Thursday, December 11, 2008

Snow in Baytown






This is fast becoming a photo-blog, which is perfectly fine. Check out these photos from the recent "blizzard" in baytown.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

more recent photos




no talk, just more pictures. happy viewing.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

thanksgiving 2008








today started early as i woke at 3:30 to take some photos. i grabbed my son, james (who'd expressed interest in accompanying me), and off we went. i'm thankful for all that i have and all that i don't (thank you, God). my family and i are in a new house (home) and i'm still moving, sorting, and culling art stuff from the old house. i'll no longer have a free-standing "quartito" (literally, "little quarters/house) for painting and music, but with a three-car garage, i'll have enough space to create something.

the idea of creating something brings me to the realization that i am, perhaps, more lazy than creative, but i do have the urge to take, edit, and print digital photos, so that's a good sign. painting is another matter (as in art matters, correct?). i like the immediacy of the digital image as i take the shots and i'm of the belief that one needn't concentrate so much on the technical aspects of the medium; rather the means take care of themselves. my urge is to respond to the local stimuli provided by artificial light and resultant shadows and color in a town that seems to be on life-support. i shared some recent images with a friend who remarked that they reminded him of poverty. it made me stop (for a second) and wonder about that.

anyway, my in-laws are to arrive shortly, so i'd best get to posting images. this blog is supposed to be about art isn't it?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

angels

hi everybody (both of you),

have been thinking lately about how i've never really done anything completely on my own. all along the way - for whatever route i've taken - there has been someone there to challenge, to help, to mentor, and guide, to judge, cajole, inspire, etc. this is a tribute to those who have somehow helped me in my journey/pilgrimage.

to Steve Olafson - meeting you in pre-K (at the optimist club bldg on market street), i really admired your gray hush puppy shoes - and i even remember telling you AND your rather unceremonious response. you have been a continuous source of inspiration through the years. you were the first mysterious person i ever met in the flesh - deeper than any other kid i knew. you were wry and dry and had a mischievous side. you were a stellar athlete and student and i always regarded you with fascination and wonder and questioning awe. I am so glad that we are still friends and i can see you occasionally. thanks for sharing your humor and wit with all of us via your blog "the brazosport news." as you are the first documented blog martyr, it is an honor to dedicate this paragraph to you.

To Donald Smith - 2nd grade is where we first met. i really liked to hear you laugh so i would take every opportunity to make that happen. what you really did for me though was give me a benchmark for artistic excellence and achievement. As an eight year old you drew as an adult would. i remember the exact picture that you drew that convinced me that i needed to really work a lot harder. it was copied from our reader - a boy in a white sailor hat was startled to see a raccoon climbing into his bedroom window. it was startlingly real - a flesh and blood boy with a real-looking mouth, eyes, nose, hands, arms, etc. that's what really amazed me as i was so used to depicting hands as round balls with sticks for fingers. the moment i saw your drawing i knew i wanted to be an artist and stop messing around with childish renderings. thank you Donald, wherever you are now.

to Bo Denson - you taught me how to throw a football in the third grade. you matured into a fine athlete but i clung to what i knew. thank you, Bo.

To John, Paul, George, and RIngo - my life would never be the same, thanks to you mop-tops.

To Ann Herbert - you were the one who convinced me to even regard the beatles. You were a most rabid fan. Remember the ticket to "a hard day's night?" it was specially printed in yellow and was very large. you brought it to school as it was an advance ticket. i couldn't go because my mom wouldn't let me spend a dollar on a movie (regular films were 35 cents). i had to wait until that summer before i could see AHDN. thank you too, ann, for being a model artist as well - your specialty was horses.

there were the teachers at James Bowie Elementary that i found inspirational and friendly:

Miss Hunt -supreme 1st grade teacher. i actually met you as a kindergartner. My sister had you as a teacher and i fell in love with you - your southern lady manners and poise and wonderful perfume. Loved being around you. Still have a picture of you and me - taken when i was visiting your classroom in the spring of 1960.

Mrs Miller - you dated my dad in high school but didn't hold a grudge. Thanks for being a great 3rd grade teacher

Mrs. Painter - a great place to call home was your classroom. what a fourth grade class we had - with steve O. ann herbert, andy wismar, jack hunt, jenny carroll (first girlfriend and first girl i kissed - in second grade), sandy wilson, steve yeager, richard mcgilvary, joe woods, to name a few. i remember late in '64 - toward the end of the school-year - you announced that you had "a winner!!" You kept a number of books and pamphlets on the north-side countertop. You had written on a file, "read me" and inside you had placed some money - $5? $10? Can't remember, but i do know that Ann Herbert won that money. I've been tempted to have that same sort of contest for two of my non-reading children, but it's a bit late, isn't it?

Mr Coltharp - football playing Baylor grad, you were my first male teacher and you raised the bar. i really enjoyed my time with you. Was glad that you opened a book store on texas avenue - i believe with Mrs. Waddell. You eventually went to work for the state of texas dept of education - or some such agency.

Mr. Boatman - was only with you for half a year, but it was awesome. You were so smooth-talking and great with us. You left at mid-year to become a principal and your student teacher, Robert Foster, was given the reigns. The baton was passed. I remember a teary-eyed saturday when i helped you pack up your stuff and load your car. thanks for letting me help a legendary educator.

Mr. Foster - you were awesome in your first teaching position. We enjoyed your class immensely. Ran into you years later when i was working at the culpepper furniture warehouse. you had quit teaching to work for Humble (exxon). i was sad to hear you say that. i remember during lunch one time (i always sat with you), i was imitating one of the other teachers on campus. you stood up, took me by the arm and were escorting me to her classroom so that she could see it for herself - i was terrified, but on we walked, with me trying to talk you out of it the whole way. Thank God you were bluffing as we headed back to the cafeteria!!

There have been angels of interference out there - in the eighth grade when i was continually bullied by colby tipton and ricky forse, i would occasionally have a stronger angel (or two) emerge from the shadows to send them on their way. thank you Jay anderson for seeming to always be there when i needed. You were the only guy i knew who kept paperback books in his pocket. you were always, always reading. i wonder where you are now and if you still like to read as much. i hope so. Rest-in-Peace, Colby. Was sad to hear that you passed away a few months ago. Had just visited with you last year when i went to the funeral home at the passing of your mother.

Ms Wheatly - you were a great teacher for me to meet in the eighth grade- you single-handedly salvaged my most horrible year in school. Your speech class gave me a reason for being and i relished every assignment and every deliverance. if only i could've pulled off the speech for the city-wide competition in the spring of '68. you encouraged me to deliver, "the conservation of roaches" as a serious, persuasive speech. what you heard had been impromptu and i never really wrote any of it down. the day of the competition, i still couldn't re-enact the spontaneity or maintain the cadence of the original and the judge - a rather grim black man who saw absolutely no humor - ensured that i came in last. oh well. maybe that was your intent all along.

Stay tuned for more sentimental ramblings in my next post. all the best to you all.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Artist in Resonance

Artist in-Resonance

These bounteous gifts divest themselves
And in the breaking of promises
(not the braking for unicorns)
The life of the mind
Is re-awakened at the prospect
Of deceit.

To fool the eye
Is not simply word-play
for the fool.
The intention,
my lovely,
Is to instruct,
by falsity,
the strokes
that define
the underworld
of understanding.

-jim hill (9-10-02)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

what happened to yesterday?

Greetings - if this post seems a bit disjointed, scattered, and unfocused it's only because my ADHD is rearing its ugly - and very quick-moving - head. I remember seeing a TV movie back in the seventies called, "A Small Circle of Friends" (featuring David Odgen Stiers and, I think, Jane Alexander). It featured a boy that everyone thought could not speak, only utter indecipherable sounds. Turns out that the sounds were actually words, but amped up to twice their natural speed. It could be that my thoughts are like this and i could actually be some sort of phenomenon! and, on TV yesterday, i caught a bit of a program featuring a music savant who is completely distracted and affected by natural, common sounds. He, however, can make absolute sense of classical music, to the  point of being able to play classical pieces on the piano. i don't believe he can speak - with words - but can codify the world through music. Fascinating. All this to tell you that i can't really focus this morning on something as simple as reading a newspaper article. Perhaps my "savant-ness" is manifested as a rower in the stream of consciousness. Good luck to all of you are reading this and have no way to return to the bank/shore. perhaps next time you'll remember to bring your tube, ice chests, and coozies - and just relax on the current.

Cut to Friday. friday night found me posting three images, but with no way (that i knew) to write text near them. so now there are three rather fuzzy looking paintings sitting there with no titles, descriptions, completion dates, etc. Just know that the paintings are fairly recent additions to my very limited ouevre. I'm not sure i could give the exact dates of completion but with time (and a measuring tape) i could get you the dimensions (if interested, please post your request).

Yesterday was the 1st meeting day of the Kairos #42 (Darrington Unit) team. I was leaving it up to God as to whether i should attend. I reluctantly bowed from the #41 team - after having made all the meetings - to focus on son, Phil's, 18th birthday weekend back in April. I felt guilty, to be sure, but with the wise counsel of pastor mac from cypress united methodist church, i was able to "minister to the family" first. He told me of all the times that he missed his family's activities because he was working 16-17 hrs a day ministering to the needs of others. Family should come first he said. Perhaps that is why i've not felt compelled to join the #42 team. With Arlene beginning school this fall and with her painful condition, i feel i need to spend my weekends with her. 

you know what i just realized? this blog has gotten far from its intent - i've not really focused on art matters today, have i? Let's get back on track, shall we? besides, if any random strangers visit the blog at this point they may be a bit bewildered by the "kairos" talk. Can't blame them - at times it feels a bit cultish - but is far from it. Anyway, back to art...

Arlene and I have been visiting a house that is for sale. Unlike most houses, it has a garage with a very, very deep pocket in the rear that would, i believe, accommodate my painting/drawing activities. We started the ball rolling on the purchase of the house, contingent upon the sale of our current property. Wish us luck and align yourselves with His will.

My sister sent me a fascinating (electronic!!) article from the NY Times about Edward Hopper's summer house in Cape Cod. http://travel/nytimes.com/2008/08/10/travel/10cultured.html - it's a bit melancholy for me - reading the article and listening to the audio and then seeing the hopper images juxtaposed with the current appearances of some of his scenes. things change. let's embrace that constant.

i've pasted a poem from 2007. it may serve to clarify or cloud - depending on how insistent you are about the meanings derived from poetry.

UNTITLED

i think i've lost the graphic force
That used to plead with me
To take notice
And apply what i see
To what I know.

For some time I've been 
content to ride
the coattails 
of my own ragged coat,

Taking note that 
the old habits of
shadow and light
and their seemingly perfect marriage
have abandoned the lifeless pages
and retreated into the night

Where streetlights act
as omnipotent gods -
in a bad play -
The stagehands
off on extended cigarette breaks.


-jim hill (11-13-07)

Friday, August 8, 2008

Paintings added










Greetings from Baytown (formerly known as "Cartown" back in the big-shouldered, big-hair eighties). These posts exist because i have the freedom of information act as my inspiration and a wife who may not understand but is supportive anyway. I am - or perhaps used to be - an artist, stuck in an unenviable position -  between the bravery of creation and the cowardice of corporate anonymity.  The last painting finished was about two months ago; before that it had been about five years. I long for the times when i couldn't wait to take possession of things/beings by the sheer intimacy and attack of painting. Perhaps i've learned to respect things a bit more now and objectify less those things dear to me. Have i given up the idea that visual expression is important to me? Not at all. I've taken it upon myself to remediate by immersing myself in the act of drawing - to understand visually both the appearance and underlying structure of things. I've become less slavish to the dictum set forth by my aesthetic mentor, Edward Hopper, and taken a more playful, but no less serious, approach to drawing from real life. 

At my disposal are any number of things that are important - work-related minutae: from a business-phone, a calculator, stacks of paper, etc - (things on my desk) to the more home-related barrage of visual stimuli: stacks of books, scraps of paper, keys, cell-phones, photos, etc. As Hopper did, i've looked to things to establish my place in the world, made friendships/kinships with the inanimate and expressed the 3d as something flat but no less illusional (what is "real" anyway).

I hope, with this web-log, to make some sort of progress toward a sustaining, and perhaps lucrative, "career" in the arts. I welcome any and all comments (as long as they don't destroy my delicate sensitivity) that are constructive and meaningful. Thanks for your attention.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim