HomoDommi Got a Printing Press

In June, HomoDommi and Boy-Child drove lickety-split from Boise, through exotic towns like "Toonpa" and "Elko", to a place near Death Valley -- about 700 miles -- to pick up a printing press that they had purchased.  HD is pretty dang chuffed, let me tell you.  This is what he wrote in his letter to me about it:

So it's not that complicated, but it is a big deal for me.  I bought a (used) Takach tabletop press via Craigslist.org last week.  The Takach is a fine-art press - used for etchings, intaglio, woodblock and photoengravure - the rolls-royce of presses, and something special.

And what makes it doubly-special is that I'm buying it from an artist I've been following for a few years - someone whose blog I go to periodically to see what she's up to (Laura Campbell).  So a great press from someone I respect (so hopefully a good vibe and karma come with the purchase).

Here it is, [HomoDommi continues] in the front living room.  Yes, the stand is that pink.  A beautifully crafted, artisan stand made by "Jerry the Queen of Questa, New Mexico" - I guess Jerry's rather unique (an older drag queen who pays the bills doing quality furniture in a small town next to Taos.)  I love the stand as much as I love the press.  I even like that it's pink.

... and the press is inspiring. I'm going to start making monoprints ... soon. (Cloudscapes and maps of Nevada, btw, are the intended subjects.)  I'm very pleased.

He also writes, about Death Valley and the state of Nevada:

Nevada is the weirdest state I've ever driven through.  Not in a good-way weird, but in a 'stare-in-disbelief' sort of weird.  Lots of signs for brothels, gambling everywhere, BIG shiny casinos next to hard-scrabble homes, tequila for sale in 7-11's, and poverty-blue towns with no lawns, no sidewalks and dilapidated roofs, yet huge shiny pick-ups parked in the middle of the front dirt-patch.  (BTW, we rented the biggest pick-up I've ever driven, and in Nevada it fit right in ... and I loved driving it. Sarah Palin can have the state of Nevada, but I want a truck like what I was driving someday.)

Nevada, salt-flats in the background [wrote HD about this photo]. On this 88-mile stretch of road, the Boy and I carefully counted 3 motorcycles, 2 trucks and 7 cars for on the entire drive.  And while we didn't count farm houses, I'd say 25 or so, all off in the distance, and of course no towns, shops, gas stations.  A deserted part of America.

You can't get more 'death-valleyish' than this.

Here are some links to photos printed with the Takach press (by Laura Campbell) that HomoDommi now owns.
South Pueblo Gravure 

Another Pueblo Gravure
Proof Print: San Francisco de Asis No. 6

Girl-Child's Window Art

Last summer, Girl-Child and I ran across a Crayola product -- "crayons" for coloring on windows (washable).  We purchased them, because the threshold for art supplies with Girl-Child is understandably low.

Girl-Child immediately set to work on the dining room windows.  We love these pieces, which were in place from mid-August until yesterday, when I finally washed the windows.  Which I regret, while simultaneously appreciating the treasure of the ethereal.

A melange of images, signed by the artist herself, representing the conflict and counterbalance between urban decay and natural wonders.

The feline residents, at the time. Note Fredness's fierce expression and Harry's fluffy whiteness. I hung a sheet behind the window to capture the line drawings -- otherwise, it had a similar background to the photo above.

Again, with a sheet background, a foray into the veldt.

My personal favorite portrait of the whole wall of images.

Beowulf

[From HomoDomi]

We’ve been talking about Beowulf this week....


...No, no, not that one, not the 300 attacks the Polar Express version. Rather, ours is a bardic rendition released to the art-house crowd in 2006. We are, I guess, among the art-house crowd.

On a bare stage in Helsingborg, Sweden, musician Benjamin Bagby plays an Anglo-Saxon harp and recites Beowulf -- in its original Old English. For 1-1/2 hours Bagby works through 1,062 of the 3,183 lines of epic poetry.

Surprisingly, even without computer graphics, 6-pack abs glistening above minuscule leather loin cloths, or Angelina Jolie, golden, naked and dangerous, the bardic Beowulf is pretty compelling. It is probably not unlike the experience of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, sitting around the fire, listening to their local story-teller relating the mythic story (although I have no doubt many of them would rather have just waited for the movie with Jolie).

We have been enjoying this Bardic approach and thought you might like to experience it. Here is a 5 minute clip about the death of King Scyld (the King of the Danes), with translations for those of us with rusty Old English. (It's cool to realize how little some of our words have changed over the centuries -- listen for "That was a good king!")



If you want another video clip (but with no subtitles), click here.

For more music by Benjamin Bagby, check out the choral group Sequentia on Amazon or arkivmusic (my preferred online source for early music). Bagby is the founder of Sequentia. They specialize in Medieval reconstructions of Icelandic Edda and Germanic stories. They rock.

And if you want to chant along, there are English and Old English transcriptions below.

Lines 1-21
Listen.
This has been told about the Danes’ kings
and their bravery in days gone by
when they ruled in glory!
King Scyld was known for stealing enemies’ mead benches -
and for terrifying their nobles.
He was first found as a helpless baby
yet he became a great leader
who prospered and was honored.
Everyone had to obey him and the surrounding tribes
paid him tribute in gold. That was a good king!
To him was born an heir,
whom God sent
to comfort the people
God had seen their aching need
during the long time their king lacked an heir.
The son Beow rose to fame. His name spread far and wide
over all the Northlands.
A young man must do brave deeds, give generous gifts
while in father’s bosom...

Lines 22-46
That way later in life dear friends
will stand by him at war.
A man wins honor through deeds
that bring praise, whatever his tribe.
Then at the fated hour Scyld the Courageous departed
into the protection of the lord.
His dear companions bore him down to the sea currents
just as he himself had ordered
while he still lived and his word was heard.
There in the harbor stood the icy and eager ring-prowed ship-
a princely vessel.
They laid down on the deck their loved ruler and ring giver
beside the mast.
With a treasure of weapons and battle shirts from faraway lands.
I have not heard of a ship more splendidly furnished
with a panoply of swords and shields.
On his breast lay treasures that would voyage with him
embraced by waves into the seas.
They provided him with no fewer offerings
than with what he was endowed when
he first arrived over the waves alone as a child...

Lines 47-52
They set a gold emblem high over his head.
They let the water take him, gave him to the sea.
Their hearts were aching mournful were their minds.
Men, as wise as they may,
cannot truthfully say who received
the vessel’s precious cargo.

The Middle English version

Lines 1-21
HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned
geong in geardum, þone God sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat,
þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile; him þæs Liffrea,
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf,
Beow wæs breme --- blæd wide sprang---
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.
Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean,
fromum feohgiftumon fæder bearme...

Lines 22-46
þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen
wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume,
leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal
in mægþa gehwære man geþeon.
Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile
felahror feran on Frean wære;
hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe,
swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd,
þendenwordum weold wine Scyldinga---
leof landfruma lange ahte.
Þær æt hyðe stod hringedstefna
isig ond utfus, æþelingesfær;
aledon þa leofne þeoden,
beaga bryttan on bearm scipes,
mærne be mæste.
Þær wæs madma fela
of feorwegum frætwa gelæded;
ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan
hildewæpnum ond heaðowædum,
billum ond byrnum;him on bearme læg
madma mænigo, þa him mid scoldon
on flodes æht feor gewitan.
Nalæs hi hine læssan lacum teodan,
þeodgestreonum, þon þa dydon,
þe hine æt frumsceafte forð onsendon
ænne ofer yðe umborwesende...

Lines 47-68
Þa gyt hie him asetton segen gyldenne
heah ofer heafod, leton holm beran,
geafon on garsecg; him wæs geomor sefa,
murnende mod. Men ne cunnon
secgan to soðe, selerædende,
hæleð under heofenum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng...

The under-a-dollar, under-a-minute Easel

HomoDomi has been deep cleaning his studio, in preparation to do some painting (the walls of the dining room are merely one project). We'll have a blog entry about the studio when it's done (or rather, when HomoDomi tells me it is done -- it looks done to me already). However, today I'll show you his latest project, an artist's easel, built for less than a dollar (all the wood was leftover bits from other projects). It is custom-fitted for the studio.





I am supposed to point out the nice details, for instance, the adjustable cross beam that securely holds the canvas in place.







Also, note the built-in ledge for pastels and pencils, with pegs for paintbrushes, and wipes, and holes for water bowls. (And here I thought that was a coffee cup holder.)









The easel swings up to hang flat from the crossbeams across the ceiling, so we can watch movies on the screen behind it (the projector is also attached to a ceiling crossbeam). Here is my first attempt to blog a video -- you should be able to see HomoDomi (with Celtic music in the background) swinging the easel down into place in less than a minute.

[As a side note, it took me half a day to edit and create this little movie (which was only 1:10 minutes to begin with, but off the camera was over 100 MB -- and now is compressed to about 4 MB). You can see both the good and the bad of my new camera in the movie -- 7.1 megabits makes for a sharp long distance movie at the start, but there's bad striations on the horizontals when I zoom in. I'm still learning the new camera.]

The Egg Definitely Came First

(Another entry by our own homo domi.)

Last month, Kate sent me an intriguing article, Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg (Part One), by Errol Morris (New York Times, 25 September, 2007). (Morris is the documentary maker, director of The Thin Blue Line and Gates of Heaven.) I want to reply here on the household bandwidth.

Kate wrote, about the article:

... Here is a blog about a photographic mystery... Susan Sontag accused the photographer, Roger Fenton, of manipulating the image that he took during the Crimean war in 1855. The author of the blog doesn't think he did.

The question is, can you look at the two pictures and identify which was taken first--the one with the cannonballs on the road OR the one without the cannonballs. A second question is what direction was the camera facing? The comments are using the shadows on the cannonballs.

I think you might be able to do the spatial rotation, if the light is coming from the west (the photos were taken between 3-5PM in April) the camera is facing north?

...
The essay is a good read. [A fascinating and recommended read, Amy interjects, but very long.]

I think it would be discernible with access to the original negatives or a high quality copy of the original. Unfortunately I was unable to find a high-quality gif to download. I did find two adequate copies (in the 200k range) and worked with that.

So, two photos, taken by the same photographer, same view, same general time in a desolate spot in a miserable war. Photograph A is labeled "Off" because the cannonballs are off the road. B is labeled "On" because there are cannonballs on the road.

Which was photographed first? Were the cannonballs moved onto the road to increase the sense of danger in the photograph, or were the cannonballs disturbed and moved off the road by military scavengers "recycling" the enemy's ammunition to lob it right back at 'em?
(And does it matter? That's at the heart of the Morris and Sontag dispute, and I'm solidly on Morris' side, which is that it doesn't.)

Sontag says A then B. Morris says B then A. And I think that while Sontag is correct in the order, she is wrong about about the emphasis or conclusion. (For an overview, read the NYT article.)

You can free-view the above image (and I've tinkered with the axis to allow parallax viewing). Look at A and B above, then cross your eyes, relax the focus and make a 3rd image between these two images. You'll see glowing parts with a slightly different color/texture where there are places of difference. You'll find four rocks in the lower left side that have been moved (along with a dozen or two cannonballs across the entire photo.) And while Sontag and Morris talk cannonballs, I think it's the four rocks that show the order of photos.Rocks roll downhill. Four rocks in A are found higher than their location in image B. For that reason, A was taken first. I can think of no logical reason the photographer or a military scavenger would be moving rocks up a hill. But cannonballs down ~ yes.

Note above the rocks-to-be-moved in image A, a small yellow shadowy circle (at 10 o'clock). There, several cannonballs lurk behind a boulder -- these cannon balls are missing in image B, just as five new cannonballs appear downhill in the larger yellow circle at 4 o'clock.

So I think A was photographed first. Then the photographer (or a military scavenger) walked the hillside and rolled the cannon balls down the incline (think bowling with cannon shot) -- any stones which were in the way were knocked further down the hill in the process. After assorted cannonballs had been rolled down the hill and placed on the roadside or road, Photo B was taken.

The NYT essay is good - made me want to do a bronx cheer at Sontag (something that surprised me). But much as I agreed with Morris on meaning and interpretation of the photo, I think A then B.

Kate, thank you for the link!

All about Eilif

(A blog entry from the man of the dommus)

An interesting quirk came up during further readings into Nordic Art. Eilif Peterssen did his amazing Summer Night painting in 1886. (Those of us who attended A Mirror of Nature: Nordic Landscape Painting 1840-1910 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) will remember this piece.) It is good. It is phenomenal. It is deemed by Art Historians (who know such things) to be the standout work of the Evocative Period of Nordic Art. It's on the cover of the exhibit catalogue, on the Oslo Museum's home-page, and it is well-regarded on the web. An amazing landscape...

Eilif Petersen, Summer Night, 1886
(click here to read the online entry about it at the exhibit)

...yet this masterpiece was not enough for painter Eilif Peterssen. Imagine him smoking a gitane, beret askew as he leans over the half-empty glass at the bar, contemplating, What next?... What next?...What could I possibly paint next? -- Another absinthe, barkeep!" For how does a creative individual surpass a personal best?

The creative individual, in this case, returned to the scene. This is what he painted next, Nocturne.

Eilif Peterssen, Nocturne, 1887
(I couldn't find a color image)

What a ... tone-deaf... image. Put it over a bar somewhere and raise a glass to the maiden every time you say, "Bottoms up!"

Why did Eilif do this?

Torsten Gunnarsson (cited in the book you bought this summer, Kate) thinks it's because Eilif read his own reviews, specifically, a positive review the critic Andreas Aubert wrote for the 1886 autumn exhibition of Summer Night. Aubert said that the strong realism in Summer Night made the spectator feel he could "go in and rest his arm on the tree-trunk, lean his head against his hand and stare down into the depth, lost in the wakening dream of the night."

So Eilif read that, and that's exactly what Eilif painted, 'cepting his model forgot to put any clothes on.

And I find all of this compelling because Summer Night works - it is sublime - the viewer feels the immediacy of the moment - filling in the given nouns with adjectives (cold water, wet grass, moist odors) from personal experience. And I agree with Aubert ~ I want to "rest on the tree-trunk, lean [my] head against [my] hand and stare down into the depth."

But where Peterssen has painted exactly that, we get a dud. While Nocturne is sumptuous, it is also over-the-top Victoriana, an image that totally misses the point from the 21st c. perspective (cf. "Bottoms up!") The viewer has been pushed aside by the nymph - so she gets the view and we get the backside. The plane of the painting is in the immediate foreground - one doesn't see past the foreground, past the nymph, essentially neutralizing the backdrop. So here we're experiencing someone else looking at a landscape, not the landscape itself. What matters is what she sees in the landscape, not what we find there. How very ... very... Victorian.

Or not.

Amy says I should call this an eSsay, as it's more than a casual comment (and online). Maybe, but I don't mean to be lecturing anyone. I am struck by the difference between the two paintings, and why they evoke such different responses (evocation in one, laughter in the other) and I thought you might be too.

-- Andrew


PS. The repositioning of the moon is an interesting visual necessity. He couldn't leave it next to the young woman's bottom - so where to put it? The final location seems off, but I can see no other place to put it.

PS2. I wonder if Eilif suffered the painterly equivalent of Writers Block. Don't know what to paint? Let someone else tell you what to daub and throw in a naked woman for variety.

PS3. Go in and rest his arm on the tree-trunk, lean his head against his hand and stare down into the depth, lost in the wakening dream of the night: "Gå in och vila hans arm på det träd - trädstam , mager hans huvud emot hans hand och stirra ned i djupen , förlorad inne den wakening dröm om natt."

Vacation Adventures 2: Artsy-Fartsy at the Island

You might think that the tin Bird on the Tree should be included here, rather than in yesterday's entry, but this is about getting artsy with the Island, not doing artsy things to the Island. Today is all photographs.

I've been trying the capture the perfect sunset. I haven't achieved it yet, but this photograph is pretty nice.

















An artsy shot of the rocks at the Point.



















William lost deep in thought.















Less artsy, more amazement. The lake was entirely smooth the first morning we were there (and some other mornings). According to the Mille Lacs Messenger, the lake water is as clear as it was in 1885 when it was first tested. To us, it looked full of duck weed, but that doesn't show in this photo.







Andrew and Molly left some "Easter Eggs" (to borrow from computer gaming terminology) on the Point -- painted rocks dropped in among the others.









Photographing a lovely full moon with a point-and-click digital camera is surprisingly difficult. I'm getting better, but I'm not satisfied.











Molly took this. Pretty artsy, yeah?













[grammatical correction made 9/5/2007 at 9:55 a.m.]