FACEBOOK "LIKES"

What I "LIKE" on Facebook....Shadows, obscurity, abstract photos and paintings, absurdities of life, close-ups of miraculous flowers and landscapes, friends getting together to eat of perform to the camera, students who still have hope and made-it through to graduation, photo art of political and social reality, young animals and kids, non-clichéd paintings and drawings, visionary architecture, simple hard true realizations for the heart and spirit, friendship and love, revolution without murder, dark and dry humor, brilliant unique performers, good and bad singers and musicians who touch my soul, tiny details of life that are beautiful but no one notices,

ART FOR ART

Broad Art Museum, Michigan

WHAT IS POSSIBLE . . .

Leosvel and Diosmani...gymnastics and strength on a French TV show. Watch until the end. Incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=J2brlhHMJw0

ART

BEST WRITTEN TV SERIES

101

BEST WRITTEN 

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
(meaning eliminating most of the world)
TV SERIES 

OF ALL TIME
(meaning 60 years)

Chosen by WGA Members 

[Writers' Guild of America],

the professional association 

which every film/television writer joins 

(voted by internet, 6/13).....

Some great series were left out, 

but (as writer/director/teacher)

I agree with 95% of these choices. 

Every film and television student and writer 

should watch ALL of these. 

Really!

POLITICAL ART CAN BE GOOD ART

ARTISTS: Self-promotion is not wrong and doesn't pollute art...if you have something worthwhile to promote.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/arts/design/ai-weiwei-dioramas-depict-his-imprisonment.html

ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL / ALTERNATIVE LIFE

The diverse human struggle to live a happier, more meaningful life radiates hope.....

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/26/magazine/26look-lagos.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130526&_r=0

ART and art

GREAT ART uses many different, constantly changing, carefully chosen and carefully crafted techniques (art language) in a single painting, to reveal deeper levels of thought and feeling....

MINOR ART discovers one or two new techniques and maintains them obsessively -- afraid to break through the surface, lose control, make mistakes, do failed paintings, or lose temporal reputations and sales. This very human, but anti-creative fear can be seen in a single painting, a series of paintings, or throughout an entire career....

There is nothing wrong with minor art. It can give us great immediate visual pleasure, make us laugh, feel a simple non-challenging emotion, and make our boring ugly environment more interesting or pretty....

But minor and great art are not interchangeable, and should not be mistaken for each other by art lovers, critics, museums, buyers, art teachers, art students, or other serious artists. The actual fate of our civilization and the human spirit depend on knowing, admitting, and celebrating the difference.

TO ARTISTS . . . . .

RAY HARRYHAUSEN

Ray Harryhausen, a nice man, legend of creative, hand-made, non-digital special effects in movies, died. Age 92. He learned from Willis O'Brien, and added art, humor, and warmth to his mentor's visual inventions. Low-cost, humanly imperfect, Ray's effects made the films accessible to kids and adult audiences in way that perfect photo-realism can never do....

Now that film, film pioneers, and hand-hewn story-telling are virtually extinct, it is sad, but fitting, that Ray goes on to have fun in imperfect Heaven. He leaves new scientific technology to more greedy, less talented, and certainly less charming Hollywood feature videogame entrepreneurs.

A BOULDER OF MUSIC

George Jones died.  He did not pass away.  Anyone who has ever been emotionally moved by carefully-crafted modern country pop music, should listen to his old-fashioned truthful albums.  His songs are shot from his heart into your ears, without dilution by producers, managers, marketeers, or public image ego.

George Jones lived a tortured self-destructive life, but instead of physically killing others or himself, he turned his love and pain into intimate art that he shared courageously with anyone who would listen.  His singing style was not manufactured to win screaming concert fans, or to sell 100 albums he recorded.....Everything in George Jones' songs - his traumatic voice, unequaled precise phrasing, brilliant succinct poetry lyrics - was straight from his soul.  It was not entertainment.  A life was at stake.

WALL ART

THRILLING / MESSY / SCRIBBLE / ART

FACEBOOK

The Facebook that I see has a flood of streaming photos with cute girls and boys of all ages and persuasions, stunning CUs of flowers and nature, thousands of smiling classmates posing with V-fingers or horror movie faces, a few soft-core effective body photos, political pro-human/anti-evil protests, serious truthful international news from the Colonialist BBC and Muslim TV station, pro-Obama public relations that I want to believe (with the instinctive hateful anti-Obama comments), lots of YouTube videos interesting and not, really funny sites with all levels of humor and social satire, delicious food food food, photos of patterns and of nothing that are real art, graffiti and official museum art, insightful film reviews, a few ads for things I don't use or don't like or can't afford, endless good-feeling sayings and advice that no one who is human can ever follow.

This is my Facebook....hundreds of friends I never meet, and cannot touch with my hands, brain, heart, or spirit. This is Communication in the 21st Century. I prefer the 20th Century, or 18th, or 15th..... except I probably would have died of plague, starvation, war, or torture by now, and wouldn't have been an artist or teacher creating in relative freedom and security.

I'm naively and deeply disappointed in the Facebook God, but not in the Facebook users.

[Painting by artist Andrew, on Facebook]

TO OUR GRADUATES

Life, as told by Lee Ang

REMINDERS

W  H  A  T     I     L  E  A  R  N  E  D

                      

I was a teacher for the past 5 months. Sometimes I think I was a great teacher. (Some of my students wrote me emotional letters...after I gave them grades.) Sometimes I think I was a bad teacher, because there was so much I wanted to communicate, but could not. (Laziness? Language and cultural barriers? Just Life?)

Most of all, I was and always will be, a student....Paid more than my students. Treated with more respect than my students. With more life experience, self-confidence, and the "wisdom" of age (maybe), than my students.

What did I learn? (Of course, as soon as I learn something, I forget it and must continuously re-learn it.).....

I learned that everybody's pain feels the same.