jonhall

“WANTED: MEN FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS,
CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.”

— Ernest Shackleton’s ad for arctic explorers

So my buddy Doah had a great post the other day, The Silence of the Poets. Doah is a bit of a poet himself, and regularly posts his own stuff. This time though, he posted a poem by Dana Gioia, who laments the disappearance of great poets and their poetry. I love the lines,

“Some claim the best stopped writing first.
For the others, no one noted when or why.
A few observers voiced their mild regret
about another picturesque, unprofitable craft
that progress had irrevocably doomed.”

The poem is as much about the lament of lost books of poetry—“Still kept somewhere, stacked in their dusty rows.”—as it is of the medium itself. Yet it made me wonder, is it really lost, or gone, or simply laying dormant, waiting for a vehicle to pick it up and take it to a culture hungry to be inspired?

As I was reading The Silence of the Poets, I realized that I feel the same about visual arts. In the poem, the poet writes,

“We still have music, art, and film,
diversions enough for a busy people.”

Music and film, yes. Those are our culture’s mediums of choice (or, at least, they are the ones most accessible). They are the “art” of our culture. Yet I wonder about the medium of visual arts. It, like poetry, has become irrelevant to our culture. Or maybe more accurately, it’s been inaccessible. The video iPod, Tivo, multimedia cell phones… we can have our music and film any time and anywhere we want. We can bring it with us, in the car, to a meeting. The accessibility of film and music is awesome. With these tools at our fingertips, why would anyone venture into a library or art gallery? They won’t. And it’s too bad. Sitting with a good book, reading a poem, gazing at a work of art on a gallery wall, it can be a transforming experience. I’m wondering though, if these same tools that are sometimes considered art and peotry killers, may actually become vehicles for poetry and art? Might they, instead of suppressing poetry and art, actually help make them more accessible?

Born Magazine, is an online gallery of sorts that combines poetry and visual motion arts, via the web. And Start Mobile now delivers art from emerging artists directly to your cell phone. I’m wondering if this is only the beginning?

George Lucas, when asked what he felt the greatest invention of the 20th for film was, answered simply, “the consumer video camera.” He reasoned that with this relatively inexpensive invention, everyday people now had the power to create movies. Maybe even great movies. The next Cecil B. Demille, he said, could come by way of some kid in Iowa with a camcorder and a passion for storytelling.

I figure there are still lots of people with a passion for poetry and for art. I hope they continue to find their medium. A blog. An iPod. A video camera. For me, it’ll never replace the experience of going the the Laguna Beach Museum of Art and staring at a large painting by Elmer Bischoff (my first gallery experience in the early 80’s), or sitting with a good book of poetry on a rainy day (don’t think I’ve ever done that), but it will reach people, and that’s the goal, right?

There’s a growing phenom among sneakers as the art d’jour medium for emerging and underground artists. I started getting wind of it here and there a few months back, but recently have seen more and more of it popping up online. Coolhunting has created a section just for sneakers, Startmobile has a section just for sneakers (more on these guys later), and Upper Playground has some very cool stuff. Yours truly even took inspiration from this trend, designing my own set for my daughter’s Heely’s that she got for Christmas from her Grandma.

As I was fighting insomnia and and embracing a fast wireless connection late last night (these shared cable broadband connections are always faster late at night), I was stopped in my tracks by some sneakers designed by Argentinean artist Judi Werthein.

Werthein created only 1000 pairs of “Brincos”, specifically for migrant workers crossing the U.S./Mexico border. As stated on coolhunting, “Each pair comes with a flashlight and compass attached to the shoelaces, a small pocket in the tongue for money or pain relievers, and a map of the border printed on the removable insole. With a Mexican-flag colorway, the pattern on the heel represents the Mexican eagle and the design on the toe hails from the American eagle found on quarter dollars. A small portrait of the Vatican-approved patron saint of migrants, St. Toribio Romo Gonzalez, adorns the back ankle.”

Brincos can be purchased or $215, but apparently Werthein mostly distributes them for free at the border crossings.

I hope to bring more art to these pages. Art that inspires me. Art that makes me think. Art that matters. In the mean time though check out the Tattooed Banana.