Month: October 2012

Thanksgiving Poem by Thomas Kellar

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THANKSGIVING

Kevin.
The man next door.
Insatiably punctual.
Wouldn’t dream of being late
Even to a root-canal.
Dresses like his tailor’s life
depended on it.
Drives a European sedan
that speaks to him,
“the door is ajar.”
Habitually watches the weather channel.

Today,
he burned through autumn daylight
passionately dandifying his house
with outside decorations
pulled from carefully labeled
cardboard boxes.
Mr. and Mrs. Claus,
sleigh, reindeer, stars, angels,
candy canes and ginger bread men,
a complete nativity scene,
(including livestock)
plastic wreaths,
rope lights,
icicle lights,
lights that pulse and fade.
In response to 9/11,
a luminescent American flag.

7 PM.
He stands outside
surrounded by neighbors,
yells to his wife,
“the orange extension cord.”
Instantly
like police helicopter
tracking criminal,
night is shredded,
pupils contract,
cockroaches run for cover.
“ooohhh-aaahhhh”
a yuletide fantasia
That would cause Martha Stewart envy,
no energy crisis here.

In my kitchen
a friend bakes pumpkin pie,
rinses the good China,
defrosts the turkey for tomorrow’s celebration.
I tell her to forget about it.
“Gratitude is a dying sentiment,
Thanksgiving is going the way of the Buffalo,
it’s a ghost town
between Halloween-berg and Christmas-ville,
the train doesn’t stop there anymore.”
She looks annoyed,
ignores my rant,
wants to know if I like
chestnuts in the stuffing.
***

Originally published at Artvilla.com on Nov 30, 2004 @ 8:46

Pac Man Abstract Painting

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Pac Man Abstract Painting

I don’t think of him as a painting. When he comes up he’s just “Pac Man”. He has his own identity. He actually was painted circa 1993 in oils. Sometimes you are just slinging paint. In order to paint there has to be no fear and it has to be worth nothing, an experiment, it doesn’t count, it’s just extra materials, this one doesn’t count, I’m just doing one for fun.

The key to my art is lots of materials. I wish I had Theo to support me completely and buy me all of those materials. Where is my Theo? Vince you never knew what you had or you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

Every now and then the songwriter catches those notes or those words out of thin air. The painter does too….sometimes the paint seems to fall on the canvas like it was falling from the sky. The creative process in of itself is almost mystical. The act of creating any thought is mystical. Pac Man didn’t come from the game, he came from what I thought were random motions of my hand.

With any art, music, writing you sometimes get Pac Man and wonder why you don’t nail it every time. I once did the Pollock thing and poured paint onto canvas. Two out of ten were really neat. I didn’t like those odds but I wonder why the “tried hard on these” percentages are somewhat the same. Did Van Gogh flip through them and think, “Starry Night. What was I thinking?”

Pac Man, “What was I thinking?”

 

Many discovered artists do their best work before the discovery. Real discovery is that painting you discarded last year but suddenly looks like someone else painted it.

From the collection of Ralph (Abe) White

 

david michael jackson   again…..send pretty rocks and shells and sticks

 

Billie Holiday l Michael Veik Drawing

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Billie Hilliday by Michael Veik drawing
Billie Hilliday by Michael Veik drawing

 

This drawing by Michael Veik is from the collection of Ralph (Abe) White. If you click on it it gets rather large and you can see the detail. I’ve looked for Michael’s work on the internet and haven’t found it. I hope he shows up because he is astounding!

Get Out There Poem

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rock and roll dude
rock and roll dude

Ah Sweere Jackson
You been running this dog and pony show
since 1996
now get back out there you asshole

I can’t go out there
them Facebook people’s out there
they can comment and stuff
they got that like button
they might not use it
leave me hangin’ out there all stuck and stuff
I’m sceered o them people
they might not like me

Get out there you asshole.
You got the whole damn world lookin’ at every damn page
and you’re all cornswaggled
befitched and barnstormed

They weren’t there before
there were them Google people
but they didn’t say nuthin’
They’s lots of them too
they been lookin’ at stuff
listening to stuff
fer mebbe 14 yars
on this here sight

Ah sweere whut are they gonna thaink now

david michael jackson

Actually it’s been 16 years. Recently I installed some software and discovered that Artvilla.com has 68,000 urls (pages). Needless to say others have put up pages, notably Janet Kuypers. For many years we were an html site. This year I turned a very old website into a blog and, recently added a Facebook Page. This has always been an anonymous thing done quietly to present poetry, art, music without profit or intent. There was a time when images were new on the internet, when everything was on a phone line. We were there. Jackson’s hanging on, trying to change and wondering suddenly if he’s good enough to publish 68,001.

Indian Ladies Painting by Gayatri Bhutada

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indian ladies painting by Gayatri Bhutada
indian ladies painting by Gayatri Bhutada

Indian Ladies Painting by Gayatri Bhutada

Gayatri_Bhutada
Gayatri_Bhutada

Gayatri attended the Sir JJ School of Art. She lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
The Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art (Sir J. J. School of Art), is the oldest art institution in Mumbai, and is affiliated with the University of Mumbai.

This painting glories in the reds and the golden colors. The painting is intriguing and the golden colors bring to mind The Kiss  by Gustav Klimt which makes the word golden golden. Gayatri’s art has a fluidity and a cultural base which is truly beautiful.

This art came in through the new Artvilla Facebook Page. We hope to publish more art  of Gayatri Bhutada. Here is a blogger shout out for the Sir JJ School of art and the artists they are producing.