one more six from 2012

Six 2012 images courtesy of intrepid Elf.

Explore. Discover. Dance. Dream. Create.

awareness

There are  absolutely no metaphors, just observations. 

The artist maps reality.

That's the cat-and-mouse game between the artist and the world. And it's just not the artist who plays it. Each of us is in the cat-and-mouse game with our perceptual life. Do we really see ourselves?

Or do we see only what obtrudes in daylight?

Do we crash through our nightlife, scattering subtle things that abide there?

Or do we simply watch without judgment, in the expectation of learning something? - John Cage

 

a short story

Once upon a time there was a king.

The king wanted a painting. He'd heard about a famous painter in a distant village. "I don't care how much it costs," said the king. He sent a messenger to the painter.

"My king wants a painting," said the messenger. "Ok," said the painter, "give me two million gold coins and come back later." The messenger paid.

The messanger came back a year later. "It's not finished yet," said the painter. "Come back later."

Ten years passed.

The messenger returned. "Where is the painting for the king?"

The painter grabbed a canvas and painted a painting. "Here, give this to the king."

"What, you just made it!" said the messenger.

"Yes," said the painter, "but I've been thinking about it for ten years."

draw god

Once upon a time there was a class of kids. An art class.

One girl who didn't pay much attention in class was seriously focused on drawing.

For 20 minutes she kept her head down working on her paper.

Her teacher was curious. He walked over.

What are you drawing, he asked.

I am drawing the face of God, she said.

Surprised, the teacher said, But no one has ever seen the face of God.

They will in a moment, she said.

push them through teol school

One of the tyrannies of formal education, said Orphan, is how it takes 12 tedious ominous years to beat creative curiosity out of a child. It's a tortuous Byzantine procedure of endless suffering.

I agree with you, Elf said in simple English. Take Turkey for example. It's all dumbed down grammar text-based learning dulling the mind. By the book. Keep your mouth shut, warn teachers conditioned by the machine using fear to control and maipulate.

Yeah, they know the grammar RULES for taking exams. That's it. Past simple, present continuous and NO SPEAK.

They love RULES.

They need vocabulary and the confidence to use it. Open head, heart and mouth. Risk.

I eat my sorrow with fresh yogurt, said a woman opening her creative notebook to a blank page. She wrote. She drew. She danced colors, dreams, rainbows, the Black Sea, caricatures of friends, flowers, gardens and butterflies.

I feel free, she laughed.

Use it or lose it, said a silver spoon dancing around brown tea leaves dissolving a white sugar cube. 

Clink, clink, clink.

Do you want a verb to get going, asked a tea man.

On the side please with fresh tomatoes, kasher cheese and black olives at Hagia Sophia in Trebazon.