The Broken Ones

Last night we participated in the first ever Failure-Lab.  It was really amazing to experience people take turns sharing in public some of the most heart rending catastrophes of their life, without any happily ever after wrap up - or lessons learned. We shared our failure and walked off the stage with the the fragments laying there for the audience to figure out what to do with in the minute of silence before the next artist took the stage.

I shared about our family's move out to New York City in 2005 and how that all unraveled on us so quickly. It was a good thing for me to have to sink back down into that section of my life story - and take a look at what really happened, and try to see what I had learned in the process.  I have to say that some of our failure came out of a combination of a lack of thorough planning and a lack of on-going community support.  We have come a long way over the past seven years to develop in those areas and for that I am thankful.

The problem with winning is you don't learn a thing. It's the broken ones that give us everything.

Children Sprinkled In

Drawing by Rick Beerhorst (left) drawing by Grace Beerhorst (right)

I stumbled across this picture above as a favorite among my daughter Rose's Flickr favorites.  It reminds me of how magical and righteous it is to have children regularly sprinkled into your day.  It really is a good thing and I need to remind my self because they are fun and creative and sparkly and cute but they also wreck your favorite shit on a pretty regular basis which is just part of the whole frikken ball of wax.

Since we brought home a used upright piano via Criags List a couple of weeks ago, Rain (age 9 yrs) and I are trying to learn how to play.  A very crude version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy can be heard several times a day at completely random times coming from the foyer of our home which has recently been designated the Music Room. I am working up my own primitive version of Professor Longhairs's Mardi Gras. Some portion of us must remain a child forever and having children around are a great reminder of this simple truth. 

Some Times We Need Help To Get To That Next Level

This painting collage is availble here.

I began using ladders in my drawings and collages in full force last summer when we created our ArtPrize installation for MadCap Coffee Co. called Perspective Lifters.  I made up several wooden ladders of differing sizes out of scrap wood.  I also carried the image into woodblock prints and drawings. I would like to keep playing with this image and see where it takes me.

So what does it mean??? Well art will invariably mean different things to different people.  For me the image of the ladder speaks to our desire for transcendence.  It is connected to our deep need to be in touch with the unseen world. The ladder also may refer to our ability to go beyond what we can ordinarily do, with the help of some person, tool or special curcumstance.  finding a teacher to take piano lessons with may be your ladder to reach a whole new area of your personality.

Between The Inner And Outer Worlds

Listen to the Sea, woodblock print by Rick Beerhorst available here

We have a few different conch shells that drift around between the house and the Carriage House Studio.  I no longer remember where they came from.  It seems that they just arrived at some point and stayed.  I love them for how solid they feel when you pick them up.  I like the reference to the sea, mermaids, the natural world and what could be thought of as sort of portable home.  The conch shell internal structure is  of course the spiral and this is also carries important meaning as described below;

In terms of spirituality, the spiral symbol can represent the path leading from outer consciousness (materialism, external awareness, ego, outward perception) to the inner soul (enlightenment, unseen essence, nirvana, cosmic awareness). Movements between the inner (intuitive, intangible) world and the outer (matter, manifested) world are mapped by the spiraling of archetypal rings; marking the evolution of humankind on both an individual and collective scale.

Moreover, in terms of rebirth or growth, the spiral symbol can represent the consciousness of nature beginning from the core or center and thus expanding outwardly. This is the way of all things, as recognized by most mystics.

I have used the conch shell in several paintings and prints. This idea of passing from the outer world into the inner world is very compelling.  I think that both making art and living with art is a way for us as people to become more adapt at making the journey from the surface down into the depths of meaning and our own consciousness.

Behind The Veil

photo by MARIE HOCHHAUS

Photo Rick Beerhorst

The Master Of Saint Veronica

Behind The Veil

First sip of a cold beer

What I saw in the corner of my eye

A whiff of dinner through the kitchen window

A fragment of a heated conversation

Bumped from behind at a party

Something in my shoe

A cup with a broken off handle

Dust on the painting

The sound of the brush going through her hair

The first stars to come out

Lilly of the valley in a tea cup

The freckles over the bridge of his nose

Smell of a horse saddle

Red lipstick

A robin searching for worms after the rain

Pill bugs under a rock

The view through her veil