“Inspiration” Stained Glass Art by kenne, of kenne
“It behooves any of us who would mediate on the subject of artistic inspiration to open the doors wide into the night
and welcome into the house the spirit of inhabitable awe.” — Edward Hirsch
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Giant Western Swallowtail In Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne
— Michel Foucault
Experiencing the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit (Scottsdale, June 15, 2022) — Image by kenne
We have wanted to see the Immersive van Gogh exhibit for some time.
So, since we had planned on attending Jeri and Ron’s 50th Anniversary,
June 16-18 in Palm Springs, we drove up to Scottsdale on the 15.
The exhibition, conceived by Creative Director Mathieu St-Arnaud and his team at Montreal’s
world-renowned Normal Studio, is an immersive experience that features more
than 300 of Vincent Van Gogh’s iconic artworks and takes the art lover
into a three-dimensional world that exhilarates the senses.
— Vincent van Gogh
Video by kenne
— Vincent van Gogh
Sunflowers — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Vincent van Gogh
— from Why I Write by Joan Didion
We first became aware of Giddens about 15 years ago as one of the founding members of the country,
blues, and old-time music band Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she is the lead singer, fiddle, and
banjo player. In 2008, we attended the annual Houston iFest where local and international musicians and the
“iFest New Artist of the Year,” the Carolina Chocolate Drops, were scheduled to appear.
Since then, this very talented musician and her unique artistry continue to blossom.
Carolina Chocolate Drops (April 2008) — Images by kenne
Capitol Reef National Park Panorama — Image by kenne
“Capitol Reef National Park is in Utah’s south-central desert. It surrounds a long wrinkle in the earth known as the Waterpocket Fold, with layers of golden sandstone, canyons and striking rock formations. Among the park’s sights are the Chimney Rock pillar, the Hickman Bridge arch, and Capitol Reef, known for its white sandstone domes. In the north are the towering monoliths of Cathedral Valley.” ― Google
“What one thinks of any region,
while traveling through,
is the result of at least three things:
what one knows,
what one imagines,
and how one is disposed.”
— Barry Lopez
Mt. Lemmon, San Pedro Valley Vista Before the Big Horn Fire — Image by kenne
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
“Body of an Old Man Sitting Under the Stars” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— from Everyman by Philip Roth
“I want to be notorious rather than famous. Fame has too much responsibility. People forget you are human.”
– Ettore “Ted” DeGrazia
DeGrazia Music Room at The Gallery of The Sun — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Ted DeGrazia earned two undergraduate degrees — one in music education, one in fine art and a master’s of fine arts. Known as Arizona’s most prolific artist, it is understandable that most people may not be aware of his shared dual passions for art and music. Both helped him pay his way through college, painting during the day and leading his big band at night at Tucson’s Fox Theater.
His love of music was passed on to his son, Domingo DeGrazia, who today has his own band, the Domingo DeGarzia Spanish Guitar Band. We first saw Domingo and his band perform at the annual festival, La Fiesta de Guadalupe at the Gallery of the Sun.
Domingo DeGarzia’s Spanish Guitar Band
Slideshow — La Fiesta de Guadalupe at the Gallery of the Sun (December 18, 2016)
— Images by kenne
Tom Turner, a Rainy Day on the Seattle Waterfront (June, 2000) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
(These quotes were among Tom’s handwritten notes.)
— Paul Theroux
— Kierkegaard
Over The Wall — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Arrival — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Arrival
And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom—
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind . . . !
— William Carlos Williams
Source: William Morrow/HarperCollins
It’s just a little after midnight in Tucson, and I’m having trouble sleeping. It could be that Joy is having surgery later today. It could be that in this age of hand-held technology, it was several hours ago I received a news alert on the passage of Robert M. Pirsig at age 88.
In the 1970’s I was interested in motorcycles — own a couple. It was a time in which I loved reading about technology and philosophy. So, in 1974 when I read a review of a recently published book, “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values,” I went out and bought a copy.
The inside cover jacket begins with a quote from the book:
“ The study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of a process to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.”
What better way to write about the conflict between science and religion, and the nature of Quality in art than to have it as part of a motorcycle narrative of a trip Pirsig, his eleven-year-old son, and two friends took from Minnesota to California? As it turns out, the real journey was not a motorcycle trip, but a philosophic trip that centers on an insane passion for truth.
In February of this year, I posted a blog entitled, The Zen of Visual Imagery – Balancing Passion and Obsession, in which I reference the novel I have worshiped over the years. Whether in my own teaching of educational philosophy or photography, I can’t talk about life without referencing Pirsig for the truth. It is time for a Chautauqua.
–kenne
Two Vessels — Computer Art by kenne
(First posted December 22, 2009)
The things that happen to us in life do so because we act. The more we act, the more opportunities we have upon which to act, the more we connect, creating a vessel filled with learning moments. If we don’t act on the moments, each will become an opportunity lost. Even so, it’s important not to think about what may have been left behind.
My vessel is an alchemy of acts from which new opportunities are poured – acts attract acts. Paulo Coelho wrote in his bestseller, The Alchemist, “There is only one way to learn,” the alchemist answered. “It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”
It was ten years ago that I first read Coelho’s enchanting fable. It was in preparation for leading a group of four young professionals to the state of Sáo Paulo in Brazil that I learned of Paulo Coelho and his 1988 novel. The book fits well into my own philosophy and sets the tone for the trip and remains instrumental in my life.
Again, one act leads to another when, at this past Sunday’s Society of the 5th Cave reading club meeting, The Alchemist was selected for the March reading. Once again, the concept of alchemy is front stage, this time from a different perspective, which will create many new learning moments.
I’m pleased to be reading this inspiring book ten years out. The Alchemist is the gift that keeps on giving. Just today I received an email from my brother Tom, reminding me of someone I have also not read in recent years, American poet, Conrad Aiken, which my poem “Solstice Night,” told him of the first lines from Aiken’s long poem, “The House of Dust.”
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
In turn, his reminding me of Conrad Aiken, and the return of The Alchemist, that reminded me of the following from Aiken’s poem, “A Letter from Li Po.”
What’s true in these, or false? which is the ‘I’
of ‘I’s’? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.
Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self-becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow’s foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.
Life has so many gifts that keep on giving. Become a part of the act.
kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 
I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s
and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble.
Good trouble, necessary trouble.
–John Lewis
I came of age in the 1960s, a time of national unrest centering around civil rights and the Vietnam War. I served three years in the Army during the Vietnam War era, marched and demonstrated for peace and justice. Now nearing my 80th birthday, I remember will the assassinations John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy while embracing the “Beat” generation, its writers, and beliefs.
Having lived in Alabama in the 40s, I couldn’t help but notice state troopers and county posse men attacking the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line. The event became known as Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965). After Bloody Sunday, President Johnson and Congress began working on a voting rights law on March 15.
A third march started on March 2, averaging 10 miles a day, the marchers marched “Jefferson Davis Highway” from Salma to Montgomery. The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24 and at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25. With thousands having joined the campaign, 25,000 people entered the capital city that day in support of voting rights.
The route is memorialized as the “Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail”, and is designated as a U.S. National Historic Trail. The Voting Rights Act became law on August 6, 1965.
“On the front lines of the bloody campaign to end Jim Crow laws, with blows to his body and a fractured skull to prove it, John Lewis was a valiant stalwart of the civil rights movement and the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.”
He died on the same day as did another civil rights stalwart, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a close associate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
For Rep. Lewis, the Black Lives Movement was a very moving experience, “. . . very moving to see hundreds of thousands of people from all over America and around the world take to the streets — to speak up, to speak out, to get into what I call ‘good trouble.” John Lewis was a genuine “profile in courage.”
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair,
you have a moral obligation to say something,”
he said on the House floor, December 2019, to impeach President Trump.
“To do something. Our children and their children will ask us,
‘What did you do? What did you say?’
For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission
and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”
— kenne
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