2 new pieces...

“Lucky Mouse” in Retirement 

The Old Man Himself

(bearing down on three score and ten)

A poem from the pandemic...

DIFFERENT FROM NOW

In the quiet, but not quite:

rain patters and puddles hiss

as tires plow fleeting furrows

along Church Street

the casual scratch of pen across the page

the tedious persistent buzz of fluorescence

and equipment all seeming to imply

“Open” for business though the door stays locked

and within this lockdown I plunge slowly

across and down the paper, my breath undetectable

amid the low-volume din

Voices, when they arrive, are transmitted 

rather than spoken, said toward and through machines

as if the machine were not all we are talking to

ginning up imagination to make the virtual seem real

settling for what’s left when the rest is gone

no rest for the isolated, no relaxing for the locked-down

masked together while we stay apart

six feet away to avoid six feet under

And still the sun rises and shines and waits

behind clouds and sets leaving darkness and

the planets and stars to wait with us

until it rises once more.  Once more.  Once more.

and again and again and again until six feet apart

tilts on its axis and the light goes out

Since March and on into May significance dissipates 

from the days that merely stretch on

birthdays, holidays, appointments, travel

signposts and unmarked trails fall away

and we, meaning I, march in place

going nowhere for as long as it takes

will I have what it takes when I get there?

and how will I know that it’s different from now?

See video

New painting

Update

    

Here is the most recent stage of the current painting.  

   

 The Easy Motion Studio is once again open for business.

APPRECIATIVE ECONOMICS or SUCCESS WITHOUT MONEY

Philosopher Martin Heidegger demonstrated the profound and profoundly simple and obvious truth that what it means to be a human being is to care about who and how we are.

For each of us, caring consists in how we spend our time, how we live our lives.

Caring either travels or traverses the axis of trouble.
Even when traveling the axis of beauty.
There is no way around.  Only through.

We either travel or traverse the axis of trouble, even when traveling the axis of beauty.
There is no around.  Only through.

George Reed Jazz Concert this Sunday, 5/19/13

Artist Reception - Main St Cafe - Elmira

"What a TV Sees" 

36" x 48" - acrylic on canvas

2012

Friday, September 14, 2012, 5-7 pm

Music, sweets, paintings, & Steve

Artist talk @ 6

FREE

June 1, 2013.
The Main Street Cafe.
Elmira, New York.

Steve Seaberg shows his stuff. The uncelebrated yet self-proclaimed life artist brings a selection from his 2012 oeuvre to the heart of downtown Elmira. Drawing and painting have fascinated and preoccupied Seaberg since childhood. The works shown are a combination of depictions of reality and imaginal constructions that suggest skies over landscapes, all exhibiting the Seaberg style of brushwork and pallet. The painting above is called Church Work on Church Street, Elmira, New York. Seaberg notes that preservation work on the exterior of buildings can receive more attention than what goes on inside, as well as inside of us. The painting is based on a Polaroid snapshot from 2003-2005 when the brick steeple at Trinity Church underwent major repairs. A sign promoting McDonalds and Pizza Hut dominates the lower right quadrant. Church Work is preeminently a sky portrait. In fact, skies dominate Seaberg's work as much as any other element. The show continues throughout June and July.

The "symbol" for what we are, each of us, for ourselves

The human individual can represented as the junction or conjunction of the me I know myself to be and the world to which I am attached (exactly where and how I am attached). The diagram for this singular totality appears above.

The "M" stands for me. The "W" stands for world. Each side is a reflection of the other. Our awareness of both ourselves and our world is constrained and thereby defined within the arms of the M or W respectively. Whatever else is going on around us or what we are up to, the illustrated structure of MW persits to make those other concerns possible.

MW (me + world as a singular event) is the substructure that opens the field of experience as whatever and however it shows itself. My ordinary life as well as all extraordinary and mundane experiences happen as the activity of the MW.

So what?

Forgetting, ignoring, or denying this fundamental fact falsifies the nature of experience. Failure to attribute all experience to the MW structure makes experience inauthentic, false, shallow, fake, insufficient, and difficult (if not impossible) to sustain.

Mistakes on this order are cultivated in the public sphere, and may, in fact, be responsible for the experience of the public sphere such as it is for each one of us.

New show underway @ Art Café

You can see a quick preview of the new show under construction at the Café here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ingZV2FM_H0

Watch for details of intriguing and artsy public events.

The finished product

Here is the finished painting. It is now called "What a TV Sees." The vantage of the painting looks down on the assembly as if through the screen of an elevated television. If you viewed the video in the prior post, you will notice that the rightmost figure has changed. A face has replace the philosophical symbol. The coat has transformed along with the bag on the bar.

I'll reserve philosophical comment until later.

Painting and philosophy

A new painting is on display at the Art Cafe. Although called by various titles, it hangs by the name "What a TV Sees." The new show which does not yet have a name includes works by Dean Aldrich, Diane Janowski, Pepsi Lyon, and Allen C. Smith. Events will be announced to focus on the works and artists and involve the public. Stay tuned.

My painting came to life over a ten day span in January. The painting in a pre-completion state can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcZ2ZAD3ar0&list=LLwJQPc0SABJcQby8appYxRg&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Painting entails making decisions rather than choices. A decision cuts off alternatives where a choice can be revisited and altered. The buffet table offers choices. If what you choose does not suit your taste, you can choose something else. During the choosing all alternatives are equally available and unaffected by other choices. Once one starts marking up a canvas, decisions replace choices. Making decisions in painting transmutes the value and availability of future options so that alternatives are often eliminated or radically altered.

The progressive history of decisions tells one story about "What a TV Sees." If the work works for you, it tells many other stories too.

Like they say in Manhattan, check it out!

Back

Where have I been? Two years since the last post. Maybe I've been thinking of something to say.

Reality TV

You watch it because you wouldn’t
mind seeing some hot-shot
make a fool of himself
but he never does. Instead
someone like you or me get
our wherewithal sloshed like a
bucket that stokes the derisive
laughter—like nobody’s business.
But it’s everyone’s business on TV.

The sheer earnestness of a let down
no one can acknowledge
even more so because it’s true
truer even than reality TV.
No one needs to sponsor one disappointment
after another. Even when we all
get our stories straight
the hot-shot still gets all the goods.

Absolution

Countering what assails us
will not save us

Juxtaposition is just a position
like any other

Salvation sans savior
means
all are deemed worthy

No one can heal us all

Blessed be
she
we
it

Not the dominator, yet
he too shall

Be healed

Prompted by demonstrators...

To Beep or Not To Beep


Burly, bearded men
bearing signs: “Ban
Gay Marriage!”
I guess that keeps them
from having to
marry each other

Keeps them, not off
the streets, but
gives them a reason
to be there

Fraternity of fag
haters: “Save the Child-
ren!” one sign reads

Should one beep driving
by? What might that mean?

Doxology

I.

I’ve listened to mumbo-jumbo
like that before
been taken in by popular chatter even
sought to seek myself in that
pointless point of view

Can’t live without it—
within it either for that matter
it’s a place with no space
left to be in, a cosmic comma
without pause, an accelerator really

II.

A depth protector abandoned
might mean no end to the fall
might mean anything in the wrong hands
might not mean anything at all.
Common, ordinary people, all but me.

Are you one of them or are you me?
you can know the difference but not
tell the difference, least of
all when it matters that you
tell the truth.