etc.), graphic designer, and interior architect. He loved sign painting most of all, and would have loved the opportunity to do more fine art. I forgive him his escapist alcoholism, and hope he, looking down from the afterlife, forgives me my rebellious spoiledness.

My Mom, Ruth Brandl. She was also talented at art, but mostly I got from her the love of knowledge and reading, reading, reading. She also built in me the double-edged sword of ambition. My parents were inverted from the stereotype. My Dad was the nurturing one, my Mom the driving one. She and my Dad were great parents alone, but had a bad marriage, thus were not good together. I forgive her for her for her almost destroying my hopes with her pressure for me to be a medical doctor and her poisoning of my mind against my Dad, often. I hope she forgives me for being so abstinent and becoming something she now supports but could not even imagine.

11) My sister Marcia. She was such a sweet little girl and grew up in the difficult part of my parents relationship, and my relationship with them. Far more difficult than I had had as a very young child. She continued and continues to love and support all of us emotionally. Her strength is amazing, even if tinged with a Weltschmerz.

12) Historians. Especially as they have now become better and better authors! Particularly the new breed of authors-writing-art history has enlivened the field. On the other hand, many academic art historians have gone off the deep end into unreadable, cliched composites of badly digested "Theory" --- but that is a discussion for another time. Real historians allow us to draw conclusions and make analogies to work on our own times, putting everything into perspective and showing us that there is a landscape of possibilities far beyond those sophistically hammered into us in the minute present

Day 5 of gratefulness. The closing shot. I was challenged by my cousin, Dr Michael Brandl, in a facebook chain: list and explain three things for which I am grateful (or positive thoughts) for the next 5 days. I did 1 - 3, 4 - 6, 7- 9, 10-12, now 13-15.

13) Musicians. Especially my RocknRoll Friends, like Brad Elvis and Chloe Orwell. I grew up with them and Rock, Blues, Soul were along with comics and painting the first things I really remember speaking to my innermost being. I remember it well at age 11. I said --- due to them --- that I wanted to become an artist. How that was linked was not clear to me, but now I see it was through a life of courting creativity and expression. Thus my "inspirational" self-portrait paintings with Lennon as a Beatle, Superman, Gene Colan, etc. My Mount Rushmore. They continue to inspire me, including (but not limited to) Mike Isenberg, Thomas Walker, new Music composers like Duncan Youngerman, Matthew Swyers, and on and on. I turn most of my interests into careers, into subjects of intense intellectual attack. The Leonardo in me, I guess. NOT music. It hits me emotionally and I am an appreciator of it, not a professional. And I love it that way.

14) Podcasts. A new development I LOVE. I have always enjoyed radio more than TV or film, e.g. --- I can listen and learn in the car, in the studio while painting. At my choice of time, my subjects. From The Brain Science Podcast, to Bad at Sports, to Big Picture Science, to Archaeology Channel, to Philosophy Bites and on and on.  The keep me inspired, egg me on. A great new media development. 

15) Sequential Art (i.e. Comics). although it has been clear that I love comics from the art and culture references above, I call it out on its own here. My first great inspiration to art after my father's sign painting and just before fine art painting. It has, as a medium, only begun to reach its possibilities at the present, but I love it in all its forms. My great hero (and I am not afraid of that word) is Gene Colan. Who I could, and do, go on and on about at every opportunity. My favorite living philosopher, David Carrier sees comics as an inherently impure entity; I would amplify this, claiming that comics offer a positively anti-purist emancipation from narrow formalist reductivism. This is a trait to applaud and emulate in the fine arts in order to construct a new road out of the cul-de-sac of Late and Post-Modernism. Objections to comics are usually objections to the form’s impurity. "Breaking down seemingly essential boundaries is often thought to be unnatural, and so morally pernicious." Comics are radically technically non-exclusive, even expansive. The in-betweenness of comics has important social, psychological, even ethical implications — as well as historical-philosophical ones

Comics have greatly influenced me: My work is something of a "mongrel" or "creole" combination of installation, painting and comics.

The end of the challenge!