Sorry folks, I've been working a lot this week. Hip Boots let me start with a little background about myself that I wrote. This weekend I'll post some more, and comment on everthing else.

 

A Naturalist on the high plains of the Caprock

I believe that I am defined by my earliest memories, and perhaps that is why they are still there though the flow of time has eroded everything else. My Father had a job when I was small, as superintendent of the cemetery in Hereford Texas, and this was when the graves were still dug by hand, but after awhile he went into business for himself working as a gardener in other people's yards. Since my he loved people this gave him an opportunity to make more friends and he brought things home he had collected: grass clippings to use as mulch, cuttings to start new plants, rocks to add to his collection, and things like that. Our backyard was a little Eden with wide collection of plants and a soil so soft you could run your hand through it. I was the second to the youngest out of seven children and my older brothers and sisters had a variety of pets, like a raccoon , a bobcat, and a large tortoise. Also at one time my parents thought it would be a good idea to try and raise guinea pigs, but that didn't work out too well and we had to drive all over all the way to Lubbock to try and give them away to pet stores. Both of my parents were avid gardeners and spending the winter reading the seed and plant catalogues over and over was a family tradition. I don't think my parents ever turned down a book or magazine salesman and when I was five they bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica . My mother says that she was afraid I would wear them out before they were paid for and that I would go around asking adults if they knew how far it is to the moon. I had a speech impediment and couldn't say things quite right and so that must have been interesting. I still remember the illustrations in the sections on cosmology and anatomy. I didn't actually do well in the first grade because I couldn't figure out why I should have any interest in the inane Dick, Jane, and Spot and the insipid red ball which was the only thing they could interact with, so I was kept back a year and had to read about them anyway if I ever wanted to escape from first grade. 

My dad had a job offer in Amarillo to live and work at the Will Rogers Rangers Riders Club and so we moved there. I learned to ride the horses and help take care of them. My dad missed all his old friends in Hereford, though, and on the weekends he would get in his old pickup and go back with one of the older boys to do jobs. It was on one of those trips that there was an accident with a train, and he could never work again, and for some years he also had to take some powerful 

After the accident my mother still had six kids living at home and she only had an eighth grade education and had never had a job outside of the home. For some time we didn't get anything from the government either. So we were really bad off and all the kids tended to go their own way and make their own friends. Some of the houses we moved out of were never lived in again because they were so bad. I was left alone a lot. Some of the places had various animals nearby and so I collected salamanders, frogs, turtles, snakes, and a few others, and different plants . We still had a lot of books . The bibles and books and magazines about it filled up one bookcase, and there were the encyclopedias, and all the back issues of "Organic Gardening", and all the back issues of "Popular Science" and the bound volumes of back issues, and all the books they bought through the book clubs; the garden book clubs, and the readers' digest condensed books, and all the back issues of readers' digest. We moved around a lot, so I didn't have friends, in fact I was often unpopular and got beaten up, I eventually got around to reading all the books, and some more than once. There was the book "Plant Propagation in Pictures" by Montague Free that I read when I was 10, along with the other gardening reference books like "10,000 Garden Questions Answered by 20 Experts" and I used to walk to a greenhouse when I had a little bit of money and buy a little plant. When I was going to start the sixth grade we moved from Amarillo, where we had been, back to Hereford, and it was at that time that the state of Texas was testing some experimental teaching methods at the elementary school level. There were four teachers in grade level F, and in the reading module I picked the section on science to try and read through. After you read each article you had to take and pass a test on it before you could read the next. I was in a race to try and read everything before the school year was over. At the end of the school year I took the reading level test and I scored at the grade level of 13.5, which was as high as the test would score for. I was reading at three times the average adult level of speed and scored in the top percentile in comprehension. As a teenager I had no friends at all and so the most entertaining thing I could do was go to the library. I had some different hobbies like aquarium culture, rock collecting, kite making, and photography and what ever I got into I read everything about it I could. I discovered that I could also borrow books from other libraries through the Inter-library loan system. I attended a university for a while, but the professors not only graded on a curve but taught on one as well. I had one who was really good and had an excellent textbook as well but otherwise it was a mediocre school and rather boring . I didn't get a degree. My car broke down, and then my parents divorced and I was homeless for a few years. So I am rather self-taught, and probably have some unusual ideas. I explored as many hobbies as I could until I got married, and one of those was music. I took some guitar lessons and taught myself some music theory. I wrote a lot of poetry and prose as a teenager and tried every different poetic form and symbol and figure of speech. I have been studying and practicing art for fourteen years now, having researched some aspects of it through the inter-library loan system, but I do not have the time to spend on it as I would like. 

A teacher once told me that I was born in the wrong century. I think that she was referring to the mid nineteenth century in the U.S. and the writings of some of the men of that time. I also think that there are some similarity between the way I think and that of Leonardo DaVinci. I don't see a separation between art and science. Everything is not only tied together, but aids in understanding the remainder.

 

 

Switchgears,

                     That's a nice decal of the Tiger. Since I adopted my screen name I've done a little research on it. There is a saying that goes like this: "Keep the tiger behind the bamboo."  I suppose that means that sometimes it is better for something to remain a mystery: even if you are very curious about it. Personally ,though, I think that  learning more about a thing helps to appreciate the beauty of it more.

 

hip boots,

             I'm sorry it took so long to get back with you about the question about abstract art. I knew one woman who liked doing that kind of art, but that's the only one I can think of. In her case she wasn't very good at representational art , but I'm sure it works just the opposite way with other artists. Some of them became very good at representational art and for some reason or another it did not have a lot of appeal for them and so they moved over to abstract.

             To me every art form is a means of communication . When you write a message in prose there are symbols which are used , the words and letters that they are composed of, that represent different forms of thoughts. Also every language has it's own grammar which arranges and places those words to make sense in that particular context. All communication is symbolic at some level. Now when a message is written in the form of a poem, then the symbolism is multiplied: you might say that it is squared or cubed. A poem uses more powerful communication tools, like metaphors, to communicate more effectively in a more encapsulated form. This is not meant to be a more precise form of communication, but just the opposite. The purpose of art is to both communicate the feelings and intentions of the artist, and to allow the participation , the interaction, of the viewer or audience. This multiplies the effect of the art by not only every person who sees or hears it, but also by each occasion on which they do so.

               I would like to note here that many people do not have a clear idea of what makes a poem different, and they may just think that it is something which rhymes, or that fits a particular form. 

                Some abstract art communicates something, but a lot of it doesn't communicate anything. Near where I live a Zoo raises some extra money by selling abstract paintings which were painted by Elephants. They can paint well, but as you can imagine they don't put any thought or planning into their art. The colors are nice but aren't put together with any significance. There is a lot of art like that. There are computer programs you can run that produces some beautiful combinations, and you can vary the effect by changing a mathematical formula, but the results don't communicate anything. On the other hand photos of space look rather abstract to me, but they communicate something at the same time. Every color is produced by the combination of certain elements and is the result of energy wavelengths of specific energy levels caused by specific actions and reactions of interstellar matter which operates under specific laws of Physics. All of this is also the product of a singular history. It all means something: in fact it all means a lot of things, but we might look at it and just say "How pretty!" It can be appreciated and understood on many levels. In a book I once read by Richard Feynman he made the statement that the group of scientists which were most likely to believe in the existence of God were Cosmologists. It wasn't the beauty of the universe, but rather the math of it, that made them come to this conclusion, and the math of probability. I am straying a ways from the subject now.

               I have seen some abstract art that I like, but to me personally, most of it is ugly and meaningless. It is mostly a matter of personal taste, though.

 

 

Switch,

             The drawing animation you provided was very interesting. I think that is the approach that is advocated in the art schools. I have the impression that an art major in a university is expected to memorize the names of all the bones and muscles and their relationship to each other. If this were a necessary approach ,though, then I would think that Doctors would be proficient at drawing people, but I don't think that they are any better at it as a group than any other group of people outside of artists. I use a mathematical approach myself, that uses the tools I have available like the modern and cheap calculator and digital camera and computer software and printer which can print on plain paper. I a different time and place I would have used a different approach. It is a great animation, though, and reminds me of Ezekiel's' valley of dry bones.

 

Switch,

            You asked if learning music helps me in visual art. Not that I know of. I think what does help is how much I read and how well I can communicate through writing. If I read and study then it gives me more to think about and work from mentally as a basis to re-combine in different ways. You put more in, then there is more to take out. Also writing helps to organize my thoughts, and since I view art as communication then I have more inspiration when I have more to say. This last thing is why I think that some artists who study it and become very good at even photo-realism will stop doing that and move to abstract art. If a person has nothing significant to them to say, then they might move to an art form that says nothing. This is just my personal opinion. I think that what kind of music I listen to affects the approach and style of my art.

Switchgears,

                     That's a very pretty tiger too. We are really photgenic aren't we?