art lesson of the day--by gardega

still life

Here is an amazing painting by Caravaggio you can google him as I am too lazy to write about the old crazy bastard. He was my kind of artist--a rabble rouser crazy man who was always in trouble. You wouldnt know it from this masterpiece of quiet observation. This is almost japanese in its simplicity, neither bell nor whistles. I dont paint many still life's because I dont paint many still lives. If I did paint a still life it would be in motion.

whats on my easel?

right now I am painting a brooklyn Bridge cover for ambassador publishing...will be done soon and post..I have come to like this bridege (the real one) not mine as I have painted it 5 times.

NYC Marathon

I ran the new york city marathon yesterday..That is a lie--- I watched it for two hours from a bar on the 17th mile mark on first avenue. I noticed the people in the bar were smiling more than the people who had run 17 miles. I took this as a sign that it is better to sit in the womb of a warm bar than to run that far...maybe next year. Every day I run a marathon in my brain, except I dont wear an number and no one hands me cups of water.





It's not how fast you can go
The force goes into the flow
If you pick up the beat
You can forget about the heat
More than just survival
More than just a flash
More than just a dotted line
More than just a dash

It's a test of ultimate will
The heartbreak climb uphill
Got to pick up the pace
If you want to stay in the race
More than blind ambition
More than simple greed
More than a finish line
Must feed this burning need
In the long run...

Chorus
From first to last
The peak is never passed
Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes
One moment's high, and glory rolls on by
Like a streak of lightning
That flashes and fades in the summer sky

Your meters may overload
You can rest at the side of the road
You can miss a stride
But nobody gets a free ride

More than high performance
More than just a spark
More than just the bottom line
Or a lucky shot in the dark
In the long run...


You can do a lot in a lifetime
If you don't burn out too fast
You can make the most of the distance
First you need endurance
First you've got to last...


N.P.

painting of the day--the old plum

Description
The massive black trunk of an ancient plum tree with bending, twisting branches spans nearly sixteen feet across four gold-leafed sliding panels. The downward thrust of its principal branch is echoed by the parallel reverse movement of two young shoots. Supported on both sides by vertical and horizontal expanses of rock, the old reptilian tree sprouts blossoms, which convey the atmosphere of a cold, early spring and symbolize birth and renewal.

These panels originally formed one wall of a room in the Tensho-in, a subtemple of Myoshin-ji, a Zen temple in Kyoto. During the 1880s, they were sold to a private owner and trimmed at the top to conform to the dimensions of the new owner's home. On the reverse, which formed a wall in the adjacent room, was a composition depicting the Chinese theme of the Eight Daoist Immortals. This was later separated and remounted. It is now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

This remarkable painting bears no signature or seal, but the exaggerated bends of the tree and the cubelike crispness of the geometric rocks are idiosyncrasies associated with the signed works of Kano Sansetsu (1589/90–1651). Sansetsu was a pupil and son-in-law of Kano Sanraku (1559–1635), an artist who enjoyed the generous patronage of monks at Myoshin-ji. Sanraku and his adopted heir worked together to decorate rooms in the Tenkyü-in, another Myoshin-ji subtemple, in 1630. Sansetsu must have received the monks' continued support after the death of his father-in-law. The Tensho-in was constructed in 1647, the year in which Sansetsu was granted the honorary title of "hokkyo." He was then fifty-eight years old, and these screens reveal the eccentric and abstract tendencies that characterize his later works.

security by hunter s thompson

Security

by Hunter S. Thompson (1955).

---

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

great video on the brain