The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression,
whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
Two-Tailed Swallowtail Butterfly Entering a World of Color — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Color possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.
is life without making full use of what we already have, because life is given only once?
When I turn to my already gathered knowledge and experience, especially in times of unspeakable destruction that impales our future, I frequently turn to one of the most creative minds of the 20th century, Paul Klee. The title of this blog, “Becoming is Superior to Being,” is a Klee quote.
Among Klee’s paintings are a series of angels. Like in one of his most famous, “Angelus Novus,” Klee’s angels are very fragmented creatures, appearing very elusive. Angelus Novus so took Walter Benjamin that he bought the painting. In his interpretation of the painting, Benjamin seems to see in the angel the despair many of us feel in our not being able to help the victims of yet another unjust war. Benjamin wrote:
“A Klee painting named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling up ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which its back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
“Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible.”
—Paul Klee
“Listen to what you see You are blind to what you hear Listen to what you see Do not fear the truth beneath Reach for roots beneath the trees Listen to the words you seek Don’t listen to a word they say Do NOT listen to a word you’ve heard Do not listen to a word you’ve heard People are people we live for our own Live how you think not by what you’ve been told. . .”
“The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be,
or at least become, an individual.
The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression,
whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.“
“The angel comes with windy upward drafts, with transcendental longings; the duende arrives with demonic undertow, with downdrafts of emotion. Both are fundamental inner disturbances, fissures of being, ways of putting the self at risk, liberating figures. They are extremities of human imagination. There is a place on the endangered shoreline where they seem to meet, and where they may be indistinguishable from each other.
. . . Rilke wrote: ‘Works of art always spring from those who have faced the danger, gone to the very end of an experience, to the point beyond which no human being can go. The further one dares to go, the more decent, the more personal, the more unique a life becomes.”‘
— from The Demon and The Angel; Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration, by Edward Hirsch
“Man’s ability to measure the spiritual, earthbound, and cosmic, set against his physical helplessness is his fundamental tragedy. The tragedy of spirituality.”
The invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003. On this Memorial Day, I share a piece I wrote in January of 2003.)
Freedom doesn’t come without a price,
an individual’s price
can vary greatly
depending on his/her
color, wealth, and power.
I served during the Viet Nam era.
On the day I was drafted,
so too were two other young men.
They are not alive today.
There are others I knew
that paid the greatest price,
which is how many of us
put a face on Viet Nam War.
For many Americans
going to war in Iraq
needs to have a face,
a face of those who have already died
from this war between bullies.*
During my duty in the Army
I had a top secret-crypto clearance.
I began to become aware
of the difference between
what citizens are told as fact
and what was the truth.
The Army told me we live and die
by international law and standards,
by the Rules of the Geneva Convention,
but we lie.
We expect others to live
by international laws,
not us.
Just because a bully in Iraq
doesn’t believe in international laws
shouldn’t mean that we lower
ourselves to the bully’s level.
We are better than that!
The lesson I have learned is that
it’s always a mistake
to believe your own lies.
Yes, Sadam is a tyrant.
However, he should be
treated as such through
the international justice system.
He should be replaced
by elected leaders,
not a regime that is ours.
Remember,
it wasn’t that long ago
that Sadam was our bully.
As the most powerful country
in the history of the world,
we have an obligation
to use our power with
constraint and with justice,
to lead by example
so that other countries
will not take unilateral action
against another country
simply for preëmptive reasons.
We are better than that!
Let’s show respect to our position
of power and greatest
by leading and supporting diplomacy
and the rule of law,
not the rule of vigilantism.
Peace.
kenne
*(note — we have been at war, with Iraq since we have
been bombing them daily for years now, which we justified by our own unilateral action, not International law,
or the UN.)
Red Rose Painting — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Two-Tailed Swallowtail Butterfly Entering a World of Color — Photo-Artistry by kenne
White Rose Photo-Artistry by kenne 
Shapes In Search Of Their Void — Abstract art by kenne
Thimble Peak — Computer Painting by kenne
Little Dune Picture by Paul Klee — The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
Wisdom of Art III” Computer art by kenne
“Becoming is Superior to Being” — Paul Klee (An early 1970’s gift from Larry J. Bailey)
Angel In Vortex — Image by kenne
“Bareass” — Image #9″ by kenne
Bride & Bridesmaids On Oceanside Pier — Image by kenne
“View From Above” — Image by kenne
Bearass — Image by kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 
The invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003. On this Memorial Day, I share a piece I wrote in January of 2003.)
Freedom doesn’t come without a price,
an individual’s price
can vary greatly
depending on his/her
color, wealth, and power.
I served during the Viet Nam era.
On the day I was drafted,
so too were two other young men.
They are not alive today.
There are others I knew
that paid the greatest price,
which is how many of us
put a face on Viet Nam War.
For many Americans
going to war in Iraq
needs to have a face,
a face of those who have already died
from this war between bullies.*
During my duty in the Army
I had a top secret-crypto clearance.
I began to become aware
of the difference between
what citizens are told as fact
and what was the truth.
The Army told me we live and die
by international law and standards,
by the Rules of the Geneva Convention,
but we lie.
We expect others to live
by international laws,
not us.
Just because a bully in Iraq
doesn’t believe in international laws
shouldn’t mean that we lower
ourselves to the bully’s level.
We are better than that!
The lesson I have learned is that
it’s always a mistake
to believe your own lies.
Yes, Sadam is a tyrant.
However, he should be
treated as such through
the international justice system.
He should be replaced
by elected leaders,
not a regime that is ours.
Remember,
it wasn’t that long ago
that Sadam was our bully.
As the most powerful country
in the history of the world,
we have an obligation
to use our power with
constraint and with justice,
to lead by example
so that other countries
will not take unilateral action
against another country
simply for preëmptive reasons.
We are better than that!
Let’s show respect to our position
of power and greatest
by leading and supporting diplomacy
and the rule of law,
not the rule of vigilantism.
Peace.
kenne
*(note — we have been at war,
with Iraq since we have
been bombing them
daily for years now,
which we justified
by our own
unilateral action,
not International law,
or the UN.)
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