form: poetry + politics

Water

2012-01-12T20:51:00.000-05:00

What usually interests me is the manner in which humans have invented forms for dealing with water - protecting from it, drinking it, storing it, using it for movement, and forms of pure enjoyment.

it's complicated

2012-01-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

It is a very strange world in which we live. We could live in a garden of Eden, yet we accept pollution, environmental degradation, over population, squalor and ignorance. We prefer war over discussion (even at the level of interpersonal relationships).

Yet, it is a wonderful world! Trees sprout from the sidewalks, fish swim in the Gowanus canal (occasionally). Life is tenacious, complicated, beautiful.

The Greeks shall inherit the earth

2012-01-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

I love that Monty Python interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.

But according to the NY Times, that is just what young Greeks are doing: they are opting out of the global corporate hegemony in favor of artisanal agriculture. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/world/europe/amid-economic-strife-greeks-look-to-farming-past.html?_r=1&hp

I have been looking a lot at contemporary agriculture and urban agriculture, in relation to overall systems of buildings that produce rather than simply consume. The global trend has been towards increased urbanization. Globally today, 50% of the world's population resides in cities. But upon what is the prediction that this will continue? The number of farms in Maine, for instance, increased this year for the first time in decades, reversing a trend towards consolidation. It is a complicated decision, based on economics, lifestyle, politics, philosophy... This is not an isolated trend. We see it in Brooklyn and Detroit and Nairobi as well.

"When I make a drawing, I labor."

2011-09-26T10:00:00.005-05:00

"I can touch a letter. When I get it, I know immediately from whom it is and there is a presence of the person who did it. When something is removed from touch it has no reality for me. Email has no reality whatsoever. When you write with a typewriter… Acconci said once in a very beautiful little lecture that when you touch a letter (on the typewriter) the mechanics of the finger imprinting the letter on a white piece of paper—the white piece of paper is fragile—it might be and will be violated with the first letter you put on. In order to erase this letter you either have to destroy the paper or use the white out. But in a computer text you only have to push one button and the text is gone. Simply gone. I am fearful when I draw, when I write, because I have too much respect for the medium. When I make a drawing, I labor. It’s not easy."

-Raimund Abraham

Lebbeus Woods has been doing an ongoing series of posts about his trip with Raimund to La Tourette to have a discourse regarding architecture. The transcription is lengthy, and I have not read the whole yet. This particular quote is of interest to me. I like seeing the hand in drawings. It immediately communicates the imperfection and personality of the draft-person. There is something personal and mortal about the artifact. I recall a wall I once had in a bedroom long ago. It was exposed brick. One morning I noticed indentations in the brick. They were the marks of fingers imprinted into the wet clay made sometime in the 1860s. There is a kind of homeopathic quality to what Raimund describes - an aura left by the person even though the actual physical presence has been diluted 10,000 times.

Of course I can flip this argument around. Computer drawings are becoming more and more personal. Individual approaches are becoming more... individual. In my teaching I frequently say that drawing is not about the hand, it is about the mind. A drawing is a construction first in the mind.

Still, I like to see the hand. A slight waver of line weight, a splatter of paint, construction lines, a change of mind. These are all traces of the life and history of a work, thus an extension of the individual.

Fire

2011-09-07T09:29:00.009-05:00

Fire represents energy. My fire pictures are everything from actual fire, to electrical transmission lines, to gas stations. Our culture is utterly dependent upon abstracted fire (I just made that up!). By "abstracted fire," I mean the energy of fire removed from its source - a distillation.

I have a love/hate relationship with this abstracted fire. It is a marvel to be able to flick a switch and have light. We have devised many magical contrivances to modulate that light. On the other hand, this abstraction has turned into complacency. This abstracted fire typically has its origins in fossilized sunlight, in the form of oil, coal and gas. This material has been a gift to mankind as great as Prometheus'. But it is turning to a curse - climate change as a result of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

Earth

2011-09-06T20:20:00.007-05:00

Earth is a big territory, but harder to photograph than air or water. It includes things like rocks, but mostly it is the medium of growth for plants, thus these photos largely examine plants as an extension of the earth. A favorite theme is the plant in relation to human structures. They seek out impossible places to grow, where there is a tiny bit of earth, and then somehow prosper.

Air

2011-09-04T20:08:00.009-05:00

I am an amateur photographer. I lack the editing and printing technique that could make me a professional. I do have, however, an eye and a point of view. Perhaps that makes me more than an amateur. There are many out there with technique and really great equipment who don't have any eye. Generally I have been posting these photos to Facebook, which is a venue much more informal. Also, Facebook allows me to create and add to albums, so that it is an ongoing project. A blog post is finite.

This album is Air. I have long loved the simplicity of the Aristotelian elements: air, earth, fire, water. They are, of course, technically antique, but they are still conceptually vibrant. These photos look at the elements from a number of points of view. Sometimes just reveling in how beautiful they are. Others look at the interaction with the human. The elements are a way of exploring our relationship with nature.

Blogging is tough

2011-09-03T19:16:00.002-05:00

I find it much easier and more fluid to post to Facebook. It is less formal, and I feel I don't have to be as on-message. Which is odd - most of the visual material I post to facebook I feel is of a high visual quality. Thus the blog posts I feel have to be well considered. I should probably do what Lebbeus Woods does, and do a post once a week.

Form Poems 110102-110218

2011-09-03T19:08:00.006-05:00

the "48" was a birthday card for Annie

The Mirror of the Sea

2011-09-02T13:49:00.003-05:00

"We remain in everlasting bondage to the productions of our brain and to the work of our hands. A man is bound to serve his time on this earth, and there is something fine in the service being given on other grounds than that of utility. The bondage of art is very exacting."
-Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea

At times, as artists, we look to the words of our colleagues for inspiration, justification, fortification (making art is tough business).

The Mirror of the Sea

2011-09-01T20:00:00.003-05:00

"The attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital concern. Efficiency of a practiacally flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond - a higher point, a subtle and unmistakeable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill, almost an inspiration which ives to all work that finish which is almost art -- which IS art."
-Joseph Conrad-The Mirror of the Sea

Form Poems100902-101215

2011-08-30T19:46:00.005-05:00

finally completed posts for 2010

Form Poem 100915 Front and Back

2011-08-29T20:54:00.004-05:00

Man in the Street

2011-06-15T08:33:00.001-05:00

My teacher Stephan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on 14th Street and 6th Avenue… He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window and he said “what about the man on the street?” At that moment, Jackson Pollack was crossing the street.
-Morton Feldman, composer

Alexey Titarenko

2011-05-31T08:42:00.004-05:00

Alexey Titarenko
Some of his works are really haunting. The time lapse is just fast enough to register moving people, but slow enough that they appear as ghosts, captured in perhaps a momentary hang in their movement through spaces. Meanwhile, the surrounding buildings are fixed monuments, indifferent to our presence.

Michelle Hagewood

2011-05-30T13:06:00.001-05:00

Michelle Hagewood
I love these images. They are detailed and nuanced. They are also fun, made up of the recognizable pieces of our modern built environment. They work at once as a purely formal experiment and as comment.

Heaven and Hell

2011-05-29T09:49:00.004-05:00

Watching commercial television in a community that is probably the most representative of America, I am struck by the number of advertisements for oil, coal, and natural gas. Even on the news programs, there is almost no discussion of viable renewable alternatives, and little discussion of climate change. Advertisement works, otherwise corporations wouldn't engage in it. This is what substitutes for education in this culture, a kind of saturation bombing of thought. Meanwhile there is no alternate voice. This distorts the issue. Instead of rational planning, it comes down to a matter of opinion, a war won by those with the money to put their viewpoint across.

A couple of thoughts...
I am an advocate of free speech. I would not want to place a gag on anyone. But in this case, the concentration of money effectively silences the voice of the majority. A gag on advertisement appears to have been effective in reducing smoking. Packages of cigarettes are likewise required to sport very visible information on the health consequences of use. Could such a gag be mandated for products that produce greenhouse gases? Since they have potential health consequences for many people.

Heaven and Hell have been effective tools used by the church to influence behavior successfully for two millennia. Could simple heaven and hell ads be effective at describing the alternatives? The anti-smoking ads appear effective. Why shouldn't we scare the crap out of people? It seems that the population is not nearly worried enough.

Build, LLC

2011-05-06T12:25:00.003-05:00

Build LLC is a design/build company in Seattle. They have a lot of good information and they communicate it well. Their top ten reasons Why Design/Build is so Good is pretty informative. They have a very clean modern aesthetic. There's nothing ground-breaking about it, but you can tell that they can deliver for a good price point. They have developed a system. I do have some issues with the suburban nature of the projects, but that isn't really about their work as the environment in which they do their work in general. Clearly they have their own cabinet shop. Their cabinet work is very tidy, and it really makes the projects. The horizontal grain bamboo looks great.

Passive House - more observations

2011-05-03T09:02:00.005-05:00

Passive House is a pretty rigorous system:
-annual energy consumption for heating and cooling is limited to 4,755 Btu per square foot;
-air infiltration is set at a maximum of 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure;
-annual primary energy usage (energy consumed by appliances, lighting, and other devices not directly related to heating and cooling) is capped at 11.1 kilowatt hours per square foot.

There are also stringent standards regarding what is considered square footage. Only living space is considered in the calculation. Thus, larger houses with wasted space don't get to consider that waste in their energy budget.

A house in Maine (built by my cousins-in-law, actually) has R-49 walls, R-57 roof, and R-74 beneath the concrete-slab floors. I don't quite know structurally how you float a building on 16" of foam, but I'll talk to the engineers about that. I suppose that the conductivity of direct earth is a significant heat loss. It seems counter-intuitive somehow, since the ground can be a significant source of heat if the freezing can be isolated. In this case, the mass of the slab is being used to maintain the interior temperatures. I believe they indicated that there was no mechanical plant in the building.

PV Roof

2011-05-02T21:03:00.003-05:00

I know that the patterning is purely accidental - the product of the existing equipment on the roof. But it starts to resemble some of my drawings in an odd way. With the right tweek, it could actually have a really powerful effect.

2011-04-17T11:39:00.000-05:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More architecture

My Dinner's Journey

2011-04-11T12:06:00.008-05:00

1500 miles or 2400 km. This is the average distance that food travels to be on a table in the United States. I've been thinking about how to represent this. Right now I've run a few stats.

In some ways, this is an homage to Walter di Maria's Broken Kilometer.

I thought about string or thread. A spool of thread of 550 yards is 503 meters or about 0.5 km. That would be 4800 spools.

A 2x4 is typically 8’-0” long. Laying 2x4s on end would require 990,000 2x4s.

I did a CAD drawing on 8.5x11 paper. It was purely lines spaced very close together. Each line was 9 53/64” long, which is 0.25 meters. 4 lines was 1 meter. Each page hold
s 100 m. Thus 24,000 pages (12,000 sheets, double sided) are needed to represent 2400 km. A ream is 500 sheets. That means 24 reams.

None of these felt right. It should be food representing food. So I have arrived at spaghetti. Spaghetti has a consistent size, and the packaging works well with the modular method of display of the quantities. A randomly selected one pound box of thin spaghetti contained 728 pieces. Each piece on average is approximately 0.25 meters. Therefore each box is 182 meters. 13,187 boxes equals the 2400 km.

Winni Wintermeyer

2011-04-08T09:14:00.004-05:00

I came across this photographer's work a couple of weeks ago. Much like previous posts, this artist strikes a chord with me. Again, these are all pictures I have taken, but done with a great deal more quality than I can summon. I have a real affection for night photography. I think this is in many ways a way of seeing the world much different from previous centuries. The ubiquitous presence of electric lighting has lit the world in a way heretofore unknown. I also like the odd house form with the elaborate walkway leading to an empty door in the middle of a wetland.

Solar Sterling engine combined heating and power

2011-04-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

I just came across this amazing contraption. It's a solar powered Sterling engine that generates electricity, hot water, heating, and and absorption chiller for air conditioning. I saw it in Solar Today magazine. It is a wild, almost Dr. Seuss-like contraption that generates electricity through solar thermal. A Sterling engine works on thermal expansion and compression of a fluid in a closed system, unlike a steam engine which relies on pressure to fill and push a cylinder and is then exhausted. The system is called DiGeSPo - Distributed combined heat and power Generation from small size concentrated Solar Power. It uses an evacuated solar tube collector with a parabolic concentrator for the heat source. Pretty nifty. Apparently there are two sizes, a 1-3 kW and a 3-6 kW. Not yet on the market. I also don't know the heating and cooling output.

The shape of meaning

2011-04-06T09:35:00.001-05:00

"Is all verse poetry or all poetry verse? - Depends on definitions of both. Poetry is speech framed for contemplation of the mind by the way of hearing or speech framed to be heard for its own sake and interest even over and above its interest of meaning. Some matter and meaning is essential to it but only as an element necessary to support and employ the shape which is contemplated for its own sake."
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, from "Poetry and Verse"

I posted this earlier. I am still divided. Hopkins privileges form over content - a decidedly modernist notion. My ambivalence stems from the fact that unless you speak in a foreign language, the meaning of the language cannot be ignored. Further, even in a foreign language, that meaning is communicated through the tone of the piece. Words are cannot be stripped of the meaning. The form of the poetry reinforces the content. Without the form, it would not be poetry.

2011-04-05T15:44:00.002-05:00

My problems with the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission are deep. While I don't dispute the motive of preserving the character of neighborhoods and buildings, I do have problems with the manner in which they are pursued. For one, their principles are only applied politically. If you want to gut a designated landmark and build a 40 story office tower on it, that is deemed appropriate. Yet heaven forefend one propose an addition on the back of a brownstone! They seem consistent in their caprice.

I just came across their updated Rowhouse Manual http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/lp_rhmanual.pdf. In true LPC fashion, they have missed a great opportunity. A truly essential element to all building today is the manner in which they conserve energy. In New York the energy efficient renovation of historical structures is a huge opportunity to reduce our environmental footprint. The rowhouse manual is solely concerned with how things look, not how they work. There is no discussion of how one might improve performance while maintaining the historical character. While I understand that the manual's primary mission is an understanding of best practices for preservation, some discussion of other building practices would make a large contribution, at least through broaching the subject to the public. LPC has again missed the tenor of the times and remain mired in their 19th century Disneyland vision.

I just want to make art - but is that okay?

2011-04-04T08:56:00.010-05:00

I really just want to be an artist. Why am I engaged in politics? Why do I devote so much of my brain to the issue of climate change and public policy? I really just want to draw. If our world cannot get it together, what hope do I have of making a difference? I have already proven that I cannot even coax a group of academics to share a vision, let alone the rest of society.

It comes down to this: I feel I have an obligation. We collectively are in a bizarre state of denial about the impacts our culture, our economy, our way of life is having on our environment. It is much easier to deny than take action that might be uncomfortable. I am guilty of this. I find it much easier to pursue the formal composition than it is to address the more difficult problems of our culture. I am still transfixed by Edgar Allen Poe's observation about poetry:

"Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged… We have taken into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in true Poetic dignity and force: - but the simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified – more supremely noble than this very poem – this poem per se – this poem which is a poem and nothing more – this poem written solely for the poem’s sake."
-Edgar Allen Poe, The Poetic Principle

I am torn between morality and poetry. In some ways, Poe is right - a lot of bad art has been made in the service of morality. Then again, we have the Clash, Kathe Kollwitz, Francisco Goya, and Leonard Baskin to remind us that art can be both.

Wedges

2011-04-03T11:13:00.005-05:00

There is a NY Times series called "Disunion," about the American Civil War. Today's was "How Slavery Really Ended in America." Apparently General Butler, in charge of Ft. Monroe in Virginia, created the wedge that eventually led to the emancipation of African slaves. Little known is that slaves were not emancipated at the start of hostilities. The north was still hoping for reconciliation and continuing to recognize the abhorrent practice of considering people to be property was part of that strategy of mollification. Butler refused to return runaway slaves. He argued that they were contraband. Like guns and ammunition, the slaves were being used to further the Confederate war effort, thus were fair game to be confiscated. Believe it or not, at the start of the war, runaway slaves were frequently returned to their bellicose owners. This stratagem circumvented that policy. This stratagem was a wedge that went viral.

Today we stand in an awkward position in relation to carbon emissions. If the worse case scenarios turn out to be true, we are looking at mass famines as the food system collapses; abject poverty; lack of potable water; intense storms and weather extremes. We have a moral dilemma. We have an existential dilemma. Much like slavery, we wed ourselves to a system we know to be morally indefensible. But wholesale abandonment of that system could also be catastrophic, not merely uncomfortable. Do we take on the issue and work towards a change? Or like the Civil War, do we wait for a precipitous calamity with untold violence, death, privation and misery? What is the wedge that begins to unravel the knot?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

2011-03-23T10:02:00.004-05:00

It is 99 years from the fictional start of the book. Francie Nolan's family were intensely poor. There is no glamor in how they lived. But there was an intense economy and gratefulness for those things they had. I would not welcome that level of privation. But I would welcome, as a society, that level of thrift, and a focusing of resources on those things that are important.

"The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked a like a lot of green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts."
-Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Paul Hawken via Janine Benyus

2011-03-21T10:43:00.002-05:00

"Government, in its role as tax collector, might play a natural role in rewiring our economic steering wheel to its drive train. Paul Hawken thinks we've had it backward. Instead of taxing good things like income, Hawken would like to see government tax bad things like pollution or excessive use of energy or virgin materials. Taxing fuels based on carbon content, for instance (more carbon is more damaging), would encourage use of low-polluting fuels like natural gas in every stage of a product's life cycle."
Janine Benyus, Biomimicry

This is a further argument for a carbon tax. Taxes were originally conceived as a way to pay for government services - the military in particular. The Egyptians most certainly used it as a way of creating stability. Grain acquired via taxation would be stored and dispensed in times of famine. Thus the wise ruler used the system to benefit her/his people, and to plan for the vicissitudes of nature. A tax on the carbon dioxide content of fossil fuels would have much the same effect - we would conserve more of it.

Form Poems - Composite Pieces

2011-03-16T13:00:00.007-05:00

These drawings make up the composite posted earlier this month. The drawings are part of a larger drawing started in the last millennium and never completed. I cut it up into 6"x6" pieces and tackled each one as an individual drawing. Much like an exquisite corpse, I then reassembled the pieces into the composition again. I did not do the pieces in order, but rather took them on as to how they interested me.

Doug Aitkin - Living Word

2011-03-09T10:53:00.003-05:00

I like this piece. I'm not that crazy about Aitkin's work in general, but this piece has some intellectual and formal potential. There's the whole green wall thing that he has appropriated, and through that appropriation brought this green technology into another sphere of awareness. Then there is the use of language, which recurs in my own work. We really cannot separate the form from its representation. In this case, "sex," brings to mind a whole lot of complicated relationships. It is also a provocative word/concept. I have to ask the question, are the content (sex) and the vehicle (the green wall) really furthering an idea? Or are they simply cohabiting? My take is the latter. I was minimally trained in graphic design, and I learned that message and vehicle needed to share some common intent - that there should be a symmetry or symbiosis. To some extent, I have evolved past this, and accept a level of ambiguity. I am glad that it doesn't say "green," or "life," or something else predictable. But in this case the provocative content overshadows the ambiguity of the relationship.

Composite

2011-03-08T22:28:00.000-05:00

I found this drawing started almost twenty years ago. It was on a 36x36 sheet of Strathmore. It was just a pencil outline. I cut up the live area into 25 pieces of 6x6 paper (my preferred format) and completed each as an individual drawing. Here I reassemble. The fragments were interesting problems, but also gave this snap shot like compositional feel to each that I rather enjoyed.

America

2011-03-06T22:06:00.005-05:00

I took this picture a few years ago. It seems to embody American building. We have the traditional pitched roof structure (the "housey-house," or "Standard American Dwelling"), and it is tied to a source of electricity. The building is windowless, shutting out the natural world - and it is not just the point of view of the camera.

It is also of note that we call electricity a source of "power." Indeed, energy companies control much more power than the ability to do work.

Gas

2011-03-03T17:23:00.003-05:00

I was just listening to NPR describe the current increase in gas prices. The attached image was taken 2 September 2010. Gas was $2.33/gal locally. It is currently $3.39. Six months. I think it should be far more, like $6/gal. My problem with the current situation is that the prices go up because of speculators sucking money out of our pockets. I would far more prefer a tax that sets a floor. If gas prices rise, the tax goes down, but the cost is consistent. This is what investors in renewable energy want. As per a previous post, a mere $0.78/gal tax would start to make a difference. From all reports, we are looking at $4/gal again this summer. It's odd, if we had a gas tax which could potentially offset other taxes, like income tax which would be good for both businesses and individuals, that is considered government over-reaching its authority. Yet we can have commodity speculators taking the money out of the system with no benefit to the country, yet that is the free market at work.

Beautiful People

2011-03-02T11:01:00.001-05:00

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."
-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

I owe my awareness of this quote to Jennifer Hudson's Facebook status.

Group Drawing 100505

2011-02-28T10:36:00.003-05:00

This was drawn following student reviews by Jassen Callender, Burak Erdim, Mark Wise, and myself. The media are pen, Tabasco and beer on napkin.

Form Poems 100503-100609

2011-02-28T10:33:00.003-05:00

Junya Ishigami

2011-02-27T22:05:00.002-05:00

I have an odd fascination with Ishigami's drawings. Intentionally naive, nonetheless I like the attempt to draw nature. Nature is terribly inconvenient to architectural representation. Trees and plants are hard to draw. They cover up and layer on to the structure, making it difficult to describe the form and material. I like Ishigami's answer - it's not about verisimilitude, it's about the idea.

Anton Trofymov

2011-02-25T12:15:00.007-05:00

http://www.trofymov.com/

I just came across this photographer's work via the Brooklyn Arts Council, where he is having a show. His night photos in particular are technically excellent, and have a haunting quality, yet are not overtly threatening. He appears to be shooting with a 4x5 camera, and makes a clearly determined effort to make his shots with care.

On a personal note, some of his images are of places which I have also attempted to photograph, but with far less success. He is also achieving something which I often strive for in my work - this brooding quality of purely architectural space.

Great work.

Food is a Weapon

2011-02-24T22:09:00.003-05:00

I don't remember where I found these images. I was researching a piece on food and architecture, and was thinking about the Victory Garden of WW II. I have found various stats on them, but there are claims that as much as 40% of US produce was coming from them during the war. They represent a potential model for the future.

Another potential model is the public awareness. This does work if the message is consistent. At present, we are a divided society. We need a common goal (or enemy). It is really hard when the enemy is us. Which brings me to Walt Kelly's poster for the first Earth Day. Self-consciousness is an effective tool.

Wisdom and Knowledge

2011-02-24T17:46:00.004-05:00

"Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times."
This is the inscription above the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Place. I made the quip
"okay, we're screwed." We appear to be in a time of collective denial of the systems of knowledge that we have developed. I appreciate skepticism. It allows us to question received wisdom and the distortion of facts. Skepticism has lead to the development of the scientific method and peer review. It provides for regulatory oversight and third party verification. It gives us a way to trust.

But how to explain Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/science/earth/23virginia.html?_r=1&ref=science. The science of climate analysis is incredibly robust. It has sustained repeated assault with no evidence of wrong doing. It is minutely reviewed. Yet, there are no calls for senate or congressional hearings. Faith has replaced knowledge. Cleverness has replaced wisdom. Cucccinelli I fear is pursuing this for cynical and self-serving reasons. Why others less intelligent and informed than he abandon wisdom and knowledge I have more sympathy for: it forms the basis of their way of life. To believe that we are permanently damaging the global environment through our daily actions is hard to accept, especially when we cannot see any effect - CO2 is invisible.

I can only pray for reason to return.

Libya

2011-02-21T22:48:00.003-05:00

I did a nice drawing last night. I had fun. But somehow it seems particularly trivial in relation to the events unfolding in Libya. People were rather shocked when I credited Hosni Mubarak with a relatively peaceful withdrawal from power. True, blood was shed and lives lost, but in comparison to what is happening right now in Libya, it was relatively peaceful. I wish the Libyan people courage. I hope Khadafi recognizes the injustice (and futility) of his actions and does the right thing - its time to go.

Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin

2011-02-20T22:33:00.005-05:00

Wisconsin? Rather than have their rights quashed by a strident governor, members of public unions are protesting the governors machinations to deny them the right to bargain as a group. They have shown a willingness to make financial concessions, but they are not willing to give up their shared voice. As the Tunisians, Egyptians, and others throughout the middle east have shown, it is only through that collected voice are they heard. I only hope that Wisconsin is merely a beginning in this country. Entrenched corporate self interest has been well represented in this country for too long and is stifling true innovation. It is not about capitalism, it is about protection of market share. The current power and money are protecting their turf, to the detriment of the poor and middle class. Ultimately to the detriment of our environment. It has put a block on any meaningful progress on climate change, health care, and a broad spectrum of other issues that are crippling our economy and quality of life.

My cheers for these people in Wisconsin, for challenging this attempt to silence their voice. Throughout the middle east, ordinary people have so far overthrown two dictators in the region, and have their sights on many more. Tunisia and Egypt were relatively non-violent - very few deaths. Do we Americans have the same commitment? I am afraid we are still too well fed. But I could be wrong - we need to look to Wisconsin.

Form Poems 100227-100315

2011-02-20T18:18:00.002-05:00

Home Ownership

2011-02-14T18:30:00.002-05:00

Two federal programs that support home ownership appear to be in question: the government backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the mortgage interest tax deduction. Both of these threaten to substantially increase the cost of home ownership. But lets look at the big picture: both of these favor home owners at the expense of those who rent. Also, these programs make bigger houses farther out from city centers and work more affordable. They enabled the almost doubling of house sizes in the past 60 years. They enabled two car families.

Perhaps we don't need to eliminate the program entirely. Houses that meet certain criteria of energy efficiency and proximity to services or mass transit could be eligible for low interest home loans backed by the government. Similarly, energy efficient upgrades could be eligible for no interest loans and 100% tax credits.

The elimination of the tax credits makes me fear that I will never be able to own again in New York. But that is personal self interest. The bigger picture is perhaps more positive.

Form Poems 100217-100226

2011-02-09T21:43:00.003-05:00

There are some good ones in this series (at least I think so - but then who am I).

Form Poems 090922-100216

2011-02-09T21:40:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 090912-090921

2011-02-09T21:36:00.002-05:00

Crud, I haven't posted any form poems since last year. Here goes...

Poetry

2011-02-09T21:05:00.002-05:00

I wanted to verify my citing of poetry as coming from the ancient Greek (which I knew, but there is an old English history as well - a "maker" is a poet). So I googled. What I found surprised me. Not the amount of hits, but that only Wikipedia has a definition. "Poetry (from the [Greek] 'poiesis'/ποίησις [poieo/ποιεω], a making: a forming, creating, or the art of poetry, or a poem) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning." No other sites, not the Library of Congress, not the Poetry Foundation, not the Academy of American Poets - no one has dared venture to define the art. Yes, to define it is to close it, but provide a wedge into the conversation. Give friction against which to rub to challenge. I feel my drawings challenge the Wikipedia definition, at the same time as they affirm it.

Refrigerators

2011-02-05T11:32:00.004-05:00

No exactly sexy reading.

I found this site http://www.toptenusa.org/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in the US. I also found this site http://www.topten.info/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in Europe. What a difference.

1. The ranking is based on energy use per unit of volume. This is not necessarily the best ranking. The least consuming refrigerators should be placed first, regardless of size. A very large refrigerator might out perform a smaller one based on the kWh/volume ranking, but a smaller fridge uses less energy overall. The former ranking encourages a larger-than-needed appliance.

2. The best US refrigerators use 335 kWh/year. The best performing EU refrigerators use at most 211 kWh/year for their largest units. They determine that fridges that use more than 296 kWh/year are inefficient.

Why don't we see European models being mimicked here in the US?

In general, EU fridges are smaller than US fridges. There are also much higher performing units at the smaller end of the size range. Unit efficiency in the US declines with size; rather than remaining equivalent total energy use often increases.

It is hard to make specific comparisons because the EU uses a different method of calculating volume than the US. Overall exterior dimensions that are comparable have a significantly different interior volume - the US interior volume apparently far larger. I need to do more research on this disparity.

Long and short of it: our appliances are as fat as our population and consume typically twice as much as our EU cousins.

Carbon Tax

2011-02-03T21:38:00.001-05:00

I just read a piece on Grist.org (http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-28-investment-is-win-win-for-global-economy-and-climate-stiglitz) about Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz regarding combating climate change and improving the economy. He feels that the investment in a societal good, instead of simply trying to stimulate spending on consumption, will help the world out of the current recession. I tend to agree. He thinks ultimately that a price on carbon emissions needs to be instituted to create the incentive to invest in clean energy and a disincentive for the consumption of fossil fuels. His figure was $80/ton of CO2.

To put this into perspective, I looked at the CO2 emissions of a variety of fossil fuels:
Gasoline: 19.4 lbs/gal = a $0.78/gal tax, or a little over a 25% price increase.
Diesel: 22.2 lbs/gal = a $0.88/gal tax
Natural gas: 11 lbs/therm = a $0.44/therm tax. Current US average price per therm = $1.07, so this is about a 41% increase. This is tougher on the poor to pay this. It also puts a hit on business. Then phase it in over 5 years. Use the tax generated to give a tax credit for efficiency upgrades.
Coal: For the generation of electricity, coal produces 1.3 lbs/kWh = $0.05/kWh tax. The national average price for electricity is $0.11.2/kWh, so this is also a 45% cost increase. Again, phase it in, subsidize upgrades, reduce taxes in other areas.

This is not drastic. Europe has gas taxes that are roughly double the cost of the fuel. The sooner we start, the sooner we send a price signal to invest in new technologies, in our homes and businesses to improve their efficiency. So if any of my elected representatives reads my blog, please tax my carbon.

Drying Clothes

2011-02-02T11:44:00.006-05:00

This is a work in progress. I am going to try the approach that a blog is a kind of notebook. Rather than present fully baked ideas, perhaps the evidence of thinking is an appropriate approach.

I have been doing a weekly guest post on Annie Coggan's blog, www.chairsandbuildings.wordpress.com. I have long been interested in how we use energy in our culture. I have been trying to find a merge between my drawings, which have been primarily about form, and my political interests, tied up with climate change. I have started to keep more complete notes on the background facts. This one is about drying clothes.

Clothes drying
In 2001 average annual household electrical consumption for dryer use was 1079 kWh, representing 5.8% of household electricity consumption overall. That’s an average annual expense of $162. This does not include the cost of heating the hot water. Average US carbon emissions per kWh are 1.3 pounds of CO2. Thus 1402 lbs for electric drying. [this seems low]

Natural gas use for dryers is harder to determine. The DOE does not have specific appliance energy data for anything but electricity, so one has to extrapolate. Total natural gas consumption for appliances was .43 quads, or 43,000,000,000,000 btus. This is probably a combination of cooking and dryer operation. This represents 111 million households. Therefore natural gas use is about 387,000 btus per household. I cannot make a clear educated guess of the dryer’s use, but let’s say half, or 190,000 btu. LP use is fairly small by comparison – 5 trillion btu, 45,000 btu/household, perhaps 22,000 btu for clothes drying.

This website has actually looked deeply at this issue.
http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php/faq/35-general-laundry-questions/51--how-much-energy-is-actually-used-by-the-electric-clothes-dryer

Am I a luddite? No. No I’m not. The modern clothes dryer is a useful appliance. It takes an hour to complete a job that previously would take a day. It saves the time and labor required to hang clothing and take it down. The more sophisticated units remove wrinkles and have moisture and temperature sensors to avoid over-drying. Why would I want to hang clothes? This convenience comes at a cost, as do all of our modern conveniences. This cost is typically paid for with fossil fuels. All of us Americans have our own personal slaves in fossil fuels that make these machines work. But it is clear that our addiction to this equipment is costing us. This labor saving seems somehow to further cement the loss of jobs in our economy, and the flight of dollars overseas to support oil addiction. It is not just about the convenience of the dryer, it is about all of our "conveniences," such as the automobile. I find this chart quite fascinating. While 79% of US households have a dryer, the highest rate in the EU is about 61%, and Italy has a mere 2%. Clearly this is a cultural issue rather than economic.

There are devices out there that make drying easier that do not rely upon large quantities of energy to achieve, and that make the task easier.

This thing is a spin dryer. It spins most of the water out of clothes prior to line drying.

This is a basic clothes drying rack (this one on ecohousekeeping.com).

The Nation (magazine)

2011-01-25T21:41:00.003-05:00

http://www.thenation.com/article/157727/green-energy-opponents-are-real-job-killers#comment-858417

Mr. Fenton’s article could use some work – a researcher and stronger facts and figures in particular. But his central argument is sound – the current debate is not a debate. Little fact underlies the discussion. There’s a lot of claim of belief rather than logical assessment.

I have a general understanding of the technologies and economics involved, and I have been studying the issues for a quarter century. Here’s a few facts I do know: $250 billion a year leaves the US for oil from countries that don’t like us much. Our technological developments (our engineers and scientists developed the first deployed photovoltaic panels) are being brought to scale by other countries (China in particular, followed by the EU and Japan). Add to this the specter of climate change and the potentially devastating economic (to say nothing of the environmental) effects and it is a nasty brew.

Some of his facts are in essence correct. According to the DOE, buildings account for approximately 37% of US energy consumption. For each $1 billion spent in building energy reductions, we avoid approximately $2.5 billion to build new coal plants. Reducing building energy consumption can be achieved at a net overall economic benefit. The building sector is largely a domestic industry. Most materials and equipment are manufactured here (though many of the high value and high efficiency/high tech components are now being manufactured elsewhere). Construction and renovation jobs cannot be outsourced.

But what is most startling in the comments to Fenton’s commentary is the notion that clean energy technologies require massive subsidies to be competitive. I am going to leave out of this discussion the external costs of fossil fuels, like acid rain, particulate pollution, elevated asthma rates, climate change, two wars, the list goes on. The fossil fuel industry receives massive subsidies and has for decades consistently. Nuclear power is the beneficiary of some of the largest in the energy sector relative to production, and a new plant hasn’t been completed in 20 years. Clean energy subsidies are sporadic, limiting investment because there is an inability to plan. Washington politicians like to talk about removing entitlements and balancing the budget, but when it comes to pork, there is no restraint. There is no free market, merely corporate socialism. Let’s start by removing all subsidies to energy and putting all the players on a level field. Maybe then we can discuss a carbon tax, which would be particularly advantageous to get us off of foreign oil. Use that tax money to reduce corporate taxes, especially on small businesses.

Or we can continue to dither while the Chinese, Indians, and EU plan, which alas, I fear, is the probably scenario. It looks like it’s got to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Citizen Crawford

2011-01-13T21:32:00.002-05:00

I found a journal that my parents started sometime after I was born. It is entitled:
Caleb Charles Crawford [yes, "Charles"]
Life and Public Services of a Citizen
July 30, 1960-

First word: "see"

October 1963
"Caleb is very sensitive, and impatient with things that don't work."

May 4, 1964
"He wants to be a working man, plays with tools a great deal and will only wear dungarees (workingmen pants)."

Well, I guess I was in motion even back then.

Poetry and Pragmatism

2010-12-16T10:56:00.002-05:00

I am contemplating the next iteration in describing my two themes. When I started talking about my work, it was Form and Narrative, an attempt to describe my interest in the language of form, and how form and material is read, how it is a record of our relationships and cultural values.

Next was Ethics and Aesthetics, which was the formulation of my long-term engagement with environmental issues. The term "aesthetics," however, troubled me. Although I liked the alliteration, the term feels too superficial and systematic. Thus was born Poetry and Politics. The poetry stems from my drawings. Long ago, I described myself as a "form poet," which returns to the interest in form and narrative. "Poetry" condenses that. The problem now is with "politics." The science behind environmental issues is incontrovertable. However, the issues that surround climate science have become polarly politicized. This has become a debilitating condition in which no action is being taken. Contemporary pragmatic approaches to architecture have yeilded provocative results, creatively straddling practicability and invention. A pragmatic approach needs to come to bear in the climate change debate. If even a fraction of the current predictions comes true, humanity is in for a rough ride indeed.

Thus, as an optimist, I would prefer to frame the issue as an opportunity. Not an opportunity for proposing a nostalgic vision of the US in its glory, or the "good old days," but a vision of a better life in this world of ours. We can feed, house and clothe the planet if we so choose - we have the technology. Art, music, literature, dance, theater, film - we have a rich culture. If we allow for a base level of planning, we can achieve all of these things. If we continue the divided debate controlled by a few who resist change because of individual loss, we all stand to lose all.

Fellow traveler

2010-12-07T16:29:00.004-05:00

http://kazanjian.net/pg_fortification.html

Kazanjian is clearly influenced by Jerry Uelsmann. Some might describe it as derivative. However, I see a different impulse behind the work. Pieces like this are more abstract, which appeals to my architectural sense. The representational work has a dark and somewhat pessimistic origin to the imagery.

Picking Winners

2010-10-08T08:51:00.003-05:00

This blog SO doesn't know what it wants to be...

This article on electric cars caught my attention:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/business/08electric.html?_r=1&ref=automobiles

Why?
Because massive subsidies are being deployed to make them possible. From the article, buyers of the Leaf can expect at least $7500, and up to $12,500 in support from federal and state sources.

Why is this a bad thing? Shouldn't we be supporting electric vehicles?
We supposedly have a free-market capitalist economy. This amounts to an entitlement. However, this entitlement appears to be an acceptable entitlement, whereas any support for individuals is unacceptable and dubbed "socialism." Our current "free-market" system picks winners, to whom massive tax-payer subsidies are given.

If our goals are to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on foreign oil, what we should be doing is making carbon-based fossil fuels more expensive, and then let the market determine how to satisfy that need. The government's role should be to create the price signals through taxation to create disincentives for certain types of behavior, and to back that up with regulation.

Electric cars are fine. They are more efficient than internal combustion engines. However, if the price of gasoline were raised, say to the $5-7/gallon paid elsewhere in the developed world, I would have an incentive to look for more efficient transportation. Or I might choose to live closer to work and ride a bike, take the bus, walk, or any myriad other possibilities, and not own a car. Let the market decide.

What is our strategy here? There is an implicit statement that we want to continue car culture, and all of the inefficient patterns of urban development that it promotes. There are other options, but we don't allow for them because we are always picking winners.

is it true?

2010-08-19T21:27:00.002-05:00

"Grandpa, is it true that houses were so hot in the middle of the winter that people would open windows to cool off? And that you wore sweaters inside in the summer?"
-question from my future grandchild

Fossil Fuel Slavery

2010-08-19T17:18:00.004-05:00

I've read several books recently on the American Revolution: Founding Brothers and American Creation among them, as well as a series of book reviews and articles. One of the things that struck me is an identification of the extreme moral failures of the founding fathers: to deal with the abolition of slavery, and to make an equitable accommodation for native Americans. These failures led to catastrophic events later in the history of the republic: the Civil War, and the decimation of the American Indian population through murder, famine and disease. The founders postponed decisions, rather than making a hard but unpopular moral choices. The south's economy was tied to the institution of slavery. Landowners wealthy enough to own slaves lived comfortable lives. Rich lands taken from the Indians allowed for the spread of the plantation system.

We see the same dithering today. Fossil fuels are our contemporary slaves. Their use will lead to catastrophic events. These events are probably already manifesting themselves now. Yet we leave the problem for our grandchildren. The vast majority of climate scientists agree that what is coming is a world that we will not recognize. This moral failure will subject future generations to the privations that the growing American republic inflicted upon the native Americans: death, famine, disease, but also natural disasters, economic and social instability. The reason we don't make the hard choices is obvious - we are comfortable, and comfort leads to complacency, and most of us are ignorant and don't accept the reality, because it would interfere with our leisure.

I know that we can change this. But I also know that I can't change this. I could move to a shack in the woods, walk to town, grow my own food, but that still leaves the rest of the 300 million in the US, and the 6 billion+ in the rest of the world. It takes leadership. It will take unpopular decisions, but these decisions have to be made.

the irrational

2010-08-10T20:53:00.001-05:00

We (the indivisible divinity that works in us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and firm in time, but we have allowed slight, and eternal, bits of the irrational to form part of its architecture so as to know that it is false.

-Jorge Luis Borges

Form Poems 090902-090911

2010-05-12T14:48:00.004-05:00

Anthropology 101

2010-04-19T11:53:00.002-05:00

"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication... the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat, and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Cheap

2010-03-27T20:04:00.004-05:00

It all comes down to money. Money guides decisions. This country has opted for "cheap." Cheap everything. Michael Pollen, in The Omnivore's Dilemma, talks about how we, as a society, made a decision for quantity of food over quality. And inexpensive as well. Cheap and plentiful. I think that we, as a culture, have made that decision in every sphere of life: cheap food, cheap clothing, cheap energy, cheap houses, cheap stuff. This is particularly evident in our buildings. Houses are cheap and big. Where I am living right now in Mississippi, I see enormous waste of buildings. Repair is usually unheard of, because the houses are small. Doing things well is also unheard of. It costs a lot more money to build something of quality than it does to build BAU (business as usual) buildings .

Form Poems 090823-090901

2010-03-12T11:30:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 081005-090822

2010-03-03T10:06:00.003-05:00

Finally caught up to 2009.

Form Poems 080922-081003

2010-02-28T10:05:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 080909-080921

2010-02-27T18:16:00.004-05:00

Torture and Abstraction

2010-02-27T13:29:00.002-05:00

"[Camus concluded] that the 'primitive' impulse to kill and torture shared a taproot with the habit of abstraction, of thinking of other people as a class of entities."
-Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker, 8.28.2006

John Brown's Face

2010-02-25T10:47:00.001-05:00

Listen, I’ve framed a wall of two by fours
sixteen inches on center, I’ve closed

something in and walled something out.
This, simple perspective—how idea frees
or enslaves. Not the looking but the seeing
makes a window of a wall.

excerpt from John Brown's Face, by Kevin Stein

The referential quality of art

2010-02-07T21:43:00.001-05:00

"I value the referential quality of art, the fact that a work can allude to things or states of being without in any way representing them. The ideas that give rise to a work can be quite diffuse, so I would describe my usual working process as a kind of distillation – trying to make coherence out of things that can seem contradictory. But coherence is not the same as resolution. The most interesting art for me retains a flickering quality, where opposed ideas can be held in tense coexistence."
-Martin Puryear, 2007

An Old Story-and another thing

2010-01-03T22:18:00.003-05:00

It also strikes me that the moral failure of a portion of the "founding brothers," to use Ellis' term, was based in a world view framed by their current economics - that of slavery. It was so ingrained, and so large, that it seemed impossible to imagine a world without it. Thus the thought of the impact to their "lifestyles" overwhelmed any moral sense. We face that same issue today, but the slave today is fossil fuel which moves our increasingly soft bodies about, warms our homes, cooks our foods, entertains us. We become blind to the moral failings and the incredible pile of moral debt.

I think humans are, by nature, not terribly imaginative. There is a failure to imagine the world that we are making by not changing our ways, yet we fail even worse to imagine the possibilities. I am an optimist. I believe we can design and build our way out of this. And we will end up a richer nation and world in the bargain. But I am also a pessimist. There are so many closed minds out there, and no leadership.

Form Poems 080801-080908

2010-01-03T22:06:00.002-05:00

Fly Ash?

2010-01-02T15:58:00.003-05:00

Fly ash is frequently touted as "sustainable" and "green." It is used by manufacturers of cement and concrete products, and claim LEED credit for recycled content.

Fly ash is a by-product of the burning of coal. Once it was released into the atmosphere following combustion, it is today scrubbed from the exhaust. The srubbed fly ash is used in the manufacture of concrete and cement products, usually as a substitute for Portland cement.

Problem one: We need to stop the burning of coal altogether. The green movement and now green industry should not support the coal industry in any way, shape or form. Granted, while we wean ourselves of our dependency we will continue to make mountains of the stuff, and its use in cement redirects the material from its other potential destination, which is the landfill. However, we cannot continue to allow it to be considered green.

Problem two: Fly ash contains significant toxic impurities, including arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, strontium, thallium, vanadium. The potential health effects are currently unknown. Strontium levels are particularly high.

I understand the arguments as to why its use is a good thing. I'd rather see it in cement and concrete products than in a landfill. But to consider it green and credit it as a LEED point, giving boasting rights to the coal industry, is pure illusion.

Form Poems 080722-080731

2010-01-02T15:20:00.001-05:00

Behind - as usual

2010-01-02T14:17:00.001-05:00

I'm really behind on these form poem posts. I'm also behind on the drawings. I wish this was my job to put these and other things out every day.

Form Poems 080528.1-080721

2010-01-02T14:09:00.002-05:00

An Old Story

2009-12-31T09:53:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis. I haven't read extensively about the founding of the United States, but I am struck by the political compromises that took place, and how the avoidance of conflict and the justifications lead to larger problems and greater conflict in the future. The most conspicuous of which was the question of slavery. Ellis will give a much more nuanced description, but there were two arguments for not upsetting the status quo that struck me as resonating today. One was the issue of compensation for slave holders for the loss of their property, and the other was that slavery was woven into the fabric of southern life.

In 1790, opponents to abolition had a "relentless focus on the impractical dimensions of all plans for abolition." The estimates for the cost of emancipating the slaves at the time was ranged between $70 and $140 million. At a time when the total federal budget was $7 million annually, this had the appearance of an insurmountable obstacle. However, Ellis goes on to describe how a gradual emancipation would have worked, and the numbers seem much more reasonable when looked at over time. With 20/20 hindsight, we see the subsequent 200 years of internecine strife in the Civil War, and the barbarism of segregation and the struggle for civil rights, the history of which affects us to this day.

The other argument was that slavery "was grafted onto the character fo the southern states during the colonial era and had become a permanent part of American society south of the Potomac" and that it was "one of those habits established long before the Constitution, and could not now be remedied."

Thus the reasons for not addressing the single most obvious moral failure of the founding of this country could not be addressed for economic and cultural reasons.

This old story continues today, and echoes of this argument exist today in two contemporary issues: that of health care reform, and that of climate change.

The opponents of health care reform, in particular the opponents to the public option, frequently cite the costs of such a program, and use inflated numbers and fail to recognize the societal benefit and the long-term savings. They portray the expense as an insurmountable obstacle.

The same are the arguments regarding fossil fuel use: that such use and the cheap cost of energy are long established, and to try to change would be a terrible burden on the American people. These arguments perpetuate the inertia. Yet, as we see with the Civil War, that inertia ultimately leads to an explosive result, untold death, destruction and misery. We already see the results of our moral failure on the health care issue. The pain from climate change will be far more severe and final, and potentially threaten the survival of our species. Our "leaders" are morally derelict. They are unwilling to make the hard decisions to change the behavior of this nation because of political patronage and the status quo. In the face of a common enemy our political system has provided positive leadership that has significantly altered past patterns. We need this leadership again.

The Artist's Words

2009-08-24T09:16:00.010-05:00

"The poems in this book are written some in Running Rhythm, the common rhythm in English use, some in Sprung Rhythm, and some in a mixture of the two. And those in the common rhythm are some counterpointed, some not."
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, first paragraph of the Author's Preface to a collection of poems.

"Is all verse poetry or all poetry verse? - Depends on definitions of both. Poetry is speech framed for contemplation of the mind by the way of hearing or speech framed to be heard for its own sake and interest even over and above its interest of meaning. Some matter and meaning is essential to it but only as an element necessary to support and employ the shape which is contemplated for its own sake."
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, from "Poetry and Verse"

What struck me about the first paragraph was the pure discussion of form and technique. It is an achingly dull 300-400 words describing the two types of verse. however, the man is clearly fascinated by these two forms, and the impact that these forms of verse have on the sound of the language. He goes on to speak of content or meaning, and that it is secondary to the form. This is supported by Edgar Allen Poe:

"Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged… We have taken into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in true Poetic dignity and force: - but the simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified – more supremely noble than this very poem – this poem per se – this poem which is a poem and nothing more – this poem written solely for the poem’s sake."
-Edgar Allen Poe, The Poetic Principle

Poe, whose content is one of the great contemplative thinkers of the language, herein seems to discount the importance of the narrative. Although I have also argued elsewhere that the meaning of Poe's words had to do more with the need for a lesson, and that the argument is for a level of ambiguity. But Poe's words echo Hopkins' - that there is merit in the form of the poem. Indeed, the music of "never more" etches that poem deep into our consciences, and without it we would never recall it.

The reason for this discussion of poetic form is to illuminate how artists discuss their own work. There is a rare discussion of the origins of an image, the meaning of a poem. More frequently, the discussion devolves upon the pragmatic, the process of making, the technique.

“In my own case, the process is more or less unvarying. I begin with the glimpse of a form, a kind of remote island, which will eventually be a story or a poem. I see the end and I see the beginning, but not what is in between. That is gradually revealed to me, when the stars are propitious. More than once I have to retrace my steps by way of the shadows. The notion of art as compromise is a simplification, for no one knows entirely what he is doing.”
-Jorge Luis Borges

How to Save General Motors

2009-03-08T10:51:00.003-05:00

In general, I say let GM tank. They have not kept current. A bail out to keep doing business as usual? I don't think so.

But let's look at GM's assets.
-It has huge manufacturing infrastructure - buildings, machines, networks of providers. There is a huge capital investment in this company.
-It has a tremendous intellectual capital. It has decades of experienced designers, managers, and manufacturing personnel. As a designer, my heart aches when I think about the loss of this capital. People with skill and imagination sidelined by regressive upper management.

What to do?
In WWII, these industries went to work building trucks and tanks and fighters and bombers. What do we need now?
-Massive quantities of wind turbines, tide turbines, hydro power and other ways of harnessing the kinetic energy of the earth to produce "clean cheap electrons." GM needs to put its core strength of manufacturing complex large machines to work solving the climate crisis.
-Toyota is building manufactured housing. This concept is accepted in Japan, and there is a great deal of innovation. Buckminster Fuller had this concept with his Dymaxion House. The contemporary manufactured house need have no resemblance to the double wide or the trailer home. Americans have an unimaginative prejudice against the concept. The manufactured housing made by GM should be highly efficient and completely green.

GM has the seeds of its resurrection, it has probably thought of them and discounted them years ago. It has relentlessly followed a narrow focus, rather than being the leader and innovator that it was at its founding. If it cannot change its course and innovate its way towards solvency without a massive taxpayer bailout, then let it die.

Form Poems, Autodidactic Drawings, Useless Drawings

2009-02-19T09:24:00.004-05:00

The great gift of architecture is its ability to create worlds. We value architecture’s utility, but we prize its ability to astonish. These drawings are a means of creating architecture. They have several names, for not one title describes them: Form Poems, autodidactic drawings, useless drawings. They are useless in that they have no immediate utility in the making of a building; they are autodidactic in that they are a means of self teaching; and they are poems in their desire to express, and seek to express an ineffable quality.

Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged… We have taken into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in true Poetic dignity and force: - but the simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified – more supremely noble than this very poem – this poem per se – this poem which is a poem and nothing more – this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.
-Edgar Allen Poe

How are these drawings practice? As admittedly “useless” drawings, they have no utility in the making of buildings. Their object pointedly eschews any form of problem solving. They are selfish and personal. Yet as autodidactic drawings, they function to self-educate. They are generators of an architectural language that ultimately influence built work and teaching. But as Poe indicates above, these drawings, as Form Poems, do not seek to achieve a larger social good (unless, of course, we allow that the making of beautiful things is a social good). They are, for the most part, made solely for the drawing’s sake.

In my own case, the process is more or less unvarying. I begin with the glimpse of a form, a kind of remote island, which will eventually be a story or a poem. I see the end and I see the beginning, but not what is in between. That is gradually revealed to me, when the stars or chance are propitious. More than once, I have to retrace my steps by way of the shadows. I try to interfere as little as possible in the evolution of the work. I do not want it to be distorted by my opinions, which are the most trivial things about us. The notion of art as compromise is a simplification, for no one knows entirely what he is doing.
-Jorge Luis Borges

Borges describes a process that is recognizable to most that make. We have ideas that form in the mind that must be hammered out through testing using the tools at our disposal. In the case of the work collected here, it is drawing. The process involves becoming lost and discovering. The process requires erasure, iteration, labor. The process involves luck. The process of making as Borges describes it, and as I see it, is much like the surrealist practice of automatic drawing. Though logical rules for the making of form are employed, often there is no rational motivation for a form’s presence. The movement of the pencil, the presence of a figure are the result of intuition and conjecture.

There is a habit to making. The drawings herein are the product of a daily practice. The titles are the dates upon which they were drawn (year month day). As such they are akin to diary entries. There are gaps in the sequences as daily life overwhelms the creative discipline. Even so, there are close to 300 drawings produced over the last 2 years. The work contained herein constitutes a focus to explore, exploit, and potentially exhaust a single medium. The format is a 6” square of paper and graphite. Recent experiments have been in other media in an attempt to challenge habit, but the core focus is simple. When asked why he didn’t explore color in his photographs, my brother replied “I haven’t begun to scratch the surface of black and white.” Centuries of graphite drawings indicate that this work barely begins to exhaust the possibilities.

The word “poem” has its origins in ancient Greek as a term for something made, but usually in relation to words: a fiction. The relationship, therefore, between the poet and the architect in terms of what they do is a strong one. A poet is a “maker.” The architect makes. Both use a language (the poet: words; the architect: lines, tones, models, pixels) to call into existence that which is not there.

There is, however, a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language.
-Edgar Allen Poe

What is there to say? When the drawings are at their best, there is nothing to say.

Form Poems 080215-080527.2

2009-01-27T22:33:00.004-05:00

Form Poems 071217-080203

2009-01-27T22:28:00.003-05:00

Form Poems 071118-071213

2009-01-27T22:00:00.003-05:00

Here and There-May 1 to June 20, 2008

2008-04-04T21:39:00.006-05:00

Here and There

Recent Work by Annie Coggan and Caleb Crawford at the Gestarc Gallery

May 1 to June 20, 2008

Opening reception May 1, 2008 7:55 PM

Here and There has two meanings. Coggan and Crawford were based in New York for 14 years. They recently moved to Mississippi where they now live and work. However, they are still engaged with New York, so they are both here and there. On a deeper level, it relates to a world view. Coggan’s work is deeply rooted in place, and engages the contexts in which she works. Crawford’s work is more speculative, and imagines other possible realities.

Annie Coggan

Walker Evans Builds a Chair

The American South is the genesis for the country’s most urgent problems as well as the well spring for the most vital narratives in our culture. Walker Evans’ photographs have been an inspiration in illustrating the often bereft environment and its most surrealistic potential. The exhibition is comprised of a series of chairs, which are an attempt to examine the surrealistic attitude and the “make-do,” “ad hoc,” and “do-it-yourself” culture of making and re-making in the south.

The maps are a method of drawing and model-making to show the places I’ve been to in and around my new home. Mississippi was not settled until the 1860’s and after the Civil War the region developed from the railroad industry’s entrepreneurial spirit. Towns were linked by small runs in and out of the cotton belt and the timber centers. Understanding the “line-making” of the railroad, the river and the highways has been a way to absorb a sense of place.

Caleb Crawford

Form Poems/Form Politics

Form is inevitable in the visual arts. It is the language with which we, as artists, give voice to our ideas. Poetry and politics frame competing issues. Poetry is something mysterious, that ultimately goes beyond words or forms to an un-nameable. Politics is the art of engaging in discourse and persuasion. The great struggle is to find bridges between the poetic image and the political.

The Form Poems are part of an on-going project. Alternately referred to as autodidactic drawings, automatic drawings, and useless drawings, they are investigations into the narrative potential of form. Meanings are varyingly explicit, implicit and purely material and gestural. As “autodidactic” drawings, they are self-teaching tools; from constant experimentation comes invention. As “automatic” drawings they are clearly linked to surrealist practices; the drawings evolve intuitively and spontaneously. As “useless” drawings, they confront the utility of architectural drawings; these drawings have no use in the development of any particular architectural project.

About Annie Coggan and Caleb Crawford

Their early formative training in fine arts combined with their subsequent training as architects, and their engagement with architectural practice has led them towards a decidedly interdisciplinary approach to their work. Their work is rooted in the language and practices of architectural representation and production, yet questions accepted norms. Annie Coggan has a BFA from Bennington College, and a Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Caleb Crawford has a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). In 1996 they formed Coggan + Crawford Architecture + Design. Their work has been published in Architectural Record, Dwell, The Architects Newspaper, Residential Architect, Interior Design, Architectural Design (AD), the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Elle Décor and other places. The work of the firm received two AIA awards from the Brooklyn Chapter, and a Brooklyn Builds award from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, in addition to numerous other competition and fellowship awards.

For more about the work of Annie Coggan, see www.coggancrawford.com, and www.formpoetrypolitics.blogspot.com

About the Gestarc Gallery

Gestarc is a non profit gallery conceived, funded, built and operated by a group of five Brooklyn based artists/ architects: Thorsten Foerster, Jim Dreitlein, Serban Ionescu, Tara Rodriguez Besosa and Adam Golinczak.

The name is culled from the words ‘gesture’ and ‘architecture;’ two keynotes regarded as exciting modulators for the project development and intervention in spheres of the art, architecture and other. Per project basis, the Gestarc Group is intent on the use and the study of hidden notions referred to as ‘supplement-x’ or ‘x’. This has been and shall remain the contiguity of focus for the Gestarc generated work.

Work generated by other voices will be selected and shown with/ in its own independent vital stress, circumstances and media.

Located at

390 Van Brunt Street

Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY 11231

www.gestarcgallery.com

Form Poems 070615-071116

2008-04-04T21:34:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 070530-070614

2008-03-19T21:49:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 070424-070528

2008-03-19T21:27:00.002-05:00

Form Poems 070411-040422

2007-10-07T15:15:00.001-05:00

Form Poems 070327-070409

2007-10-07T14:55:00.001-05:00

Form Poems 070220-070325

2007-10-07T14:46:00.001-05:00

Oil

2007-09-13T11:32:00.000-05:00

It is a sad state. We have been warned. We are facing the double threat of global warming and the end of fossil fuels, oil in particular. We have been given an incredible gift. If we use it wisely, then we can set our world up for ever. If we squander it, then our society will go the way of the Roman Empire, Easter Island, and the Maya. We have been warned. Hubbert, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Jared Diamond, Ed Mazria, all have or are raising the red flag, yet the world cannot seem to wait to use it up. There is no recognition that there is a problem. No one is in the least bit interested in making hard choices.

The cost of the Iraq War today is $451,200,000,000. At $100,000 per system, we could be powering 4.5 million homes using photovoltaics with that investment. The $7 trillion national debt that the Bush administration has racked up in the past 7 years be powering 70 million homes. All this would not eliminate our need for oil, but would go a long way towards reducing our dependency and creating an economy based in renewables.

In the time of the Romans, one of the worst sins that could be committed would be to squander one's patrimony. Our excessive reliance upon fossil fuels without investing them towards a sustainable future is squandering our patrimony.

Vegetarianism

2007-07-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

I am a political vegetarian. I do not believe that eating animals is morally wrong. I do believe that the current meat industrial complex is morally wrong. It is wrong on many grounds. First, the meat is not healthy to eat. Pesticides and heavy metals concentrate in the flesh and fat, antibiotics engender the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and the high levels of meat in the diet of the average American lead to many health problems. Second, the foul treatment of animals seen feedlot operations and factory farming, the poor treatment of land, animals, labor and communities is morally wrong. Third, the high concentration of operations and the centralization is highly energy consumptive. Fourth... I could go on and on.

Read for yourself - copy this link into your browser.

http://www.vivavegie.org/vvi/pdf/101reas2007.pdf

I eat meat, but I like to have some assurance of the quality. I typically purchase all meat products at farmers markets. I probably pay 3-5 times what it would cost in the supermarket, but our food is far too cheap.

My Whole Life by J.L. Borges

2007-07-10T08:14:00.000-05:00

My Whole Life
Here once again the memorable lips, unique and like yours.
I kept getting close to happiness and have stood in the shadow of suffering.
I have crossed the sea.
I have known many lands; I have sen one woman and two or three men.
I have loved a girl who was fair and proud, with a Spanish quietness.
I have seen the city's edge, an endless sprawl where the sun goes down tirelessly, over and over.
I have relished many words.
I believe deeply that this is all and that I will neither see nor accomplish new things.
I believe that my days and my nights in their poverty and their riches are the equal of God's and all mine.
-Jorge Luis Borges

Form Poems 070210-19

2007-06-13T19:08:00.001-05:00

Form poems 070131-0209

2007-05-21T15:37:00.001-05:00

Form poems 070121-30

2007-05-03T06:38:00.000-05:00

Form poems 070111-20

2007-05-01T12:35:00.000-05:00

Form poems 061219-070110

2007-04-26T08:37:00.000-05:00

Form poems 061106-1207

2007-04-24T20:00:00.000-05:00