LPKaster Reviews and Observations

I dreamt I was in school. It was just to pass the time, an evening watercolor class, but it was really packed with students. The instructor carried a very important air, but suggested we all try to paint something of a grassy landscape, just to get started, and it was meant as just a simple exercise. I found myself in a kind of search for materials around the room, while everyone seemed to going full-tilt with whatever they could lay their hands on, leaving me with nothing at hand for myself to use.

I made furtive attempts to collect just SOMETHING to paint on, and with, while I watched some people going crazy with huge highway-sign sized monstrosities and bejeweled backdrops. A lot of it seemed really great, and I was excited for moments, just to find no one was really looking at what they had, but so very confident what they were doing was really great.

I went from room to room and then out into the street to scare up paint and paper of ANY SIZE or color, just so I could get started. I had seen so many great ideas working out in the other’s paint, only to see them lose it again because they didn’t know when to stop with what there was. I tried to catch the ear of the instructor, who wasn’t listening, but he chatted on, also with no one else listening. I said to no one, “It’s really so much about just stopping at the right moment. But then so many times it’s too soon or too late, isn’t it?” But then all the ears seemed deaf and self-satisfied in mutual congratulations.

After an odyssey of attempts to extract some materials through my scavenger hunt, and many near finds and slip-ups, in desperation I returned to find the whole lot of them had folded up and abandoned all their work, now dripping color all over the floor. So I took up some of those abandoned materials, folded some paper and made a little painted yellow hat and inscribed it with a few wet umber strokes.

Along came a very fashionable lady, who declared she LOVED it and wanted to show it to some of her other folks. I couldn’t quite make out what I’d written in block letters, but I think I wrote, “This HAT is NOT for general USE.” Or maybe I just wrote “NOT A HAT.” It just seemed a good idea, right?

Any way, I felt the sense of helpless desperation leave me, just the way all the paint in the abandoned art was flowing across the floor, (and the little hat on the way out the door!) while I picked up the paint again, off the floor with a good brush and some nice clean paper.

Check out this item in my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/listing/246227315/taoist-water-talisman-disc-in-felt

I had a dream, too. I had just come into a harvest of tea leaves. I decided that I needed to toast them before a carefully prepared fire. When it was done, it was WONDERFUL. At least to me. A huge harvest of beautiful, rich tea.

So I shared a cup with someone regarded as an expert, whom I really trusted. He quietly told me it was not as good as I thought it was. He said I shouldn’t try to do things I wasn’t trained to do. That only people brought up in a Tea family should do such things. He just said “It is impossible, you fool only yourself.”

When I recalled this dream later, I laughed out loud. I had just seen this person inhale my cup of tea with deep, secret satisfaction.

I have been making Real Silk strings for Lyre and Guitar for several years. My very favorite instrument, however, has been Guqin, one of the oldest known stringed instruments. The requirements for Guqin strings are much more exacting than any other instrument, too. They are commonly stroked and pressed against the surface to produce a sliding tone, so they must be very smooth and exceptionally hard.

With the experience and feedback from satisfied users of my Lyre and Guitar strings, I have developed strings of length and smoothness that are now on a par with strings made before the Cultural Revolution in China. The Cultural Revolution nearly caused the extinction of this wonderful old instrument. The craft of making Silk Strings was, for a time, lost and Nylon was used instead. Now there are possibly 3 Silk string makers including myself in the world.

I like to de-emphasize the elitist trend that seemed to make it appear necessary for the Chinese Cultural police to force the Literati tradition underground. An unfortunate effect of exclusivity is that it often manages to isolate Taoist practices from the common population. I personally consider it a misreading of the Tao Te Ching to raise the Cultural standing of gifted individuals to such a level that persons in support roles are undervalued. The Old Man (Lao Tzu) never denigrated the average person. To the contrary, he recognized frequently in attributed quotations that it is indeed the day-to-day activity of steady labor that raises a culture to sustainability.

Silk has been preferred for centuries in heirloom or reproduction instruments, especially appropriate in Asian and Tribal music for which loudness isn’t the important thing, but rather, rich harmonics.

I have been making Silk Strings for several years, and have perfected my way of working with silk, based on Japanese and Chinese methods. As far as I know, I am the only one that makes silk strings that are available for purchase outside those countries.  Instrument makers and ethnic musical instrument enthusiasts have expressed a strong interest in my work with silk.

Standard Guqin Strings

In order to make it easier to choose a size I am posting the string sizes separately. Keep in mind, too, that I can create custom diameters specifically for your instrument.

My process owes a debt of gratitude to the notes of Alexander Raykov, who pioneered many methods that I have distilled to what I believe to be the best blend of what I have learned. After spinning the plies to the correct twist I harden them with a special vegetable based glue, I then treat the string with a proprietary resin formula that is unique to my work.

My resin formula is a combination of beeswax, shellac, Copal, and other plant-based poly-resins. These are all-natural and renewable materials that I have used in different combinations for many years.

Why Silk Strings?

Real Silk strings are kinder to your fingertips, and are easier to press against a fretboard.

Real Silk strings are unusually resilient and do provide richer reverberations; a crisp pluck and harmonically rich finish.

Real Silk will give your vintage or traditional instrument a whole new voice of distinction and complexity.

New Real Silk strings do require several days of tension and frequent re-tuning at first.
After 3 or 4 days the strings will stabilize and hold tuning better than gut strings, either real or simulated.

You should bring up the tension of any new strings slowly over several hours with sensitivity to whether it is within  an approximate 1/3 of their breaking point –(a point at which the string begins to sound more like a metal string!) Yes, if you tighten a string beyond a certain point it will break. Use discretion.

Strings will slacken over several days and stabilize to your local humidity. I like to keep a hygrometer close to my instrument to observe objectively the changes over time.
Each string comes over 92″ long; this is enough to re-tie the string as the first 6 to 8″ wear.
The average lifespan of a good silk string can be 7 to 10 years if properly maintained. A stable environment for your instrument will be stable for the strings.

Order a Custom Gauge and length for your particular needs. This may take up to two weeks to produce.

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I thought for quite a long time exactly what to call these things, that could perhaps more appropriately could be referred to as “dice” but I didn’t want to emphasize their possible use a divination device in themselves, but rather as a tool to replace the practice of stopping to pick up a pen or pencil to write down each line. From my first experience with the Oracle I felt a disconnect with the flow of the Stalks -or even coins, for that matter if I have to pick up a pencil and draw a line.

The first time I saw such a set of “staves” used, it was a lightbulb bursting into illumination for me. Yes, you can toss the staves and create a hexagram, just like six dice, but the purpose I envisioned then was to create a smoother way of working with Yarrow stalks!

Since I began working with the I Ching as a primary source of wisdom, I quickly found a set of stalks to use. My first 50 sticks were actually the long Cattail stems I collected from the side of a pond in Irving, Texas. It took me years to encounter Yarrow growing in the Rocky Mountains and, perhaps surprisingly, the time I spent there only afforded me the opportunity to collect the ferny leaves and appreciate the healthy scent of this lovely plant.

It was not until that late time of year in Austin that I found the plants growing long stalks and white flowers on them. Even then, I did not find enough good material for more than a single set for my own use. I did not feel justified to mow down an entire field of these “weeds” for more than my immediate needs! I felt a strong connection to the nature of this plant was needed for me to offer them to others, and it took several years to establish my own plants, of course.

So with that in mind as a basis for connection with the I Ching oracle, it seems to me the Staves need to be similarly consecrated as divinatory tools if they are to function well together with the Yarrow. Their function is to act as a memory device, and for me as a record-keeper to translate the connected movements.

I personally like to keep a set of staves nearby as a kind of reference for any number of other purposes, including use as a musical mnomic. How does this work?

If you become familiar enough with the solid and moving lines, the Yin and the Yang of things and events, there is a kind of language there you can use. The Trigrams:

1. of Heaven, Sky or Air, then
2. Wind, then
3. Thunder, then
4. Water, then
5. Mountain, then
6. Earth, then
7. Fire, then
8. Lake or Valley…

…each have a universal meaning that can be used to express something, and coupled with another trigram, will have a special meaning together in the cycle of growth and decay expressed in the I Ching. The relationship of a pair of trigrams is a microcosm that relates a specific meaning you can carry with you as a means of expression.

Since these trigrams create a set of relationships it is natural to apply the meanings to an abundance of processes just as the Old Ones did in Asia for many centuries. I am working on s kind of musical tablature for Guqin at present, and expect this may take some time, but it is only one of many applications I can think of besides the Oracular use. Your own imagination can be similarly stimulated, and your connection to the trigrams more enriched by the use of the “Staves”

I have seen offered for sale a set of wooden staves marked with the 4 types of lines generated with either coins or Yarrow stalks. But the price was rather high, and with an attempt to actually purchase them, found that they are not actually available not anywhere, after all.

With some deliberation I set out to find a way to produce them, in quantity and for a good price. Not as simple as it might appear! Yes, one way would to track down a manufacturer of small plastic toys, but I’ve witnessed the results of this approach. There is a long setup to a less than satisfactory result, a committee of bad decisions and someone to purloin the entire idea so wonderfully simple that only some thousands in the entire world would appreciate. For me, that may be enough.

So my approach is different. As an Artist, I am familiar with the “long shot” of first to have an idea, then to produce it, entirely my own way. Limited production of something that appeals to a limited audience, is either a nightmare or a brilliance that depends on your patience, I think.

So I sat down at my PC and proceeded to create a print of the series of lines spaced exactly to fit around the circumference of the material I found available from a supplier of wood products to model makers. The poplar wood I found is mostly very consistent and light in tone, and the exacting needs of professional model builders. There are people who create either architectual displays, or model airplane enthusiasts who need straight and true, inexpensive material they can count on. It is to this source I also went in my search for the best material for my idea.

After several attempts, I seemed to have the size and spacing exactly right, and proceeded to make my first run of several dozen. Yet by the end, I began to find several instances of lines too off-center by the time I finished wrapping, and rejected them with dismay. It was not until after several tries I came to realize the exactitude of my wood material was not of the same order as my prints!  What I learned to do was to carefully start out with my placement and retry for fit as I progressed. I did not count on the accuracy of the material, but compensate from the start for the irregularities of the poplar. All this by way I mention is to illustrate again the difference of approach from a manufacturer`s way, to the way of craftsmanship. This difference I have observed in my life as an employee of others, of those who have little respect for materials and often try to force an abstract concept to appear in a living material. Today, I am once again celebrating that I work alone so there is no blame, but a constant interaction between an idea and the even better results of bowing to the needs of the materials.

One of the reasons we typically consult an objective source for our practices of divination is the ease with which our personal ego can often enter into our interpretation.
We use a specific discipline and set of tools to avoid the kind of confusion that results from purely subjective readings. This way we get ourselves, as oracular agents, right out of the picture so that the accuracy of the message will be more apparent to the inquirer.

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To this purpose it is a matter of making a ‘good show of it’ thatwe have the best, evocative tools at our disposal.  I provide Yarrow stalks and ‘staves’ (or reference dice):

to make the process of consultation flow, to maintain a meditative atmosphere that is the preferred process of counting the stalks to determine the lines- Yin, Yang, Old Yin and Old Yang.

Years ago I was learning the many faces of the I Ching, and in the appendices the description of the Yarrow Stalk oracle caught my imagination. I later found them growing in a vacamt lot in Austin, and I thought it would be wonderful to cultivate and offer the stalks to others. It was many years before this was possible, but the widespread use of the Internet for commerce finally came about, and so the time had come.Years ago I was learning the many faces of the I Ching, and in the appendices the description of the Yarrow Stalk oracle caught my imagination. I later found Yarrow growing in a vacant lot in Austin, and I thought it would be wonderful to cultivate and offer the stalks to others. It was many years before this was possible, but the widespread use of the Internet for commerce finally came about, and so the time had come. I planted a substantial bed by our house behind some Rock Rose, so the weedy appearance wouldn’t attract the ire of the neighborhood, but if I had my way I’d replace the whole lawn with Yarrow!

I created a page on my website where the results of my bookpaper stencils can be seen, but I thought I would go into my process of creating finished work in this series. ?My previous work with graphite and grease pencil has already been covered in the
previous post.

While I relax in the evening, I will have several pages pulled from books ready to work on.
I’ll sit and explore some folds and basically create simple origami rectangles and triangles and pile them up.

Then I take each one up, and as I examine the directions of the folds with a very open sense of what the possibilities are, I’ll begin tearing lines, changing directions, follow an internal labyrinth. ?The idea, I suppose, is to never go directly to a destination, but to shift position; turn just before I think of turning, or slightly after. ?The paper also has a way of telling my fingers what to do. The layers of paper shift a little, slide out of place enough so that I need to flatten the folds again and begin from there. ?I don’t throw away the pieces I remove, and have lately been reserving them to be put back, leaving the little torn journey to delineate the composition.

When I feel like I’ve reached the end of the inherent possibilites, I’ll slowly open the page to see what new shapes appear. I flatten them with an iron, but as everything you do to a piece of paper is recorded on it, the folds themselves become a part of the overall composition.

Lately, I have been ironing beeswax into the flattened stencils, and that creates a transparency that I very much like. The printed page shows both sides now, and the interplay of the typeface is significant, becomes more of a texture than of a narrative.

The next stage is often to scan the stencils before I mount them for presentation, as the digital version can be further manipulated in so many ways. When combined with my graphite drawings, the choices are increased dramatically, as they can be enlarged or made smaller, or transparent- I can cut out the textured print and expand it beyond the boundaries of the page.

I use an archival spray adhesive lightly on one side of the stencil and place it on a printed background. The background can have a printed color or texture.

To complete a given piece, my mixture of copal, damar and beeswax is brushed lightly over the whole, and heat is applied until the paper takes up the medium and becomes wonderfully translucent, the printed inks appear in subtle relief. For presentation, the print is then mounted to a larger sheet of rag paper so that it has a large enough margin to be handled until framed.

It’s not easy to describe how many decisions have to be made before I feel like I’ve done anything good with the beautiful wood I find.  The wave action on the surface and the total transformation of the structure of the wood itself through bacterial action makes it almost an intrusion into the natural process.  My minimal drawing style with a torch or hot metal does, I feel, complete a process that started many years ago when the tree dropped a limb that wound up in water, floated across the lake and then came to rest at the shore before my feet.  I eagerly search the shore as I walk along, but it is only when I stop for a very long time -and wait-  that I actually see anything.

My current form of personal meditation is aided by the sound and sight of waves.  They are never the same.  The sound is a kind of music, but not composed music.  It is wild music; untrained music.  The solidity of this music is trapped in the wood, and when I draw on it the musical score that is in my head, I feel like I’ve at last expressed something that can’t be put into words.

My approach to sculpture is inevitably connected to my pottery and claywork of the 70’s.  What I always admire in clay is the close relationship between the local terrain (under the ground is always some kind of clay) and the forests above -wood turning to ash transforms the clay into glass.  Ash, then, can become a kind of glaze, and part of the clay.  It’s a cycle that begins with water, of course.  That’s why wood, for me, is closely related to clay.  It’s also why gazing at moving water is related to wood.

It is the Chinese five-element system that I realized one day while sitting out on the site of a brush fire.  The local clay had turned an orangey-red around the edges of the burn, but at the center, where the carbon collected, there were dark bluish bands, and then nearly black.  The black is simply the presence of ink-like carbon, but the blues are the unmistakable alchemical properties of iron.   Iron is the secret ingredient of most pottery glazes, including the beautiful celadons of infinite variety, and the many kinds of of iron glazes that range from rich blue-blacks to warmer reddish blacks to a persimmon color.  As important as color, the textures of iron glazes is a result of the stages of melting silica into glass while the iron itself is transformed by the atmosphere of the fire.  Unless the materials have already been melted into glass, then pulverized and reduced to powder already, the chemical interactions create many stages of bubbles and flow. The exquisite textures of many traditional glazes are the result of the interaction of the elements of glass; silica, alumina and flux.

When it comes to savoring the qualities of wood, it is as important to be aware of the process of growth and decay.  When wood that was once part of a living tree falls to the ground, a lot of things can happen.  It can be eaten, and slowly disintegrate.  A lot of microscopic activity can transform wood in complex ways.  When a particularly beautiful effect is discovered, it is possible to remove the wood from the original process and work with it.  In this way the process is continued in another direction.

The grain of a piece of wood reveals the process of growth, then to re-present it is a deliberate act of creation.  How much to interfere with something already wonderful is a challenge.  How to present what has been found is an act of revelation.

The best treatment that I have found to interact successfully is to return to fire as a process of transformation.  Pyrography is the deliberate burning of the wood in certain ways to create a sense of human interaction in a minimal way.  I like to use several kinds of torches and branding tools to create marks that are not just added to the surface, but combine with the substance intimately.  I like to use beeswax as a finish- it (temporarily!) stops the process of disintegration and often reveals things I see in the wood when it is wet, but as it dries out the surface seems to die, too.  Using such a basic finish seems to bring back that life without covering too much, or just sitting on the surface.  With the judicious application of heat, the wax can melt deep into the pores of the wood and become part of it.

It is similar to the sense of what to me is a good glaze on pottery; it does not sit just on the surface of the clay, but becomes a deep aspect of the clay itself.  When the clay sits slowly transforming in the fire the glaze combines with it and they become one.

There is no real difference between clay and glass, except refinement.  Clay is a little more resistant to melting, but my  favorite thing is to break down that difference until there is only enough difference to keep the form of a vessel from collapsing.  In a Japanese Anagama kiln, pottery is fired for several days until the ash collects and melts into the clay; the pot often becomes so soft the shape of the pot itself is transformed. In a similar sense, the difference between picking up a rotting chunk of wood and presenting it as an art object is only a slight difference, one that could also collapse but for certain deliberate factors.

These factors have something to do with the dynamic interplay of conscious transformation of the wood into something nearly something else.  It may be this delicacy of intent or collapse that keeps me occupied with spalted wood.

I’m reminded of some conversations I’ve had with people in the framing industry. The conversation goes “I don’t like abstract art.” says the guy (a sort of carpenter, specializing in art presentation furniture) He is making 200 frames for the art bought by a hotel chain that will be the centerpiece for a room. The room will have a bed, a TV with 57 channels, a lamp and a big window with a thick drapery and one big work of art above the bed for which he built the frames. Maybe a couple of smaller pieces to one side to balance it.. Of course there’s a small bath adjoining the room with another small etching and a mirror.

The picture framer is thinking, perhaps (Emperor’s New Clothes!) But not- because he is unfamiliar with the tale or the possible application of the allegory’s illustratiion of alternate points of view! He never got that lecture, even in a High School class ’cause the teacher was a “Phys Ed” coach who never got it himself.

Now if this guy goes on a trip and needs to settle into a hotel he will probably glance above the bed, and if the art is a landscape he will give it a once-over and think to himself “That’s nice… I like blubonnets.” But he will lie on the bed and stare at the TV for hours, and exclaim aloud “57 channels, and nothing’s on.” The weekly football game is tomorrow, so he thinks. I’m wondering if TV channels will ever need “test patterns” again. I should design those, I think.

The last time this fellow went to an art museum he walked past some of the most groundbreaking examples of 20th century art and went straight for the portrait gallery, then to the gallery of Barbizon School paintings and then to the Turner’s, the Hudson River School and other American Impressionists. Then perhaps a quick scan of French Impressionists nearby, not realizing what a scandal this kind of painting caused, not an inkling of what came next… And this trip to the museum was 10 years ago.

So then when he confides to me, “I don’t like abstract art,” do I dare talk to him about music?

It has been recently observed that there are no completely objective ways to judge the exactitude of art. Much of Science, too, is an art that begins with observation colored by certain personal factors that are not as objective as we are led to believe in school. Charles Darwin began his theories with pure observation, lacking the exact measurement of genes and chromosomes… and even the molecular beginnings of genetic research will fall into the nature of art if you look long and hard enough. Still, (most of us) find his conclusions very conclusive today. Observation is an inexact process and can be wildly different from one position to another, so there will always be a few who trust traditional poetic insight over keen observation (cf. “the Bible”) or read this essay “Art and Artifice”:

This effect was part of the subject matter of a recent episode of “Bones” (The Doctor in the Photo) and it reminded me of how much our experience is colored by the very ground of our everyday “seat of the self.” The “self” is a composite not only of accumulated knowledge and experience, but of just how we are feeling at the moment. In this case, the main character identifies with the victim of murder that she is certain that the photographs and recordings of the victim are _exactly_ like her. It is only later, when she fully comprehends the events leading to the death, that she realizes there are only coincidental similarities. Her immediate experiences change due to the depth of her new understanding.

There are art experts whose job is to decide whether a work is actually the product of a particular artist. What they rely on is a huge body of referential material that is generally accepted as ‘genuine’ and using their own judgement of the details of these will determine if the work in question is one of a series by the same person. Handwriting analysis, for example, is not a science, but a technique of keen observation and good guesses. Art experts employ the same kind of judgements, but a casual observer or listener- or smeller, in the case of perfume perhaps, will accept a counterfeit because their casual experience is all they need. They call in the experts when the stakes seem higher, but I ask “Isn’t the richness of their experience just as important?” So let’s get serious about this.

When it becomes an issue of worth and exchange, the art experts are brought in. Then the casual response goes immediately deeper. Nothing has changed, except the experience. (The casual observer is very gradually seduced into becoming an “art expert.”)

Some might insist that it is all ‘chemical’ in nature and certainly changes in body chemistry can make radical differences in our personal experience. It is also demonstrable that we can change our own chemistry, even using just our own minds. And sometimes the effect can be so slight that we don’t recognise it. We may never know for certain which phenomena leads the way to our somatic reference, the way our bodies affect our minds and ‘tother way round. If we know this to be true, then only time can reveal some certainties we can rely on.

This, and the impressions of a collective, like our families and friends (our own ‘art experts’) make a huge difference in our experiences. And once we are aware of how our response can vary with circumstance it is possible to have a truly aesthetic experience of a drawing, a painting, or of a musical work. It seems to me the personal response to artwork has to be a balance of an immediate impression, yet supported by cultural expectations, our previous experiences. It starts in a particular momentary impression, then stretches to the boundaries of culture.

I simply doubt that objective measurements can be used in art, or in science in any reliable way. I have electronic tuners that work much more slowly and precisely than my hearing, and I trust them more if I want to know what C sounds like. Yet art is all about illusion, isn’t it? By the time I play a note, the reference wanders again.

This is a pyrographic drawing with colored dyes done in the style I have been developing for many years I refer sometimes as “taichi” drawings as the movements of the line are based on my visceral sense of push/pull as in Taichi Pushhands movements.

The pyrograhic element is the inverse element bounded by the dotted boundary. I discovered years ago how the dotting effect I observed in traditional Australian art will activate a line or a space. I used it to outline some flower images several years ago with great success.

There was at that time a strong interest in images of flowers. Commercial spaces like hotels and hospitals preferred the neutrality of them, I think. The active nature of the pyrographic drawing comes out of the combination of the dotting from these earlier images combined with a drawing style that actually pre-existed these images. I was creating maze-like pencil drawings before the ’80s, even applied them to canvas. But I believe they were too sophisticated for a commercial space.

Always intend to show what I am thinking about. This is one of a series that can be seen on my website; http://lpkaster.com/encaustic.html

The circles are drawn with a soft graphite over the brushwork, a contrapuntally different way of making marks. The color overlays are meant to be colored beeswax with an impressed woodgrain pattern. Just now they exist as digital concepts, but isn’t that all I can show until someone has a wall to hang them on anyway? The “waves” portion below the primary image are an entirely separate approach, but I think also a kind of underlining feature.

In May I started to take photographs of White Rock Lake after a discussion with Martha about how the lake will have a centennial anniversary next year.  I created quite a number of digital images to print out on cards, and started painting large paintings based on my favorite of the digital photographs.  I love the subject, and enjoy painting landscapes.  I try to bring some new kind of reference to each image I create and could likely paint new versions of many images for some time.   One of my favorite views is an overlook of the trees that line Winfrey Point.  Altogether, the most engaging is one that doesn’t actually include the lake itself, but implies it over the edge of the trees.  The dense wildflowers and dried grass of late summer create a series of interlocking patterns. See my page of White Rock Lake images.

There is also quite a lot of moving footage, one in particular I keep coming back to is a few minutes of a fisherman I found out on a dock one morning at about 5:00 am. What I get excited about is how what seems a most ephemeral and quiet moment can yield a striking image.
Fisherman

This few minutes yielded an interesting banner-like image.  I used it on my homepage after some good responses to my Bandcamp page banner.