“The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.”
― Willem De Kooning
The Trouble With Being Poor
Tag Archives: bronze
History of the Conquest
“I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt
I enjoyed this sculpture in particular because… well, for one it is funny and cute and a little different. But I loved it because it is a giant snail.
Titanic gastropods have interested me ever since I read that short story, Quest for the “Blank Claverengi” as a child. I’m not alone. Years ago I discovered the story was written by Patricia Highsmith and finding several copies, I wrote about it. Since then, quite a few people have contacted me to say they shared the childhood terror of giant man-eating snails.
I was interested enough to write my own sequel to the tale.
And now here is a sculpture of a giant snail. With a warrior riding on the back. That’s an angle I never thought of – an army of archers riding into battle, slowly, on the backs of huge armored gastropods. A compelling image – if not a very effective battle strategy.
Monumental Head
“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”
― Auguste Rodin
Venus and Hercules
“Live like a hero. That’s what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?”
― J.M. Coetzee
At the entrance to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden there is a wonderful ellipse of lawn under tall trees, bordered by thick vegitation and smattered with large, classic bronze sculptures. It is an awesome area – the feeling of time and genius distilled into molten metal and molded into immortal human shapes.
I wish I could spend every morning in a space like that, thinking about my day.
Ruth and Naomi
“Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”
― Ruth 1:16
This wonderful sculpture is in the same little woodland alcove as yesterday’s Civitas.
Civitas
““If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
I found this attractive sculpture tucked away in a cool little alcove, framed by lush vegetation.
In looking it up online, I discovered that it was supposed to have a glass flame in her hands, over her head.
I like the sculpture without it – but I wonder what happened.
Travelin’ Light
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
― George Orwell, 1984
I have photographed and written about this sculpture before. I had forgotten what I had said, so I guess it’s OK to use my words again. Can you plagiarize against yourself?
From November 15, 2012:
Travelin’ Light presents a formally dressed man, hanging by his bare feet, a powerful but dignified reference to torture and abandonment. Saar has made the figure into a bell. When the chain on its back is pulled, a sonorous sound is heard, ringing for all victims of violence and terror.
I looked at Traveln’ Light and walked around it. I read the little nameplate and the blurb in the guidemap and discovered it was a bell. I thought about reaching out to the metal chain inside the hollow of the hanged man’s head and giving it a ring, but my reticence to actually touch artworks on display was greater than my curiosity as to its sound. A few minutes later, while I was a third of the way around the little pond, some guy with a gimme cap on backwards walked up to it and was ringing away with abandon. It had a dolorous sound, not bright like a church bell, more of a dull peal.
No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
—-Emil Cioran
Great Seated Cardinal
“Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
A detail photograph of Another cool sculpture from the Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans.
Tomorrow, I go back to work. In this weirdest and worst of all possible years I haven’t been off because of COVID – I am considered “essential.” As a matter of fact, up until two weeks ago I have been very busy at work – under plenty of pressure. Then, it let up a bit and I had a big backlog of PTO hours I had to take so, along with the Thanksgiving Holiday, I was off for two whole weeks. I haven’t done that on purpose for a long time (I was off for two weeks last year, but I was in the emergency room for a few days and recuperating until I felt strong enough to make it back home – so that doesn’t really count as vacation).
It feels odd – so wish me luck. I can’t remember any of my myriad passwords – so there will be some calls right off the bat.
Let Me Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity
Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.
—-William Shakespeare, The Third part of King Henry the Sixth
Grapevine, Texas
Constant and Unending Euphoria
“Even the memory of cradling her in my arms is pure euphoria. And all that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria.”
―
Back side of bronze, Grapevine, Texas
Bill Chance 