Thursday, February 28, 2008

Sounds like you are doing well in K.C. Art is all about energy and connecting everything around you....and  REALLY LOOKING as you put it. When I was in college I was the guy that was constantly demanding more from the place....you've gotta do that always so you can get the experience you want.  talk soon,  Moses

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Friday, February 22, 2008

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Reflection

Reflection 2/20/08

 

“Man is first a being who needs nourishment for his spiritual needs, and that if he could cultivate and train this primary nature, this spiritual nature, he could develop whole other energies.”-Joseph Beuys

 

            Engaged within a cycle (of months and seasons, etc.) we are presently bound to the linear qualities of time though evidence of the cycle surrounds. As a young child, this element of time is vague and abstract. Perhaps it always remains this way. The grids of the cityscape present this dilemma: time ticking life away with so much to accomplish and exclaim. The ultimate desire is a yearning for acceptance and love through not only personal achievements but by lending a helping hand; an engagement with empathy. To do this artist’s exploration must be one of spirituality, shaped by those important events and memories that culminate into our drives.

            A vision of sorts merging from the void is the starting point, as stated in a previous essay. This deeply transformative experience provides both the burden and pleasure of thought. The goal at hand has been to divert the burden and turn my drive into a fiery passion that motivates my whole being to utilize my maximum potential. I have recently stated that I wish to be poetic within all of my endeavors; secure in tone. This freedom is worth fighting for. This poetic grace would allow for me to maximize my knowledge and zeal to its fullest potential and perhaps spread the wealth in a humble simple gesture. With this said, Personal identity has begun to be shaped and molded into existence.

            Warmth extends from the over empowerment of light saturating my vision but it also refers to a mother’s embrace. In my youth my mother was my comrade. My mother had divorced my father while I was still very young. Images of my mother packing boxes, stacking dishes into their transport graves in our apartment still haunt me to this day. I remember the dividing line of property and I can remember inquiring-“ What is happening?”. Nevertheless, I was raised by a single mother just as many others have. This has shaped me radically.

            What is prevalent here, is one memory in particular, in which I am held within her arms being rocked back and forth, in the darkness. My mother, young, strong, and able gently whispered the sweet schemes of nursery rhymes to settle such a muddled soul. Melody and a pulse from my mother’s chest resonated and calmed cleansing the entanglements of growth. Her compassion always has. My Mother’s selfless act served as my first real memory of physical warmth and was the preparation for what I was about to endure.

            Perhaps the resonation of light was not only relevant due to my eye problems but also due to the face that this memory of the intimacy between my mother and I has been engraved within my mind.

            In my recent performance Human Void with Color Abstractions Waltz, I attempted to express the over empowerment of light and warm tones in relation to my eye problems. I wished for the light and warm tones to meditatively and playfully move the way light did when beams of illumination hit my eyes anew. What I have discovered about light and warmth in terms of physicality and science is just the surface. Yes, the performance in itself had its flaws but it had its revelations. The two halogen lights remarkably reminded me of a relationship between attached souls and how powerful and fragile that connection truly is. This union contained enough energy to recall past experiences.

Warmth is associated with love and knowledge. From the cold expansion of the void one reaches for a revelation, for a caretaker, for confidence. A mother’s saccharine embrace and blessing for knowledge and affection can be a starting point to expressing this while A lover’s acceptance of a Lilly can bring about new beginnings.

 

We are searching for that transitory union in which we briefly catch a glimpse into another’s soul and vice versa.

 

 

 

Saturday, February 16, 2008

PART ONE AND TWO IN THE COMING DAYS

Part 1- The Habitual Ritual In One Movement to Counteract Struggle and Gain A Formulated Truth

 

The struggle of this life is a beautiful, tremendous and liberating journey. To free ourselves from our shackles we crave love, knowledge, and spirituality:  illumination. Oh, what a joy it would be to glow in the light of a lover’s eyes or to be filled with honey-the vast knowledge of the scholar who spent his life in academia or the traveling rambling rebel who has gained knowledge from coal miners, humble women who slave in truck stop dinners, and have gained an intuition from walking dangerous streets. He or she has seen the beauty and the decay and vice versa. Breathing, eating, sleeping and loving are the primary functions. This is all we wish to achieve yet many of us are unsure how to go about this task. From the darkness of the cityscape one reaches out for the all-encompassing light. Knowledge foams at the mouth and his/her heartbeats and jolts for this acceptance and love.

 

THIS COULD BE OUR RENEWAL.

 

The figure in the darkness resides in his or her ever-engaging mystery and jolts, swells, and shakes engaged with the honey that is sending him or her into a trance. This however is momentary but the expression is enough to fulfill fresh breath into shriveled lungs. This celebration and expression of our struggle is deeply rooted into our existence and is the most primitive yet intellectual, philosophical expression of our time: the highest and lowest form of art.

 

MOVEMENT AS RITUAL.

 

THE STRUGGLE ENDURES as tides hit shores, lovers embrace in a cleverly planned union, and the shaman appears  to heal. We are

the busy bees-humble workers and lovers who are  always reaching for the light.

 

Part 2- Our Successional Renewal, Hope, and Prayer: New beginnings and Endings.

 

 

            The light always remains  unreachable; this is the way things we’re devised. Perhaps through expression for what should be granted at birth and  a parent’s only deeply rooted concern for their youth: Happiness can take form. There are second chances- in an age of mass consumerism and impending doom (it has been impending since the beginning of time): renewal can take flight. We can build a new foundation among the concrete blocks. This however will be momentary. Life does not endure in the flesh. We must rest.

 

Perhaps through the beautiful sediment of generosity and exchange-empathy can be reached. Only if it is a spectacle for one.

 

Beauty and decay among the concrete barricades

With a desire to reach enlightenment

Friday, February 15, 2008

HERE AND NOW.

READY.

Monday, February 11, 2008

VOID WITH COLOR ABSTRACTIONS WALTZ


              VOID WITH COLOR ABSTRACTIONS WALTZ
A SPECIAL PERFORMANCE
by Ryan LaFerney

Wednesday Feburary 20th
EPPERSON AUDITIORIUM
doors at 10:15






study with andy

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Four Corners

“ Four Corners: Ebb and flow among the lines and planes of the invisible grid”

 

            In a darkened square room, there will be placed in four corners a pile of dirt alongside a timer with a performer. The performers will stand next to the pile and timer each wearing a specific color relating to the elements (red, white, orange, yellow). When the signal is given while the dualism of two lights blink (emphasizing this element of chance), The elements task will be to set the timers for a duration of 9 seconds and to run to the opposite side-therefore meeting in exchange of movement among the lines and planes of the invisible grid. They will for a few brief movements take place in combustion of action and then will resume their static position, resting at the foundation (dirt and time). There is an element of danger, a chance that two elements may meet and fuse through the sprawling sensationalism of how fast information travels and how disconnected perhaps we have come.

 

human void with color abstractions

Saturday, February 9, 2008

a conversation

hey ryan, thanks for doing your homework & getting back to me w/the
answer i was searching for. i really appreciate it.

it is an interesting thing that one has the capacity to retain
historical data & celebrity stats while having difficulty recalling
other categories of info, like the names of neighbors & peers. it's a
good thing to figure out that just a little bit of conscious effort
is all it takes to train our brains to retain virtually any kind of
info we want to remember.

thanks for taking the time to stop by & for your conversation.

about felix, i like his suggestion that art can be "owned" by anyone,
i.e., understood & appreciated by anyone. it doesn't have to be an
exclusive thing for the cognoscenti or the people w/the bucks.

The Burden of Thought


dirt,sand, roots replace the fluff of a pillow expanding the fibers to capacity thus turning the pillow into an absurd object. by negating the function of a pillow case perhaps one can come to a subtle metaphor of a state of awareness and the burden of thought. Is the need to express this the primary function of art? Imagine if all the thoughts you possess could be turned into a physicality instead of an abstract idea ( even matching or outweighting your weight).
We are awaiting the harvest. we are awaiting a return of some grand hope. We are constantly traveling to an unown destination to meet at a certain point and plane -existing and swirling in time. Memories, random thoughts, aspirations, fears,etc.become stockpiled. this stockpile is transformed into a substance-dirt and sand. growth and expansion-contained and obscured.