:: note :: . . . entered a "play space" and was met with enthusiasm which was exciting . . . nice rehearsal . . .

TEMPLE READING SUNDAY OCTOBER 3 @ 3 pm

You're invited to a literary reading by

JOHN CLARK accompanied by Duane Dorgan (drums, percussion) Ray Stephanson (keyboards)

120 - 25th Street West (1 block west of Idylwyld, a 2-tone blue building, formerly an Islamic Temple)

. . . he was a muscian and i was an actor . . . when speaking about play we agreed that we play to celebrate the "timeless space" . . . & then i thought about the process . . . the process of existential imagination . . . play is . . . re creating and re envisioning the experienced timeless space . . . an act ivity . . . a vibrating energy pattern . . . a set of relationships that reach out to other regions within a larger whole . . .

"What Pollock does in these abstractions, as a result of his actions in the studio, is to disrupt our expectations regarding the role of skill in the final marks on the canvas. In an essay on "Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art," Gregory Bareson called Pollock's paintings, along with "natural landscapes, 'found objecs,' inkblots, scattergrams, [...] exceptions to the almost universal linage in aesthetics between skill and pattern" (1972:148). In Pollock's case, as in these others, " a larger patterning seems to propose the illusion that the details must have been controlled," when, in actuality they have not been (148). It is this lack of control of the medium in its traditional sense, along with a yielding to more ritual actions that has been so invisible to most interpreters of Pollock. The illusion of control has effected an account of Pollock at odds with ritual and in concert with historical art practices, even if avantgarde."

...

"At the beginning of this article I suggested that Levi-Strauss's conception of the dialectic relationship between ritual and psychoanalysis might prove useful in thinking about the abstract paintings of Jackson Pollock. I suggested that this may be so precisely because Levi-Strauss's views could aid in a better historical understanding of the position of Pollock's painting in post - World War II thought and life. I have relied on theoretical discourses put forward between 1944 and 1956 by a variety of the disciplines: art criticism, psychoanalysis, studio art practice, poetry, and anthropology. What I have constructed is a Jackson Pollock deeply embedded in the thought - the most advanced thought - of his times . . . This is not to say that artists after Pollock and influenced by him did not understand their painting in this way. They most probably did. Others, such as Warhol in his Dance Diagrams (Tango) of 1962, also understood the deep performativity of Pollock's abstractions (Jones 1998:84-102). But it is to say that Pollock's abstractions may be most felicitously located in a "post-ritual" situation, in which both a political and aesthetic consciousness may rest complexly, and not always happily, upon unconscious desire."(Jackson Pollock Post-Ritual Performance | Catherine M Soussloff | pdf)

:: note :: . . . have spent a lot of time with the idea of a pollock performance and the link to ritual . . . more food for thought . . .

:: note :: . . . last day of summer . . . the golden age comes . . .

"For the first time in Saskatchewan, artists are being recognized as workers in the sense that most people are. The act's recognition of "the important contribution of artists" and "the value of artistic creativity" to the cultural, social, economic and educational life of Saskatchewan, is pretty much motherhood - who would disagree? - but its nod toward "the importance to artists of being fairly compensated for the creation and use of their artistic works" is downright revolutionary. So too is its recognition of the [base "]the right of artists to enjoy the same economic and social benefits that are available to other workers in Saskatchewan.[per thou]"

"In one fell swoop, the government gave to artists rights - on paper, at any rate - that most other residents of Saskatchewan have enjoyed for years."

"But now, as Kutz says, it's time to actually make some of that happen."(Status of the Artist - An Update |Dave Margoshes )

:: note :: . . . hmmm . . .

:: note :: . . . watch for it . . . the master cd is now mixed . . . duane&ray the dorgan/stephanson project have never sounded better . . . available soon . . . Killer Oasis in your ears . . .

. . . thought it would be fun . . . to laugh & be vulnerable . . . fell . . . fell hard . . . getting up hurt is no fun . . . watch out . . . fall too many times and you don't get up . . . you learn to live down . . . it can be cold, wet with no relief . . . even dark . . .

Concert @ Third Avenue United Church - 20th Anniversary Concert featuring Michael Swan playing Bach & Ysaye with String Quintet # 2 composed by Swan.

:: note :: . . . fabulous music played with passion and detail . . . brilliant program . . .

"Bill Glassco, a tireless champion of Canada's theatre artists and founder of Toronto's Tarragon Theatre and what would become CanStage, died Monday following a lengthy battle with throat cancer. He was 69."(CBC Arts News)

:: note :: . . . sad day . . .

:: note :: . . . special project turned into the birth of a performance . . . working title Grass Jelly . . . the joy of children creating a work with you . . . friday night a small group played the evening away . . .

"According to the 2001 census data, the average income for a Canadian working all year at a full-time job is $43,231. According to that same data there are 1.4 million Canadians working full-time jobs who make less than $20,000 a year."

"Of those Canadians, 271,000 lived in Saskatchewan - the highest proportion of full-time employees who worked for less than $20,000 in 2000."(cbc radio one|- M A I N : W H O A R E T H E W O R K I N G P O O R ? -)

:: note :: . . . god help us . . .

"The earth moved for me in Santiago last week. Pottering about my hotel room, I suddenly felt the floor shudder and reverberate. I even had a fantasy of filing a story to match the famously boring headline once concocted by Claud Cockburn for the Times: Small Earthquake in Chile. While the tremor left me mildly shaken, it had its metaphorical uses. Later that day, a Chilean dramatist told me it symbolised the fragility of democracy in his country. For me the tremor came to represent, rather more optimistically, the signs of artistic upheaval I saw in my short stay."(Guardian unlimited arts features |On with the show |Michael Billington reports )

:: note :: . . . artistic optimism felt from south to north . . . please stand up for artists . . .

Jerzy Grotowski says in his writing "tu es le fils de quel qu'un":

"Art is deeply rebellious. Bad artists talk about the rebellion, but true artists do the rebellion. They respond to the consecrated order by an act...... art as rebellion is to create the fait accompli which pushes back the limits imposed by society or in tyrannical systems, imposed by power. But you can't push back these limits if you are not credible. Your fait accompli is nothing but humbug if it is not fait competent. Yes, it is blasphemous. but it's precise. You know what you are doing, you have worked out your weapons, you have credibility, you have created a fait accompli which is of such mastery that even your adversaries cannot deny it. (295)"

. . . needed to . . . wanted to . . . decided not to . . . there was the ancient banished scholar who in his youth fled hiding in the streets - sleeping in the ghetto by the river during the day . . . his time had come, the gods determined, and though he longed for the mountains it was the sky which beckoned . . . the northern sky of artic dreams and a forest of hidden saplings . . . he thought he was alone yet the sound of drumming was never far off . . . someone very gaunt and thin was playing or ready to play or had just finished an unearthly music . . . like heaven maybe . . . years ago he had dreams now lost in the blue and the blue green . . . further ahead it rained . . . he could have sung but didn't . . . could have danced . . . a fragment of text floated by unspoken . . . the wind whispered goodbye . . . into gold . . .

"Saskatchewan artist and educator Bob Boyer, best known for his paintings on blankets, has died. "(CBC Arts News | Saskatchewan artist dies of heart attack)

:: note :: . . . was hoping to see some tributes but this passing has gone completely unnoticed . . . in Bob's own words:

"It's like the man on the moon that disappeared when mankind tried to find him by setting foot on the moon. The beauty and naiveté disappeared in the research. A friend of mine once said if you peel away each layer of the onion in order to find out what it is, you will eventually end up with no onion."(Mendel Art Gallery | A Naïve Thought)