Tequesta artist Diane Arrieta is exhibiting a “sustainability piece” under her pseudonym Birds Are Nice, which she uses when she exhibits works with an environmental message.
She and Jupiter artist Jackie Kern collaborated to make Birds in the Hood, which features a wrapped tree growing out of a shopping cart. A portable DVD player in the one of the branches plays a movie of birds in a nest, complete with chirping.
“It’s about how consumerism is driving biodiversity loss,” said Arrieta, who is pursuing an advanced degree in biodiversity and wildlife health. If the trend isn’t arrested, “the only way we’ll be able to see birds in the future is through archived video footage.”
We have a conversation going here, about words ~ the right word, the perfect word, in the beginning was the Word, the precise word, Art Plotnik’s punchy and fresh word.
Words create the world we live in. The Talmud says, “We do not see the world as it is, but as we are.” Patty gave us the “word guy” to demonstrate The Power of Words. I offer you this. It is too eloquent to tuck away in the comment section.
Tom Waits has appeared on this site before. His unique rendition of Young At Heart is on my September post. Don’t you just love it?
…………..
Since then, Waits has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After the rambling intro by Neil Young, there’s a series of clips from his movie work and a few vintage live performances. Waits is in great form. He joins guitarist Marc Ribot for a live performance of “Make It Rain” and “Rain Dogs” and spins off a few anecdotes. Waits muses: “Songs are just very interesting things to be doing with the air.”
……….
………
Musician, songwriter and poet. Tom Waits published his first collection of poems in March 2011 in collaboration with photographer Michael O’Brien. Called Hard Ground, the book combines Waits’ words with O’Brien’s gritty pictures of homeless people. Waits has always been the bard of the down-and-out and O’Brien is a veteran photojournalist who has photographed the homeless throughout his career. O’Brien also shot the cover of Waits’ recent “Glitter and Doom” album (above). All proceeds will go to the Redwood Food Bank, Sonoma County’s Homeless Referral Services and Family Support Center. These ‘outsider artists’ are making a difference in the lives of people in need. Even if you aren’t a traditional fan of poetry or Tom Waits, check out this project.
This is a publishing debut for Waits, a songwriter who, after 40 years, dozens of film appearances and about 20 albums, has noticeably avoided committing himself to print. He says, “Poetry is a very dangerous word. I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet. So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.”
……………
…………
Despite having issues in the past with that “very dangerous” word, however, Waits embraces the format in his song lyrics, readings, and, most recently, in his performance of a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem.
Hard Ground is serious and sincere. O’Brien spent 30 years as a photojournalist, winning prizes for his portraits and returned several times to the theme of homelessness. In the book, he and Waits convey the “common humanity” of people who live on the streets. They let the words and images “communicate on their own terms, rather than merely illustrate each other”. Hard Ground is modeled on the 1941 classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which combines James Agee’s poetry and Walker Evans’s photographs of Depression-era farmers.
………..
………..
This incorrigible dreamer, the son of two schoolteachers, is one raggedly beautiful poet. Take the story of Tom and Martha. Forty years after parting, Tom Frost calls his old sweetheart, Martha, and invites her for coffee to talk over old times~ the days of roses, poetry and prose. A simple tune. A plunky-sounding piano. A gravelly voice. Tom Waits shines his light on enduring love.
