“Look, man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is?” — DFW
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE by Philip Burke for The New Yorker 1991
Searching tonight for some large, dense blocks of text that i'm going to be using as 'meaningless' texture — symbolic... check... ironic, check — in some paintings this week (ie: choice excerpts from Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and Wallace's Infinite Jest) I came across the above quote from the Larry McCaffery interview with David Foster Wallace circa 1991.
RIP DFW and BTW, it is a good point and maybe I need to think about it. Wallace could not be called a Pollyanna by any one's standards so it made me stop and think. Art is the mirror of a culture okay, but as artists do we have some responsibility to uplift and redeem and all that too?
According to D.T. Max, in a 2009 New Yorker article about DFW's unfinished body of work "... as Wallace saw it, irony could critique but it couldn’t nourish or redeem."
Most of what I do is ironic yet I can't help but see his point. Without redemption or some offer of resolution we're just mocking and that's just cheap and far too easy.
Maybe as artists, writers, film makers we do have some responsibility to offer more than that in our work? Maybe being a mirror for us to see, if we choose to look, how we really are isn't enough.
Really? Being the documentarians of darkness and stupidity isn't all that's required of us? Who knew?
Do we need to offer hope? Or does that just get sanctimonious? I don't know. I could make an argument either way but I don't have time now... those paintings aren't going to paint themselves :)
I just found out that David Foster Wallace died a couple of months ago. Arguably, the best writer of our generation, I can't even imagine that there won't be another book by him. Ever.
I walked around stunned for hours. I haven't really painted anything at all for days and just today I got back into the studio. That's not like me. I paint every day. Especially when I'm upset.
I've read Infinite Jest 3 times - I think that's sort of the idea with it, I mean the way the end goes back to the beginning and the beginning is the end - like 'the entertainment' in the book (James Incandenza's film was so deadly that people couldn't stop watching it and they just died sitting there in front of it - obviously a metaphor, sure but a good one). The book was like that for me. I just kept reading the damn thing for like a year or more. it's just the most incredible thing I've ever read.
I will argue to the death that the first dozen or so pages of Infinite Jest are the best dozen or so pages in all of modern literature. love, love, love this guy.
If you think that something like oh, say... One Hundred Years of Solitude was a very easy, enjoyable read... you should check out this book. True, it's dense but if you have patience and trust him - he will not let you down. Even during the endless Eschaton match... trust in the D... just do it.
He was a great, great writer. And he didn't need to write another thing. He's said all he needed to say.
Here's DF Dub's version of Journalism - just hilarious - could you call it Gonzo-esque? He would have liked that I think. They give him credit for coining the phrase 'Lynchian'. He was a huge David Lynch fan.
I especially love this clip because I was a baton twirler in high school and I've been to events like the one he's describing... he's not kidding, it's really THAT bad!
and, no... don't bother asking... I'll only pick up a baton when i'm really, really drunk. It's not a pretty sight...
And the moneylender said unto Jesus, “Yo messiah, climb down off that cross and go on over there and get me one of them dollar menu burgers. Get yourself one, too. Here.”
And he laid onto Jesus two Georges.
To this I bore witness and if I were tasked with scripture writing, that’s how I’d lay it down but seeing as I’m not...I’ll say that if you’ve never seen the rolling messiah of Quartzsite, AZ, you have not yet but lived.
He walks down the side of the road some but not all days, slumped under his burden, an enormous cross, I don’t know maybe like, 8 feet high if it was standing but it’s not, it’s leaning on his shoulder, assuming the position you could say, rolling behind him as he walks...it’s on old roller skate wheels, did I mention that? He of course in prophet-toga white and worn Birkenstocks...what else?
I once spent a winter, basically Halloween through April Fool’s Day in Quartzsite, AZ living in an old 70’s RV that a friend had given me to get me out of the van I’d been literally living in and painting in and traveling around doing art shows in for the better part of two years.
For me, this was the lap of luxury because I didn’t have to tear the booth down every day and set it up again the next. Or pile all the boxes of supplies on the roof of the van so I could sleep in the Walmart parking lot or where ever I stopped that day.
In Quartzsite, I painted in the tent and sold in the tent, which was attached to the RV. The RV had heat, sort of, a fridge that made a very worthy cupboard, a fully functional bathroom and shower and I had full hookups at the parking lot cum shopping mall slash flea market that is Quartzsite in the wintertime.
I remember Thanksgiving evening, eating my turkey Lean Cuisine, purchased in a grocery markdown tent, and looking through the front windshield, where I could see in the distance for miles East up Hwy. 10, a stream of RV headlights headed straight for us.
Retirees and snowbirds, living the dream, rolling in for the winter, most of whom will pile onto a patch of barren BLM land and pay a couple hundred dollars for the entire season just to enjoy no electricity, no sewer or water, no more than a stones throw of distance between neighbors (at best) but plenty of dust storms, ATV racing, micromanaging camp rangers, rattlesnakes and rainbow people.
They love telling you that the population of Quartzsite goes from something like 800 to a quarter million every winter. I think the attraction here is obvious.
But at night, if you wait until after about 9pm, when all the old people turn off their RV television sets and the subsequent generators, you can see more stars than you’ve ever seen before and hear something resembling silence even.
In all honesty, the one thing that is not to be missed is the ‘naked guy’. Seriously, I love this guy. He does wear some type of little sock thing so it’s only mildly freaky to stand there talking with him. Here I just found this video through the magic of U Tube:
As you can see Paul’s bookstore, Reader’s Oasis is truly worth the stop if you ever find yourself passing by. I didn’t expect much when I walked in but I’d been looking for a volume of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (needing to get some mythological facts straight or more probably needed it for 'Ovid dipping' which I occasionally do to help name paintings) so I asked Paul if he had it and he said, “Sure, I believe I’ve got two here do you want hard cover?” Okay, you honestly can not get a decent cup of coffee in this outpost but Ovid...you’re covered. Love this guy!
I will never, ever regret giving up the buck and a quarter salary and the yuppie lifestyle and going it homeless for what was probably something over 3 years all together. I've never learned more about life, myself and humanity in general and while I'm glad it's over and I'm living a semi-normal life again, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. You’re never going to meet people like Paul in a cubicle and they’re the people that really make life worth living! Rock on dude!
So what does all this have to do with my paintings today? Well isn’t it obvious? Condor feathers. Where else are you going to meet a Navaho Supermodel that makes and sells found object, nature sculptures but in Quartzsite?
My friend Rainbow Redfeather, one of the kindest and most generous people I had the opportunity to meet on the road made me a dream catcher out of a pod, some feathers, an ermine tail and a couple of quartz crystals that she found on one of her many walks in the desert.
She just sat there quietly (well not really quietly, Rainbow talks as much as I do but...) and wove all this together and now it’s hanging in my studio and as the spring breeze blows through it today I can’t help think about Rainbow and her art. How gorgeous is this thing? I love it! I have her contact info if you want to see her work - it is truly amazing!
When she was younger she was often a model for artist R.C. Gorman and she has one of his original paintings that he did of her framed and hanging in her trailer/tent home that she picks up every year and moves around with like a very interesting and talented little turtle.
In fact here, I was able to find one of his paintings titled “Rainbow”. Since there’s also literally a rainbow in this painting I’m not sure if this is one that she modeled for or not but you can get an idea of his work:
So today I’m thinking about these feathers that Rainbow had in a box, hidden away somewhere with all her found treasures waiting to be made into art.
These were condor feathers that she had found on a walk near the Grand Canyon probably, an abandoned nest, they were scattered but she’d found quite a few of them. They were very special and sacred and she told us about how they’re often used in native rituals of death and mourning.
Probably associated with death because of their carrion nature, I thought but didn't say anything because earlier they'd all been laughing at me because I knew that haratige was in fact more commonly spelled h-e-r-i-t-a-g-e so I didn't want to risk anymore 'intellectual' jokes. But anyway...
She held out the box and offered a feather to me and another friend who was there. I chose the smallest one in the box and our other friend reached in and pulled out the largest one in the box. Our choices were indicative of our personalities which I guess is an obvious statement but I didn't really think about it at the time.
I really treasure this feather and my dream catcher and I often think about all the cool people we met on the road and how much they've all influenced my life and my art. Now feathers will always make me think of Rainbows.
