The cause for documentary film may lie in seeing those and that which go unnoticed. Similiar causes for making art?
1. Associative orientation: Imaginative, playful, have a wealth of ideas, ability to be committed, sliding transitions between fact and fiction.
2. Need for originality: Resists rules and conventions. Have a rebellious attitude because of a need to do things no one else does.
3. Motivation: Have a need to perform, goal oriented, innovative attitude, stamina to tackle difficult issues.
4. Ambition: Have a need to be influential, attract attention and recognition.
5. Flexibility: Have the ability to see different aspects of issues and come up with optimal solutions.
6. Low emotional stability: Have a tendency to experience negative emotions, greater fluctuations in moods and emotional state, failing self-confidence.
7. Low sociability: Have a tendency not to be very considerate, are obstinate and find faults and flaws in ideas and people.
Norwegian researchers find the 7 characteristics of highly creative people. Pair with John Cleese on 5 factors to make your life more creative and Ira Glass on the secret of success in creative work.
Particularly interesting and counter-intuitive is #6 – but then again, we do know that emotional excess is essential to creativity.
(via explore-blog)
(Source: , via sfmoma)
Happy Birthday John Waters!
To the champion of everything greasy, wild, real, and dirty. Thank you Mr. Waters, for being a role model- artist, writer, weirdo, winning loser, and obsessed king of camp. Thanks for making movies, books, and art about people who exude a different kind of glamor and beauty. From sculptures depicting Charles Manson and a baby Michael Jackson, a slimy snake selfie, to a larger than life “RUSH” bottle dribbling on the floor, Waters puts his culture into “fine” art to insert once again, his subversion into our gallery’s mainstream.
If Chuck Close Could Paint a Lake (Tahoe)
-Photo Betty Nguyen
This is Vikingsholm, a hand carved resort resembling Scandanavian design at the bottom of Emerald Bay, Tahoe. It’s a long way away from Mike Kelley’s model of his home, but feels like a great place to interact as artists.
In Lucy Lippard’s “Lure of the Local”, I kept looking for information about who the first settlers were in Tahoe, how they made the land, and the miners lives who kept it from being a tourist spot.
There are different ways to defend your artwork. Some, like Marcel Duchamp just lets everyone else decide. Others, like Marina Abramovic, is testing the human experience. Both, are still being discussed.
Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974
“This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.
Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.”
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.”
(Source: andrewfishman, via ryandonato)
“Keep Sausalito Salty”
Sausalito, place for artist dwellings in houseboats and eccentric handmade craftsmanship.
On the way to or from Headlands Center for the Arts, take a ponder out in Sausalito to cast out your questions to the vast Bay.
And support your local Sausalitians, here,
The “Artist formerly known as PRINCE” is one of the best artist names I can think of. I was interviewed informally by Gianni Jetzer, the Director for the Swiss Institute in New York in 2006 and he asked me, “Betty, what do you think makes a good artist?” I replied, “You have to have a good name.” Done.
To my friend Les Blank
Folks knew him as an incredibly curious and forthright filmmaker. To others in the Bay Area, we considered him a friend, a lover of life with a great deadpan sense of humor, always up for new adventures and a formal dress late night dance party.
I got to know Les through our First Person Magazine “Radical Foods” issue in 2010. When I told him my direction for an “artists who work with food” issue, my film editor was like, “How ‘bout Les Blank?” and told me about his stylized and culturally slanted documentaries about food and the food industry. I realized during our studio visit, seeing Werner Herzog’s shoe floating in a block of epoxy, that I had named my “Burden of Dreams II”(2006) radio show after his film of the same name (well, “Burden of Dreams”). The radio show approached a hang out style with artists who brought their own instruments and DJ’ed from their personal collection while discussing topical conversations.
Les’s studio was filled with puppets, tee shirts from the 70’s, film tape boxes, and awards. I made my first public dinner for “Radical Foods” hosting over 115 people screening Les’s “Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers” where he was our guest of honor. We became friends and he visited me the night I volunteered at Chez Panisse to experience why this community of chefs are so happy. He took me hiking where he took Herzog out in Berkeley and I showed him my documentary of Vietnam. He said encouragingly, “Yeah, do it. Make this and more.”
I’ll never forget you Les. And will go back to Vietnam one day to finish my film. I can’t wait to see your documentary on the afterlife!
Photos:
Vietnamese artwork he gave me
His art car painted by his son
Les “eating his shoe” made of pig skin for the Edible Schoolyard benefit
Les drinking a tincture
Les’s living room where he was hanging persimmons to dry
A still life I made on his kitchen table, an homage to Les
Roger Ebert - Reviews Chris Burden (1975)
Known for reviewing Hollywood flicks, Ebert here, from his lifelong commitment to writing and critiquing, to my surprise, reports on the controversial artist’s seminal endurance performances. Amazing! Thank you for your relentless integrity and overarching interests.
