Joni Mitchell:green flag song "a new body of photographic work by iconic singer/songwriter and visual artist Joni Mitchell"(Mendel Art Gallery).

... had read that Joni was angry ... entering the gallery room for green flag song was more oppressive than angry ... the dark grey walls with over 120 green & rose hued grainy images hung in vertical triptychs were uninviting ... hurriedly left the room forcing myself to re-enter & each time staying a little longer to digest the images ... pictures of war, terror and solitude evoked pathos ...

... on a bench lay a piece of corrugated cardboard ... the catalogue ... a beautifully crafted work of documentation ... lost myself in words, songs and photos of the artist at work ... returning gaze to the walls noticed none of the individual images were particularly arresting it was their context which provoked ... the process of broken televisions & disposable cameras heightened the sense of decay, waste & destruction ... i reflected on a reading from the previous day ...

"When you put feelings into words, you are turning on the same regions in the brain that are involved in emotional self-control," Lieberman said. "It regulates distress," ...( reuters)

... maybe it had worked for the songs Joni had written after a ten year hiatus were powerful & shining ... the original LA exhibition had no publicity ... being bold i rationalized these works were an exorcism of sorts and speculated with each further showing the artist was further removed from the anger or pain ... like waking from a nightmare and having to talk it out to make sense of the terror ... thanked Joni for sharing yet fled the exhibition and its relentless commentary on the past eight years of horror politics ...

... outside huge soft snowflakes drifted down from the grey sky ... held out my hand to catch one watching it melt ... exactly what i needed ... shine on ...

- See: Art

:: note :: ...an npr songslideshow, youtube & other previous reviews ...