Day

Today was cold,chilly,and all I could think about by the end of the day was "I can't wait to get back to my studio!" To my unfortunate luck the studio was freezing just as the temperature outside. Nothing was drying that I had worked on the previous night. before.The only thing left to do is wait and think of the letdown my expectations crushed by inclement weather,at least I was home and not out there in the world of living fecal matter know as the public.Not all days are people like this but today positively.Maybe its all the flouride in the water or the planew dropping pesticide on us?
People were like a mass of negativity, pushing,yelling,grimacing,having outbursts like children,the pungent smells of half-smoke cigarettes,cheap wine,malt liquor(unmistakable smell I might add),crying kids and so on. This saddened me and into the spiral I went,emotionally clouded like a big pile of sordid clothes and a neon light above it reading "Self Doubt". This Hurst video inspired by the Playwright Beckett summarized it perfectly:


The subject matter is the only thing visible the rest is an infinite pure black resting in silence.

Jerry Harris

This article is about a dear friend and mentor of mine Jerry Harris.Jerry resides in Paradise California as he often refers to as his "spiritual home".After you read this article take sometime and look at his work,ti will inspire as well as suprise.

Shaping his way
Well-traveled sculptor Jerry Harris settles into local art scene with new show and lecture

By Christine G. K. LaPado
More stories by this author...

ONE FOR THE SHOW
Sculptor Jerry Harris shows off one of his latest works, "Headless Roman Centurion," in his Paradise studio.
PHOTO BY MEREDITH J. COOPER
Now Showing
Through Feb. 29
Mixed-media sculptures by Jerry Harris & acrylic paintings by Eugene Martin
Chico Municipal Building, 411 Main St.
www.harrisculptor.com

MLK Day lecture
"The African Artist in Europe, Past and Present"
by Jerry Harris
Mon., Jan. 21, 6 p.m. at 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway
www.1078gallery.org

As noteworthy as it may sound, even though Jerry Harris' uncle was champion wrestler Shag Thomas and his cousin is Grammy-winning guitarist George Benson, having famous relatives is not Harris' claim to fame.

An internationally known sculptor, Harris is celebrated in his own right, having exhibited his pieces in numerous places in Sweden, Denmark, Italy, England and the U.S., including in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Penn. His "Homage to Jean Arp," a cast fiberglass piece honoring the late German-French Dadaist sculptor, stands in the Vaxjo Courthouse in Vaxjo, Sweden; Statenskonstrad, the Swedish National Public Art Council, bought it from him.

Harris is a slender, wiry man of undisclosed age ("His date of birth doesn't interest him," his Web site informs) whose build somewhat resembles his tall polished-wood and laminated-clay sculptures. The self-described "primarily constructivist sculptor" is pleased about his upcoming month-and-a-half show in the Chico Municipal Building.

Celebrating both the January birthday of African-American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month that follows, the show features six of his new sculptures, along with the paintings of the late African-American abstract artist Eugene Martin, on loan from Martin's estate by his wife, who contacted Harris recently about promoting his work.

"Eugene Martin was a reclusive guy who left over 5,000 paintings," Harris pointed out. "It's nice to present some of his work to Chico. ... The show is a good combination of my sculptures and Martin's work. It's a really unique show."

Harris is also happy about his upcoming MLK Day lecture and slide show, which "traces the migration of African-American artists to Europe—especially Paris, France—as early as 1865" and "follows the great African-American painters through their whole European experience and back to the U.S." Harris mentioned late painters Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, and late sculptor Edmonia Lewis—who traveled to Italy in 1865 to study sculpture, financed by a white abolitionist benefactor—as some of the artists he will discuss.

His lecture, at the 1078 Gallery, will also cover the Harlem Renaissance and look at leading African-American artists in the U.S. today, including artist Kara Walker, photographer Lorna Simpson, assemblage artist Betye Saar, artist and author Faith Ringgold, sculptor/printmaker Elizabeth Catlett, and sculptor Martin Puryear, whose 2 1/2-month show at New York's MoMA ended Jan. 14, and whom Harris describes as "the leading sculptor in the world today."

Harris actually hasn't been a local for long. He moved to the area last June from Portland, Ore. because he wanted to be closer to San Francisco. Chico, Harris decided, "was the closest, the cheapest, the most open city north of San Francisco that I might be happy with."

Harris spent two years in Portland, where he lectured at Portland State University and exhibited at various places. He summed up Portland as "a great city, but still a bit provincial, especially concerning artists of color."

Before Oregon, Harris lived in Sweden on and off for 20 years until the death of his Swedish wife, Britt-Marie Olofsson-Harris, whom he had met in Berkeley shortly after graduating from San Francisco State with a degree in journalism. Harris worked in the advertising industry in the Bay Area for a while before moving to Sweden and becoming a sculptor. As he put it: "I gave up the commercial side of my life and got into the art side of my life."

Harris is happy to be back in California, which he calls his "spiritual home" since his intellectual beginnings were in San Francisco. "As an East Coast person," he admitted, "San Francisco set me on my road to spiritual development."


Now Showing
Through Feb. 29
Mixed-media sculptures by Jerry Harris & acrylic paintings by Eugene Martin
Chico Municipal Building, 411 Main St.
www.harrisculptor.com

MLK Day lecture
"The African Artist in Europe, Past and Present"
by Jerry Harris
Mon., Jan. 21, 6 p.m. at 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway
www.1078gallery.orgNow Showing
Through Feb. 29
Mixed-media sculptures by Jerry Harris & acrylic paintings by Eugene Martin
Chico Municipal Building, 411 Main St.
www.harrisculptor.com

The Mess

Amazing how cleaning the studio can give you a new perspective. This mess just creeps up on you especially scrambling to get ready for a show.Not only does a clean house affect you but it is the same with a studio.To me this is such an extension of my being its like having a congested brain.Imagine if all your thoughts were cluttered with elements of incomplete words,and imagery or random refuse.

The Sad Father

My girlfriend is going to college again, she has already attained a bachelors degree but wasn't happy with the field she was in.She spends the week with her parents and then visits me on the weekend.Although missing her very much I had a beautiful week lots of time in the studio,reading,writing many questions and issues that were not clear to me before come to be. It was a week on the clouds and to have my Goddess of Love join me, well what other necesstous want could there be? Unfortunately for me she was stressed out overwhelmed with school and all the factors of family. The doorbell rings and I enthusiastically open the door with a smile saying to" heaven we may go now". How good it was to see her again in the flesh but no smile was placed upon her face not even a flirtatious grin. A leviathin of stress had followed her home.Her opening volley was "can you move this stuff is heavy!"Needless to say this was just the beginning and before long I capitulate to the leviathin,I wasnt ready for it im still in this clouds in case you have forgot. It brought back memories of my previous marriage to a succubus and that undead existance of "The American Dream". So I thought of this story I wrote in my diary,I will just give you the last part of it.Sadly the title of this story is gleaned from real life unhappy fathers wandering flimsily through the badlandsook as their family walks along side him going from bobble retailer to the next.These are thoughts of deadman walking.

The Sad Father

This noise in this house,the screaming the arguing,the nagging from his wife,all he really wanted was to just live a life with her till the end and into the sunset of eternity.A headache began drumming around his skull even in his nasal cavity he began feeling this band of banshees thump!thump!thump!thump!Blood pressure 207 over 105, tingling cheek,pain in left side. "Not now do I want to fall dead taken by the explosion of my heart like a pustule, there is still so much to do in this life I havent done any of the things of my dreams!" fearfully he thought. Years ago in the beginning he did want to die, his life was unbearable everything happened so quick the marriage the three kids,having to get a job he detested to support the family.With stoic poise he lives, everything is internalized the most he does is smile at his children, and practice the principles to a happy marraige wich is pacification.As a man that has just gotten beaten and robbed he thinks "I cannot with my wife or any women by my side truly live, she wants to follow the creed of The Destroyer or also know as The Dream killers,. Marriage(raw business deal) and children were the cause of my death! This bond of love is supposed to leave us with not a want in the world, its a farce!". All women are in collaboration on this conspiracy they tell you "but honey its about commitment. Plug your ears with boiling wax do not listen. More and more do they want such an insatiable appetite. More and more do they devour finances,energy,plans for the future,the will devour your whole bloodline,wipe out your ancestors last name your clan will be extinct.
My aura has become only disdain for these creatures.From the moment you slide from your mothers inside do you not have a chance.Mother holds you caresses you,you gain nourishment from her teat the milk of life.You chase for the maternal love for the rest of your life.Then you follow in Fathers footsteps and even Grandfathers Marriage. Years and years then pass of trinkets useless trinkets you buy over and over again for what reason she really does not know.Then death comes to take you at an early age.If only to die as a warrior with at the least valour. You however die a undignified life all the vigor as a young man gone, you just sit there wheezing and wrinkled and not the energy to lift an eyebrow.One thing you will pass from this life you fulfilled a dream, her dream called "The Family".The need you that family of yours,you have to be here for them they rely on it. You don't even get to be there for yourself,but you cant go yet they are praying you will pull through. No fight do you give like the broken spirit of a prize fighter.There could have been hope though if you would have bought into the plan like other men have done and they went happy last breath holding his wife's hand in one and the children's in the other.They knew what was best for you with the belief and trust of a child you go along with it.For you though its a gurgling death rattle,all goes black last sounds are that of painful screams mourning your death. On the other side no aches, no horrific flashes of stress,your lungs inflated by an air that has never entered you before finally you breathe.

Art In Black In White

This article was written Wim Roefs, one of my collectors who is a professor at The University of South Carolina and owns and runs his own gallery in Columbia South Carolina. He addresses the subject of African American art and the South how some collecters might be sheepish towards African-American art. I do think however it not only has a regional relavence but also in the rest of the country. His gallery can be viewed online at: http://ifartgallery.blogspot.com/

Art in Black and White BY WIM ROEFS There are distinct advantages to not feeling threatened by multiculturalism and otherwise being a failure at amassing the anger that is supposed to rage through the bodies of white boys like myself these days. Perhaps the most pleasant one is that you get to indulge in the beauty "other folks" produce without feeling the need to took over your shoulder, afraid that same-skinned neighbors might catch you in the act. You don't feel that there is a zero sum game involved - that liking "their" stuff amounts to shortchanging "your own kind." You're not obsessed with the language of handouts and, therefore, aren't inclined to think that "them" wanting to show "their" stuff is yet another demand for one. And finding out that "their" best easily compares with the best of "your kind" doesn't make you feel inadequate. It doesn't even result in quiet anxiety about corning out of the multicultural closet because you-"silly you," I should say- never know you were expected to be in it in the first place. So there 1 was a few years ago, in Nashville with a good day or so to kill. What's a boy to do? What would he like to see? Well, Fisk University, of course! Why pass up an opportunity to breathe the air at one of the oldest black universities in the land! Alma mater of W.B.B. Du Bois and John Hope Franklin? The university was not in as good a shape as one would like a place of such historical proportions to be. But the art! I am not just talking about Picasso, Cezanne and other fellow Europeans I was surprised to stumble onto at Fisk. There were magnificent paintings by people called William H. Johnson and Aaron Douglouglas - black Americans, as it turned out, of whom I had never heard. Fisk thus became the starting point of part of my education, too - in African-American art. White North Carolinian Robert Gwathmey socially engaged and brilliant painter of striking Southern countrey scenes featuring blacks felt the South's colorful vegetation and soil and its contrasts between black white and past and present made the region perfect for creatring visual art. I found it to be perfect for discovering African-American visual art. Of course, Gwathmey's convictions earned him FBI surveillance in post-WorId War II period, but 1 have so far been left alone, even by the anti-multicultural thought police. My education took me places although not nearly enough. There were traveling exhibitions of black art that stopped at mainstream venues in the South no doubt a measure of increased respect blacks and art are getting in the region. William H. Johnson's "Homecoming" show, now on display in Columbia, is possibly the biggest revelation I've had in a decade or so, art-wise. I saw it in Greenville. Twice. Romare Bearden as "Printmaker," another huge revelation, conveniently came to Columbia, where I live. For Jacob Lawrence's "The Migration Series" yes, a revelation I happily drove six hours to Birmingham, Ala. Meanwhile there was a stunning overview of Torn Feelings' work at Benedict College in Columbia. Tarelton Blackwell's show at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., showed he was getting very good. And a stroll through Royal Street in New Orleans' French Quarter suddenly had a purpose when William Tolliver's work in the window of Gallery Royale caught my eye. The Tampa Museum of African-American Art was splendid. Judging by the catalogue of Hampton University's museum in Virginia, their collection might even be better. I am just dying to see Clark-Atlanta University's highly praised collection, and I hear good things about Washington's Howard University and Mississippi's Tougaloo College. In fact, many black colleges own outstanding African-American art. Its popularity has dramatically increased in the past decades and its price, too, but for many years nobody but the colleges wanted to have it. Sweet justice indeed. There are clearly easier ways to instill pride in African-Americans than desperately trying to prove descendency from African royalty or claiming that this old boy from Greece, Pythagoras, wasn't the best of the planet's mathematicians after all. Just go to an African American work of art near you. I, meanwhile, will keep it truly multicultural. In Nashville I also went into country star Randy Travis' merchandise store, although I didn't see anything I couldn't live without. Wim Roefs is a freelance writer who lives end works in Columbia.

Finding out that "their" best easily compares with the best of "your kind" doesn't make you feel inadequate. It doesn't even result in quiet anxiety about coming out of the multicultural closet because you - silly you - never knew you were expected to be in it in the first place.

The Voracious UGHH1

"Repression in White",close-up center section,found objects,2007

Im an addict its on my imind every day.This desire will not be fulfilled,even when im done for the nite,I go to bed thinking about it.When at work its always on my mind,I reminisce about the night before,and what im gonna do with it the next time the opportuninty arises.My motivation,and reason for working is to pay for it and have the facilites to do it again.Im never told no although the time and environment have to be right.I reserve my energy at work to spend it at home for those late nights.Sp,eto,es O go so long i smell the dodrs of daylight and the early morning greetings of the birds.SO sad to be whipped only the two of us above everything else it,no no time to hang with tha boys today.IF I can I will buy books and magazines of it, as well as looking it up on the internet.THe more I know the better I become and the more knowledge reveals it self to me.Sometimes I catch myself saying :i could do that".Yes an obsessed pervert,a shameful addiction ,and voracious appetite.It makes me feel whole,satiated,accomplished.I speak of creating art to not do this would be my death.

Intro & Short Blog :"The Power of Isolation"

"The Cold Brain From Europe to U.S." mixed media, 20"x24" ,2006

INTRO

This blog will not only be about my experience as an artist but also my thoughts on life in general as well as poems and short stories. Not to mention followers of my work will be able to get to know me a little better as I consider this blog an public journal of sorts for the world to look at.Others that are not familiar with my work will still be able to engage me in discussions,leave me comments,suggestions, and critiques.The following blog "The Power of Isolation" is really just my thoughts on what artists go through,as being an artist is misunderstood by many as well as threatening to others. Without artists our world would be a lot less colorful.

"The Power of Isolation"

Tonight I sat in my bedroom with some music playing but alone.Some people fear being alone they have to have something/someone around at all times.When they don't have this a kaleidescope of feeling bleed through the pores and a stench fills their space.It can scare them or even leave them gasping with a self induced panic attack.My advice push past this if you get this way get to the core of yourself you can solve a lot if you just let it be for what it is.
As myself and I sat there on my bed legs crossed cigarette fuming,looking around,blinking slowly taking all of the occurances of the past week in.All the people,all the emotions from anger,to elation.a level of happiness was reached,my breath became deep,controlled,my muscles let go of their tension.I'm not being lambasted with what should be aspired to,attained.Myself,my ether,my spirit came back to my body.A smile curled its way to my lips teeth were bared,a soft blink of the eyes of contentment,one final exhale of relief.Eyes now shut and the breathing of sleep set in as my mind lucidly attained dreaming images of solace,of bliss.I'm free once again the spell of the moment has released its cruel grip of unimaginable force.Now my body lies dormant floating in the mother like grace of sleep.I could float away from it all as the subconscious plays out surreal imagery in my dreams.If only the immersion of trivial avarice were not ot yet again afflict me in waking life not a need or want ever again.The battlefield only lies an eyelid away awaiting for its new recruits.Venturing on to this Warfield will I choose the hand of love for my brethren or the hand of perpetuating hate what bullets will I use tomorrow?How far do i go until I retreat to this infirmary of isolation and after i come from this will I again be a soldier of hate or of love?What about yourself what is really in our nature ask yourself?Vague abstract I know but it all ties together and this scenario is equated/filtered through the sole of an artist who is indeed a soldier of love for our fellow man.