Trial and Error
A glass is half full
is half empty
is hope to be filled
is joy to be felt is
a better future
is a college education is a life that is full
is people saying “You’re amazing!”
A glass is empty – of hope
is empty of joy is uncertainty is doubt
is failure is fear is people saying “It’s not good enough.”
A glass is growing up, is failing then succeeding
is life is me and you, is the beginning.
A glass
is trying.
According to their website, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s mission is “to preserve, promote, and present jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation and celebration of jazz locally, nationally, and internationally.” When we came yesterday to visit, they had a running exhibition of Bebo Valdez.
Bebo Valdez, a Cuban pianist, composer, bandleader, and arranger, was born in Cuba in 1918. He left Cuba in 1960 and eventually settled in Sweden. There he played Cuban music and Latin jazz.
His career boosted in 1994 and released CDs, films, and more. One of the more interesting things he created that caught my attention was the movie Chico y Rita. This movie is about a young piano player, Chico, and a beautiful singer, Rita. They fall in love, and perform together.It’s animated, as well, giving an interesting perspective and vision to an adult audience. What’s interesting about this story, however, is that Chico resembles Bebo himself in many ways.
Spoiler Alert:
In the movie Chico is a piano player from Cuba, like Bebo. He also leaves the music scene for decades, like Bebo, and then has a career revival once again and becomes a success.
The film might not be about Bebo’s whole life, but it definitely has some similar life events. Although it doesn’t depict his life exactly as it was, “….it evokes the era that produced him and led jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie to work with Cubans, giving birth to a new kind of jazz.” (MPR News)
While there were several poems from Saeed Jones book, Prelude to Bruise, that caught my attention, the poem, Daedalus, After Icarus, was probably the first. Some of that might have to do with the fact that I felt like I understood the meaning behind this poem almost instantly, while for some other poems in the collection, comprehension did not appear until after a couple of extra reads. The poem is quite short, being only two stanzas long, and reference the Greek myth of Daedalus, the great but cursed inventor, and his son, Icarus. The original myth is one that warns of hubris, as Daedalus constructs wax wings for his son and himself to escape Crete. However, Icarus’ hubris gets the better of him as he flies too close to the sun and crashes due to the wax on his wings melting. Saeed Jone’s poem seems to reference Daedalus finally reaching land after his long journey and looking back into the sea, where his son is now lost in. In the scene, there are children, many of whom seem envious of the wings, but one boy in particular mentions how they don’t wants wings. Instead they wants to be fish. The poem almost seems to mock Daedalus, whose only real hope in the past of saving is son was if he invented something that allowed him to be fish. The poem itself seems to be quite dark, with no real interaction between Daedalus with the other characters, with Daedalus more focused on looking out at sea than listening to the requests of children. It was an interesting poem to include in the collection, seemingly because the piece seems to be somewhat out of place. Perhaps the only connection between the poem and the rest of the collection is that the poem references Greek mythology and the collection as a all is supposed to be inspired by Greek epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey. All in all, I enjoyed the poem.
I’m also going to include two of my poems here. The first one was the poem I wrote during the poetry workshop, while the second poem is a found poem that is based on “Previous Condition” by James Baldwin.
Is A Dark Morning
Her shot glass is blue bubbles is tongue is dripping lipstick
is tingling hair on an unwanted mustache
is a red, sweaty face is ripped sheets and no company
is an empty room is heels all over the place
is a painful swollen nose ring is a dark morning
Back In New York
I had been dreaming
woke up in the morning, trembling
Back in New York and hating it
Heavy ceilinged, perfectly square
the color of chipped dry blood
was so hideous
Everyone had gone to bed
Everyone was asleep
Banging on the door
I sat up and lit a cigarette
Don’t let them scare you to death
“Took his crap”
Nothing but a bum
Same rents for same old shacks
Dirty as sin
Had not been painted
We had a stormy relationship
But we stuck
Took a couple of beatings
Worse things have happened
Robbery or murder in my neighborhood
Acted like I didn’t know a thing
Back in New York and hating it
Beaten as a person
As defined by Wikipedia:
Rock climbing is an activity in which participants climb up, down, or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling.
Here is an example of a rock climber. This is Alex Honnold, and he is climbing a 2,000 foot rock face in Yosemite … without a rope. Although this is the most extreme kind of climbing, you can get a sense of what sort of determination, agility, and connection to nature somebody who climbs must have.
Most people who rock climb do not consider themselves creating art, and they’re not. However, when they do climb, they are engaged, dynamic, and bold. Dean Fidelman, a rock climber and photographer decided to make rock climbing an art by expressing the qualities he found in this sport in an interesting way: nude pictures. He called this project: Stone Nudes.
Stone Nudes: an extract of the art of climbing. Intended to inspire and celebrate the human form. Stone Nudes draws from the community it represents. Over the last ten years, a body of over one hundred photographs drawing from three generations of climbers has evolved. (Taken from the project’s website)
Dean tries to explore the themes of nature-unrefined, pure, and organic-and the way this theme and the human spirit unite. The rock climbers are photographed climbing nude, because this coincides with the unrefined and natural essence of the landscape. These photographs give a sense of harmony between humans and our natural environment; the person in the picture isn’t separated from the rock, dirt, grass, or trees, but rather a part of it.
The website and gallery of this project is linked here. Some discretion is advised, as the pictures are of people climbing without any clothes. I hope you can see the true beauty in these pictures and this project, enjoy!
Lipstuck Table
Her table is a bed is a person
Which spoke is a dish on the desolate table is company
And is decorated with dessert is screaming is vibrant is enticing
Craved on her lipsticked lips is a lip stuck on a dish is a man
Is but a fantasy of a man and a man that is fantasy is
A man she will never have is food is food and her food
Is Man.
As a fan of contemporary and abstract art, Tom Smith’s “Heavenly Bodies” exhibition at the Rox Gallery was a great opportunity to learn about how these works are conceived and the artist(s) behind them. I enjoyed hearing about Smith’s painting techniques, creative inspiration and travel experience. With these displayed pieces constructed in Brazil, Iceland and Fire Island, he experimented with paper, spray paint and wood for the past two years to evolve his craft. This painting that he created in Fire Island this past summer is my favorite because it conveys the most “heavenly” environment to me. For many people, the connotation of the word “heaven” consists of rejuvenating oneself with purifying light in a land above the clouds. Contrasting from the other works in the installation, this painting concentrates on more pastel colors rather than bright neon or dark spacial colors. To add on, this work illustrates natural earthly features instead of a futuristic appearance. The cotton candy sky with gray haziness emotes a feeling of floating in the clouds or in the heavens, while the blue and orange mazes of waterfalls spew from the seemingly 3-dimensional cliffs providing a place to cleanse one’s body and soul. After admiring the entire exhibition, I was amazed by the encapsulating colors and themes throughout the paintings, but this particular one drew me in with its atmospheric vibes and promising allure.
Walking into the ROX gallery I was immediately taken by Tom Smith’s colorful, eye catching, one-of-kind works. As I went from painting to painting I could not help but go up close to each one and admire all of the details in each and every piece. One thing I found so special about Smith’s work was that they all seemed so precise and neat while still feeling very loose and organic. I went from painting to painting marveling at his talents and trying to figure out how he accomplished that balance.
I was also busy trying to figure out what each painting was and what their connections were to each other. I thought maybe they were inspired by maps, or by the galaxy or possibly even by monsters. (Tom Smith did later explain the inspiration behind his work. It turns out my guesses were not quite right but, hey, that’s part of the fun right?) Each painting was so magical, I felt like I was being transported to different realms just by looking at them (which in hindsight I find pretty cool because, in truth, each work was inspired by Smith’s travels).
After having time to admire the paintings, we were fortunate to hear from Tom Smith himself. He shared many incredible insights and thoughts about his work, and art in general. However, one idea that stood out to me was his discussion of “resolving a painting.” I found it incredibly fascinating when he explained that the first method employed on his paintings (creating two works and then cutting them into thin strips and then gluing them together) left him out of control of the final product. Thus, when he started his second group of paintings he needed to figure out on his own when each painting was done. I find this so admirable, but at the same time very relatable, because I can’t imagine working so hard on anything yet not really having a final say on its outcome, while, at the same time, I really appreciate the struggle of not knowing when you are done, when you have done your best, and when its time to move on.
Our class trip to meet Tom Smith and see his artwork was in my opinion the most engaging and exhilarating trip yet. Being able to first absorb the brightly colored paintings and then being able to get explanations and insight from Tom Smith, himself was what made this trip a unique experience. The first thing I noticed when walking in was the digital style of many aspects of the paintings. It was almost like from far you could be led to believe it was digital art even though it wasn’t. This effect was especially seen with the perfectly straight and equal cuts of paper in the straight-line patterns in some of the paintings.
Although Smith places such importance on technology, as in his video-art and his paintings that look digital, we can’t be fooled to forget that Smith’s main focus is on the physical beauties of different parts of the world, and that’s where he gets inspiration to create his art. The painting that resonated the most with me was the painting that seemed to look like a map with red water and green, elevated land. When I asked Smith about that piece, he said that his trip to Iceland gave him the inspiration. Iceland has many volcanoes with molten rock and lava, which is depicted as the orange lava in the painting, and this creates the thick moss, or the elevated green wooden pieces. This seemed very unique to me, because it was not a 3D sculpture, but it was also not just a painting. It was a hybrid of the two.
After hearing from Tom Smith, I learned some things about the paintings that interested me. Firstly, how he doesn’t “predetermine the art.” Instead, “it’s exploring and going from there.” He allows the flow of the art take him to the completion of the piece. This struck me as a different approach than what I thought was the conventional way of creating art. Another interesting aspect of the art was how he implemented colors of light, which when mixed create a vibrant white color, as opposed to when physical colors are combined, they create a darker brownish color. I was definitely cultured and enlightened after the visit!
“Beautiful,” “large,” “amazing” were all words my friends used to describe the Bloomberg building. But when I turned around the corner and saw the building with my own eyes, the only word I could use to describe it was “wow.”
Yesterday, I, along with about 50 other students from CUNY colleges, had the pleasure of going to Bloomberg L.P.’s headquarters on 731 Lexington Ave. for an informative session and a tour.
Aside from the important information I gained about potential opportunities at Bloomberg and the connections I made during my visit, I learned about how a professional business can use architecture to support its mission.
Similar to how the high stairs at the entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art symbolizes that 
the artwork and the information in the Museum is exclusive to those who have money, the internal architecture of Bloomberg emphasizes its mission to make dynamic networks of information available. The architecture is almost exclusively white, a color that symbolizes clarity. I
nformation ranging from current stock price changes to what floor a person is on is made easily noticeable.
Other pictures of the building:
Apparently one of only eight spiral escalators in the world.
Pond of 22 Japanese Koi fishes for good luck
Station Bloomberg News uses for live interviews.
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