Saturday, December 6, 2008

Untitled ( conflicted intensity), installation, 2008




How can I recreate a feel of being a trapped within the darkness of eyes sewn shut, of healing, and the revelation of light? This was one of my many attempts towards a sensory experience that encompasses this physical feeling of entrapment in a narrow passageway with powerful flashing warm light.

Healing Substances




There are many herbs and substances that can heal both physically and many suspect spiritually. I am interested in these substances for the many spiritual and natural connotations they offer and the boundaries they cross ( east and west ). They provide growth and their temporal qualities remind the viewer that this growth advances in the blink of an eye and is confined by various factors that contribute towards development.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Sunday, November 23, 2008

North Dakota ( South Saint Louis) as geographic blur



This is one of the few streets that I explored as a child overwhelmed by the concrete jungle I inhabited ( quite tiny in comparison to other metropolitan areas) and my struggles with vision.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Monday, September 22, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008


"Realization is not knowledge about the universe, but the living experience of the nature of the universe."

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Painting By Cool Hand Luke


“Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.”

Monday, August 4, 2008


Happiness can be achieved in the simplest of ways, all that is required is an open mind. I wish to be an advocator of happiness ( and by doing so attempting to fulfill my duty on this earth) through using the positive energy we all possess to generate warmth through serious creative play. Through this compassion, we can share; grow. All through Extrovert Meditation. We can trade and prosper into a community of equals. Our intellect could flourish and our curiosity towards this mystical and beautiful world could perhaps be renewed. We could see through the eyes of child. Perhaps, collectively we could talk of the opposite spectrum. Perhaps we could activate a new treatment towards the human race? Oh, how I want share and learn. Take time to listen from all earthly materials and expose the light. Perhaps then we wouldn’t stumble in our waltz. I want to use Warmth as a subversive lifestyle because it is too easy in this culture of desire, to become alienated from our true nature. We are social animals…
So it seems my purpose, is to serve this energy that flows inside of me ( which I’ve just recently started to relocate) through sharing with my family, friends, peers, and strangers as an antidote to fear in all its forms. Art as ecstasy; for the people as reverend Fox describes it. Together we can pick each other up, and mend, rebuild the foundation for we are all drifting through the ebb and flow. From the darkness we are born and to the darkness we shall return. Let’s shed some light on this life before it is too late.

"Alive upon Alive! Ignite your inner heart of compassion. Find answers to your deep questions: What is the purpose of my life? What is happiness? Is there a way I can help others out of suffering? How do I make life meaningful?"
— Domo Geshe Rinpoche, the 9th incarnation (female)

working on the foundation


waiting-we're listening to the silence; for the breeze to hum a kind command-" we must work on the foundations, the relations between man".

Thursday, July 31, 2008

ah, summer research.

The following is from Conversations Before the End of Time with Thomas Moore:

Suzi: As I understand your sense of the soulful life, it would mean bringing art back into a more vernacular, everyday world, and taking it out of the more rarefied sphere of professionalism. You mentioned in the letter you wrote to me that you are very interested in the role of the arts in the world today. Do you see art as being an important vehicle for the return of soul?
Moore: Probably its most important vehicle.
Suzi: Do you want to elaborate on this?
Moore: Yes, there’s so much to say here. First, though, I’d like to pick up on this point of yours about everyday life. There are a number of ways in which we could bring the artist back into everyday life, so that we don’t just have this fringe art world that doesn’t really touch on the values of the way we live, essentially. One way would be for the artist truly to feel a sense of conviviality in the society, in being part of that community, so that there’s a responsibility, and a pleasure, in going into the world and being part of, say, actually designing the city... We can’t suddenly begin living a more artful life, which is the avenue to soul, if in the public life around us, and in everything we see and inhabit, art is invisible.
Suzi: And so, in your thinking, that could be a whole new paradigm for a socially relevant kind of art—not precisely in the sense that’s being talked about in the art world now of "political correctness" and social critique, but rather a kind of art that celebrates and participates robustly in the life-world.
Moore: Exactly. And here’s another point about soul.., soul enters life through pleasure. It’s an erotic activity: psyche and eros going together, rather than principle and responsibility. Responsibility suggests a kind of outward superego coming in and saying, "You know, this is what you should be doing." That is not a new paradigm; we’re not moving out of the modernistic world then. We’re just feeling we should do something different and more responsible.
Suzi: "If we are going to care for the soul," you say in your book, "and if we know that the soul is nurtured by beauty, then we will have to understand beauty more deeply and give it a more relevant place in life. It’s not only pleasure and conviviality, but also beauty that is necessary for the return of soul..." It’s interesting, don’t you think, that archetypal psychologists are the ones who seem to be taking the lead for a renaissance of beauty in our lives, even more than artists or aestheticians?

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

" If the old American dream was about prosperity maybe the new one will be about spontaneity."- Kalle Lasn

Monday, July 21, 2008

take flight


tonight when you drift to sleep-dream!-try to soar within a baby blue sky-travel free and light.
escape.
take flight.

Today anyone who paints space must actually go into space to paint, but he must go
there without any faking, and neither in an aeroplane, a parachute nor a rocket: he
must go there by his own means, by an autonomous, individual force; in a word, he
must be capable of levitating.-Yves Klein

Passing Youth

Virginia Woolf:
One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

What comes after Generation Why? a. The drought (our decline) or b. an age of renewal and discovery?

The question that must be raised is how do we nourish both the mind, spirit, and body when we are encouraged to do other wise? How do we share the communities of the inner cities? Who will be the first to pass the grain and say hello? We must hurry before the drought.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Kaleidoscopic Exposure



Each sensation is precious, protect it, cherish it, keep it. Never give it away. You must develop that balance which allows all of the world to come in to you, and only that which you have expressed in your art to move back out again into the world. -Robert Henri

Friday, June 6, 2008

Awaiting The Harvest


In the predicted
Expansive age
Of “ generation why”
Will gain still sprout and stretch?

Will lilies blossom from virgin seeds
Established within a fruitful earth?

Will the flame still scuffle and nourish
And bewitch the intellect
So convinced of his conviction
He will stand up in protest?

For now
We
Either bow in silence
Or
Screech
In exuberance

Facilitating the fabrication of history

Awaiting the harvest.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

idea

give people ( perhaps of different backgrounds , diversity, demographics, etc. or perhaps children) disposable cameras with the task to capture genuine smiles/laughter. they'll return them to me on a set date and then I'll get the photos printed and display them.

June 4th 2008

All real living is meeting.-Martin Buber who was an Israeli Theologian. I thought this statement was beautiful and should be shared!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

untitled

a release
reminder
sweetness of a gesture
unwrapped
exposed

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Saturday, May 24, 2008

GOLDEN

I want to record an elderly couple reciting "Gold" by Donald Hall.

read this beautiful poem here:http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16635

cheer-uppers/Inspirational mottos via email

ex. "REMEMBER TO SMILE"
send an email to projectliberation@yahoo.com to recieve an inspirational motto/cheer-upper!
Just type Cheer-upper and I will send you one!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

HI there!
Hope your summer has been going swell!
Project Liberation once again asks of your lovely assistance and participation with a new assignment for the blog.
the task at hand: make someone laugh and snap a photo of them embracing their giggles. send it to projectliberation@yahoo.com
you can also send a preexisting photo of you or someone engaged in a relaxing laugh.
images will be compiled as a slideshow on the blog.

WARMTH/MOMENTARY ESCAPES statement on direction for Fall 2008

"Through community we are saved from loneliness , degradation, and despair”

In community we find the opportunities for shared experiences. Two points of view are presented, debated, and from this interchange, perhaps perception is positively shifted towards a brighter horizon. Is this not the essence of art? The artist wishes when displaying a work or works to merely communicate with the viewer in an encounter which is infinitely wide ranging. One wishes for a mergence to occur; for that “ ah ha” movement. This is a form of trade and exchange. In this world of vast cultures and infinite battles artists must begin to facilitate a dazzling world for the inhabitants of the here and now. As educators by nature ( all artists assume this role), we must find a way to honestly engage and help many realize these shifts in perception which have been presented by many such as two of my favorite artists, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and David Horvitz, who encourage viewer participation and whose works are truly gifts.
Encouraging viewer participation has shifted the attitudes towards art. Personally, viewer participation has helped me realize that the world is truly interconnected ( I had this experience the first time I saw an exhibition by Rivane Neuenschwander). I realized that art could be immensely personal yet political and perhaps even a bit “ selfless”.
We are striving to find our place in this world and nothing is ever certain. We are so infinitely small yet so powerful. With this being said, in a world full of degradation, I wish to lift people up through making interrelational work that allows for the participants to get to know one another while escaping the doldrums of their daily lives. I wish to actively share in activities with my participants in which they find certain actions liberating such as jumping on a trampoline as a momentary escape . I wish to help make connections while setting up experiences. This raises many questions. How well does one truly know their friends, family, co-workers? How can I positively set up events or moments of play? This is highly challenging. By setting up situations and encounters perhaps I can assume multiple roles including educator, comedian, etc. but at the same time have the participant assume these roles as well. It is a complete trade. Laughter is the best medicine and antidote to the current state of affairs. Depression has become an epidemic.
We must therefore become “ big about the little things”. Happiness can be achieved in the simplest of ways. I wish to be an advocator of this through encouragement ( facilitating activities and opening dialogue) and by generating warmth, in the form of affection, friendliness, kindness and sympathy.

This is my answer to apathy.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

ideas

1. learn people's favorite songs on guitar and play the song while they sing it!
2. supply recording of someone's favorite song and have them sing it!
3. go on a walk everyday, document interesting things and/or changes.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

New ideas

1. interview lovers about how they meant. ask them to submit a nostalgic reference of this event.

2. give a lilly to someone I care about as a gift. nothing more. nothing less.

3. grab intense reflection of the sun in water-snap shot.

4. chase the sunset in photographs.

5. cook favorite childhood food-mac n cheese, carrots with honey, etc.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

New Years 1988


How do we relive the past? Through memories, many of which has been created through photographic representations of events that we have no physical recollection of. Photographs evoke a nostalgia for once was. In this case, with no physical recollection of this particular moment in time, the image is blurred. Not only to emphasize the lack of remembrance but to evoke the sensation of a daze,one  that I particularly felt as child due to various eye problems and constraints. Blurry images are all I know of my infancy and early childhood. Memory remains a cloud of sensations.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Risk Taking. of endings and new beginings.

FUTURE IDEAS

Ideas

 

1. Interview people and find out what makes them happy, then attempt to do that very thing with them as way to 1. Learn about the person 2. Spend time with the person 3. Make their day a little brighter. Document in the form of a photograph.

 

2. Video record couples or friends tickling each other. Montage all the footage together of everyone giggling.

 

3. Snap shot of everyone in my family’s smiles.

 

4. Snap shot of everyone in my family’s eyes.

 

5. Walk a city street and snap shot my path.

 

6. Walk under a power line and snap shot my path from above.

 

7. Compose an interview for my dad to ask my little brother and my grandfather; the catch is that the questions must be the same.

 

9.  Interview couples about how they meant, why’d they fell in love, etc.

 

10. Video record people hugging whispering a secret to each other. Montage all together with the volume up till the whispers are sweet nothings.

 

11.  Compose a project for my brother and I to do- a collaborative drawing, clay sculpture, play-do creature, etc.

 

12. Make stickers that encourage people to embrace the present. HERE AND NOW. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. REMEMBER TO SMILE, etc.

 

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

THE BODY SHOP SHOW


A collaborative installation and exhibition of sophomore, junior, and senior artworks from the Sculpture Department of the Kansas City Art Institute

MAY 2nd 5-8pm 2008

at the body shop in downtown KC on the SE corner of 24th and Summit
entrance and parking in rear lot

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Project: Liberation





above are a few selected images/text from one of my current projects: Liberation:
and I need your help!!

Hey You! Yes You! How are you? Do you feel ALIVE?
I once again, like so many times before, need your help but this is about you so here is the task at hand:
Describe or recall a particular time in your life when you felt completely free; liberated. Please do so any way you chose just make sure you document what your expression is in the form of a jpeg file to be compiled as documentation. 
Please send photos, drawings, text, etc. to: charmingman@sbcglobal.net
Please send images soon! I would like to collect and compile these experiences into a short film by May 9th.
do what feels right. Don't think too hard. be sweet. be honest. be riveting. be funny. be yourself.
Thanks!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

situation: leaning



situation: leaning allows for the viewer to become the participant to foster connections.
Specifically community and empathy.
leaning upon each other over light, the bodies  create and generate form and warmth.

Monday, April 7, 2008

study


the merging of cells brings the beginning of illumination, life and creation.