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Are we ever really finished uploading the celestial orb? Can life become so ornately disorganized that we forget to download our distress and trust in the almighty — the leftover Thanksgiving, fight for it, wake up in the middle of the night and find it, warm it for one minute in the microwave, get me some vanilla Breyer’s ice cream, forget the fork – I’ll use my fingers, the one and only, most important of all
last piece of
PIE?
We had pecan pie. We had Tar Heel pie. We had cinnamon scones for breakfast. We had sweet ‘taters with pecan crunchy topping. We had a spiral cut ham from Fresh Market. We brined a turkey a la Alton Brown recipe. Smashed potatoes with an entire stick of butter and some whipping cream mixed into it. Ubiquitous green bean casserole. Cranberry relish. Scratch yeast rolls. Cornbread – the sour cream kind. Bourbon sugar glaze pecans for nibbling…
It is my favorite day. An American holiday centered around food. Eating. Just a day of eating. And most of the family except the Mathematical One Who Must Remain Afar. She will return to the fold soon enough.
So, for the day, at least, Assemblage means the chemical properties of flour when mixed with egg, of salt and poultry… and family. Some of it.
Fluxus Mass Installation. Fluxus Energy ensures its completion.
So is the mass a prayerful object of “happening” historical OR is it a volume, a spatial, reference? And what of this New New Fluxus? It is sublime. It is critical to the on-going idea that is Fluxus. Yes, it may be dead but Fluxus doesn’t die anymore than Van Gogh is dead because if you leave your energy behind when you move to the next level, aren’t you still here? Fluxus Energy continues to flow even if the blood in our veins is stilled and powder.
The argument is not one. Not at all. It is a discussion which continues to flow. The Fluxus Energy Flows. It is happening now. But it ceased to be? How can this conundrum exist? Simple. Truly Simple. Nothing dies, everything lives. And yet, all is dead. It is the:
Fluxus Paradox.
There I have named it. NuvoFluxus seeks to instill the legitimacy of the Fluxus Paradox into the equation. I found a marvelous article about Cecil Touchon and the on-going availability of Fluxus Exhibitions – here’s the link Fluxus in Texas.
Touchon argues that this is the way collectors and curators think, not artists. Collectors want movements to be limited to a period, a place, a canon of select works. This increases the value of their own collections. Ironically, Touchon himself is clearly a manic collector. But for him, while Flux artists may play with boxes, Fluxus itself can’t be contained in one. The impulses behind Dada and Fluxus, he believes, resurface during certain periods (World War I, the Cold War, the Bush years). Besides, he notes, over the years, Fluxus works have often been produced by artists in their spare time (making an actual living at it would be directly counter to Maciunas’ ideas. Not surprisingly, he died impoverished). For them, Fluxart is a low-cost sideline, as it were, a way to stretch the aesthetic muscles, an intellectual game that doesn’t have to pay the bills.
It's SODA. The Fluxus Paradox contains us all.
Oh Fluxus, how do I love thee? I am starting to understand the discussion and the sides of it each takes.
Let me count the ways.
I love thee like a summer’s day.
I, like Goya, intend to contain myself in a legacy “Magnificent etchings, some of the most beautiful probing portraits ever painted, and sublime and fantastic creations in which he mercilessly exposed man’s vanities, stupidities, and brutalities as few artists have ever dared to do.”
Scathing and uncompromising?
Nah. Just NuvoFluxus – the Fluxus Paradox.
~Brush your teeth with Ipana Plus … well, you’ll just never go back to any kind of tooth-paste tube again~
Vintage MatchBooks size C8 — ISO paper size.
Do you ISO or do I?
Found out something truly fascinating today when I perused a knowledge lidbit (which is slightly more than a tidbit) concerning what the dimensions of a piece A4 paper is. Come to find out, standard paper sizes are based on a single aspect ratio of the square root of 2 or [√2 = 1:1.4142] The way to figure out dimensions is to fold an A4 size piece of paper in half, do it again, again, again… ad infinitum. Wikipedia puts the explanation of paper sizing standards thusly: “The main advantage of this system is its scaling: if a sheet with an aspect ratio of √2 is divided into two equal halves parallel to its shortest sides, then the halves will again have an aspect ratio of √2.”
ISO paper sizes. A is most common, B follows, and C brings up the pulp rear. Oh, I do love me some square roots. They’s hard to find, though, most of the ginger we dug up was roundish. Reminds me of Granny Legless who used to tell us “cornbread are square. Pie are round.”
Squaring is so fluxus. Rounding out? Not a chance.
According to Wikipedia, again, C is only used for envelopes. But I have found another size C function — matchbooks. The standard matchbook is 2.2″ x 3.25″, according to the Atlas Match LLC website. (Betcha’ thought them blue words was links, din’t ‘cha?)
Want to figure out the dimensions of your B or C ISO paper?
Read this and weep:
The C series is used only for envelopes and is defined in ISO 269. The area of C series sheets is the geometric mean of the areas of the A and B series sheets of the same number; for instance, the area of a C4 sheet is the geometric mean of the areas of an A4 sheet and a B4 sheet. This means that C4 is slightly larger than A4, and B4 slightly larger than C4. The practical usage of this is that a letter written on A4 paper fits inside a C4 envelope, and a C4 envelope fits inside a B4 envelope.
We’re seriously considering printing Dead Mule School of Southern Literature matchbooks. Then, in 2035, the matchbooks will be vintage and we
That lobotomy sure worked swell, Bob.
can sell them and make a gabillion-trillion dollars US. Now I wonder if the Dead Mule could be the ISO standard for literary excellence?
The latest collage with vintage matchbooks required the removal of the dead/flattened matches themselves. It can’t be good to leave flammables in my art, although that is a rather interesting concept – a visual feast for the ears. Listen to what I see, you won’t believe your eyes. One of my altered books required small wooden dowels (are sticks still dowels if they’re square? Is there an ISO for sticks?) so I cut the ends off wooden matchsticks, glued them together in a row (think South Pacific island raft) and then created the desired effect with paint and chicken gizzards. It seems nothing else can achieve the effect you get from a dozen chicken gizzards. A rare artistical moment, truly inspiring.
I took some ART lessons from Juanita down to the gas station. She was well-versed in chicken collages, made assemblages, 3-D as well as two dimensional pieces that sold for nigh over $2,500.00 a pop. But the sad thing is, the classes ended before we’d been taught as to how to attach a gizzard in a functional manner so’s I had to come up with my own recipe for a good, stiff chicken glue. Tried ox blood with Elmers, PVA combined with apple cider vinegar and toothpicks … after 17 years of experimentation, it turned out Armour Star Lard worked best of anything. And there began a whole new set of problems on account of Daddy Legless has these seven beagles what have a penchant for lard-related art and they ate my assemblages.
Nowadays, I tend to use only vintage matchbooks when filing my nails or tending the herds.
Strike it rich.
Strike a match.
Strike out on your own.
Mail Art Dispersal and Mogate Is Not a Word.
Mail Art Reality
This month’s mail art leaves Washington by Tuesday the 17th. I’d hoped for an earlier date but Doctor Doosurgery needs to see my metatarsal improvement and stability on Monday.
The 5.5″ by 3.5″ cards have a 1950s look about them — a retro-theme of June Meat Cleaver and strands of pearls and Spam served up in myriad ways. Chopped meat, a WWII delicacy for the troops, became home prep heaven in the post-war era. But my mom never ever touched the stuff… it did not reoccur in our pantry. Not even when we went camping. No good comes from putting meat in a can.
On the Verbal Home Front:
Much to my dismay, mogate is a non-word. This is most distressing as MOGATE has always meant to amble slowly in a forward direction. To stroll confidently yet in a relaxed position, upright strolling without shuffling and often without purpose. But it isn’t a word. How can that be? It’s been part of my vocabulary for five decades.
This right foot’s gotta’ be spiffy good before the left can be corrected. Can you say “Arthroplasty?” But — might put off restoring feet for new improved use of a hand – in this case. I’m so beyond not using my right thumb, it’s a real pain, literally, to have no thumb use. How can one thumb one’s nose at the populace when denied that personal digit? Damn this osteo, I say, damn you. Can I whine about osteoarthritis and connective tissue disease for a few minutes? No? Okay, read on…
You might know your alphabet but I know my way around a grocery store.
Back to Mail Art:
I need your snail addresses by Monday if you’re to be included in this round of mailing. You can send me an email at macewan at assemblagist dot com (not org) with your addy or you can send me a Facebook message. If you’re not my Facebook friend, ask to be. Odds are, you might be included. NuvoFluxus designs begin to take shape and multiply – hence must be shared with the populace.
Local Yocality:
Meanwhile, let it be here noted that:
Local artisans and officiants disdain NuvoFluxus creations and, $#%$(*, seem to have created a DownTown Art Walk without seeking my approval or presence. Perhaps I shall set up a booth, a novelty moment with folding table and display my ever-increasing skill at either rock-paper-scissors OR do a shell game and those who correctly find the peanut will receive a free piece of nuvofluxus for their personal enjoyment. Open house of all ALL galleries? I think not, but it’s a start. Enough… those who seek to embrace NuvoFluxus shall feel the warmth of inclusion. $19.95 brings joy.
That’s right. Today I am offering a $19.95 All The Art You Can Eat special. Right here in Downtown Washington On the Waterfront. For one simple cash payment, you may come by my studio and chew up all the ephemera you can fit in your mouth. The only limit is time. You will have 19 seconds to stuff your mouth with such amazing ephemera as:
1920’s Literary Digest
1950-1960 Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic
Books such as The Little Lame Prince, Shooby Doo, The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash and more.
Time to wash up and get ready to visit MaMaw and Papaw. They’re having fried squitlins for lunch down at the Senior Center and we don’t want to miss that, now do we? Today’s major decision was: Clean House for Mother-in-Law’s visit OR Take Roxanne to Dog Park For First Time in Three Days. Option #2 won that. I only have but so many spoons in one day.
My Fluxus Conundrum – Digital or Real?
The Flux Cloud speaks and formats; it knows and sees.
Here I am
poised,
waiting
for the media
to mediate
the form of my
inspiration.
Digital or Real? Online or in person? Cardboard or computer?
But for now, it’s just a Flux Cloud,
keeping me in tune with the magic Emmett gets in his head
when he’s asleep…
after the sun goes to Raleigh.
And when Ollie smiles in his dreams.