LPKaster Reviews and Observations

I am working on a new CD.  Since last November I have been inspired on many levels.  Someone suggested I work on more music with a specific theme, so the result is a suite of four pieces based on the “Four Watchtowers” of the Sumerian “Fallen Angels” cursorily referred to in the “Old Testament”.  This collection of stories is mostly filched from Sumerian history, masquerading as something new to the tribes of Israel.  Enochian magic is also influenced by the Sumerian source, and I have encountered it from time to time over the years.  I though it would make an excellent source for musical material for theremin and quickly over three months I have been happy with the results, enough to put them on Soundcloud, and now a part of OKAPI, my new CD release. On the page is a song list and a poster for anyone who really likes the album artwork.  The CD also includes a suite dedicated to a local landmark, White Rock Lake, a large swelling in White Rock Creek here in Dallas.  I had occasion at Yule to visit the scene of dense and dramatic fog.  I found the music I was working on to relate significantly to the clouds rolling in over the Lake, and a striking moment when seven swans appeared out of the nearby papyrus reeds to swim out into it.  What could be more appropriate, what with the lights of the season reflected through the fog and on the reflective night?  I posted it to a page entitled Yule.  It’s still there if you would like to listen.  There have been some changes for the CD, but it is still a good review.

A page of Koi paintings from the early ’70s until the late ’80s is being prepared for those who are interested in this period of my work. I am not saying I will never paint another Koi painting, just not at present with all the other projects, including my musical explorations, taking my attention.I started painting Koi ‘way before most people ever noticed them sometime in the late ‘70’s. Of course, the Japanese were very keen on the prize fish for nearly a century before, but I mean the mainstream US was unaware that these pet fish were not goldfish, but another entirely separate family. Most times, I would be asked “You doin’ another one of those goldfish paintings???? and I would simply cringe. But of course, I wasn’t painting them for the fancy fish afficainados, either. I was mostly interested in representing the water around them; the shifting shadows and reflections and the fish sliding out of the depths. Koi are like unknown, but sentient, creatures, just looking in on us out of curiosity. (My initial inspiration was Laurie Anderson’s performance of “Kokoku??? from Mister Heartbreak.) (read the words here)

Koi painting circa 1982

I had to get past the tendency of people to refer to these beautiful creatures as ‘goldfish’  for years, but almost weekly now I hear people asking about ‘koi’ in some kind of garden or pond discussion.

I’ve been working on music as much as possible, between painting commisssions and an intense load of picture-framing. My PAiA Theremax is an excellent instrument after Scott took some time to look it over and find some simple errors I couldn’t locate myself. The instrument I am building is visible on my website: http://lpkaster.com/Theremin.html. It is coming together.

I embedded some small samples of my music on the page. I really don’t know what people might think of this, but I get very involved with the process of layering sounds and accompanying them with the sliding vocals of the theremin. Mostly the reactions I get are “Why?” Why do I want to pursue this course when I could be painting? I reply that I am painting with sound. There is not a lot of difference to me between the colors and textures of sound and of paint. I have a command of painting mediums and color-mixing at this point in my life I would like to extend to musicianship. I think the talent for one should complement the other.

I finally have something worth showing of my Theremin Project. Check it out- it is photographed in front of a big painting I’m working on for an individual in North Dallas. I like heterodyning between bouts of painting, I feel the gestural qualities of brush and aerial fingering of musical notes are mutually arising. Still, I am not satisfied with the “expression” side of the instrument. I am thinking seriously of investing in a Theremax kit from PAIA to add to this instrument. Just how well the two projects can coexist I am unsure. I may end up with two or more instruments finally, but the promising qualities of the PAIA kit are calling to me. I learned a lot building the Ult2b. I think I am ready for something more complex.

I have finally set up a site to view these images at http://www.lpkaster.com/Stereobox1.html I am working on the prices and putting in the tags to go to Paypal.  There are a great many more images that can be handled in this way. I may just set in another page of the stereograms, as the prices will be the same for the lot.  I have had some positive results with these images mounted on Rives BFK, 22x 32.  It sould be clear that all my giclee images will come mounted in this way.

I’m preparing a page of Crop Circle stereograms, titled “Cerealogy”. I may offer the images printed in 11″ square format mounted to boxes or framed in one or two profiles.

 The oldest reference to a crop circle is a medieval woodcut of a demonic figure making a circle in grain.   With the tools and sensibilities of the postmodern, playing from this tradition we can present an old mythology in a new way. It appears to me that times of stress bring out in the corn fields these reflections of inner obsessions- whether by outside agency or by nocturnal pranksters-_http://www.circlemakers.org/art_and_artifice.html _ that become a significant statement. What the exact significance may be, is open to many interpretations, and a fascinating range of ambiguities.

As Postmodern imagery seems to be an appropriation of the past, perhaps the 2007 colors will snap it into the present.

When I looked for stereograms to add to a collage today, I pulled some prints from a couple of years ago. I gave them a long “look” and realized again just how much I really like what they do. One of the primary developments is art since the middle-ages is fore-shortening, to bring a sense of “depth” to flat images. What an innovation! And we’ve been doing it ever since until about the ’20s when some artists realized that flat images could be pretty engaging without artificial perspective. Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Jackson Pollock, even Mark Rothko (who insisted his paintings were, in no sense, “landscapes”) eschewed perspective for another kind of depth.

Stereograms have the potential for something completely new. The most significant contribution is the retraining of the eye-brain connection. Once one is comfortable with viewing stereograms from some distance there is a noticable retraining for other kinds of perception. Patterns and colors appear in a different kind of relief. (This is currently quite legal, too.) The images I’ve chosen to produce are simple enough to enjoy on a superficial level, but the stereo effect I can’t help but feel is at least as significant as pointillism, which, remember, was the beginning of color lithography.

Yes, my images are mostly taken from crop-circles, that fascinating and controversial art-form. Are they the work of nocturnal human pranksters, or pucks from another galaxy or dimension? They are environmental works of cereal complexity. Perhaps weaving them into stereo is something worth pursuing.

I was thinking back to when it was that I realized I wanted to be a potter, and how all that changed in 1976 at the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. It was an encounter that truly changed my direction. It might be of interest, but too long to jot down here. I wrote it this weekend in several sittings.

What I mean by “reduced” to teaching, is that it has always been clear to me that my teachers would have been just as happy to stay in their own studios and work, but of course they needed a salary. I’m not saying professional artists, rather than professional teachers, have the advantage, but clearly, teachers are more likely to train teachers, artists to train artists. It’s a trend, not a rule.

I have compiled a list of the colors predicted to be most popular this year. One might scoff and declare that this doesn’t matter very much, but in the professional art marker it is vital. The purist in art trained by the University system is unprepared to apply his talent because he is trained to disregard what people want. That’s why they are reduced to teaching, and teaching students to disregard what people want.

Now, don’t think I am saying there is no room for discovery and innovation. It is just that there are requirements, not unlike the past when artusts were patronized first by the Catholic Church, then by Renaissance Merchants. In our time, research and development is very expensive, especially for artists who don’t realize that’s what they’re being asked to do. Someone has to pay for it, that’s how it works now.  So having the colors in hand that all the designers are looking for is a good idea, an important step in the right direction. Glad to be of help.

I don’t know why, we just felt compelled to give a good account of the whole pottery aspect of my career. I also have other areas that are not represented yet, but in time they might come out. Selling pottery isn’t a real interest for me, but there is still a lot in storage. I like the idea of getting them out into the world. I remember a day in the late 1970’s when I just happened to accompany an acquaintance to their friend’s house. On a shelf along with a collection of ceramics was a bowl of mine from a year or two earlier. It was a surprising affirmation of my desire to create things, and to release them to the world. I find it satisfying to be a part of it.

I just reviewed some CDs to find images for the years 2003-006 and found some images taken from my videotape of the Iraq anti-war demonstrations just prior to the invasion. I wonder if I need to wait until we withdraw to post these photos. I think they have historical merit.

A tryptich for one of our clients was finished and approved today. The style is one of smooth lines that simulate calm clouds and seas. Strangely, the preferred colors are an orangish green- an existing canvas with the same colors that I matched exactly to specifications was the source, or I wouldn’t have ever gone that way. I don’t know what the colors are this year. Maybe this is a clue, I thought. Maybe the strange color has merit. More, I better get used to it, and look for more to go with it. That’s how this professional artist thing works. The interesting addition to these paintings is an “iridescent” varnish, made by adding microfine mica to a n acrylic glaze and brushing it over the paintings.  I took into account in mixing my colors that it would “gray” them, lowering the chroma perceptibly, and ultimately the “value” at least one step in ten.  Interested in exactly what I mean by this? ask me.