From Storyculture: Hans Silvester describes his mission, "what’s most important for me is saving, in some way, as much as possible of this truly living art, which is mobile, changing, subject to infinite variation, and whose constituent elements are simple and form a link between man and nature. It seems to me that our modern painting found the purpose of these elements, this simplicity, and used it as its foundation."

Learn more about Hans Silvester's time with the L'omo people at the Marlborough Gallery website.

HERE IS A SLIDE SHOW OF MORE THAN FIFTY OF SILVESTER'S IMAGES

If it wasn't for copyright restrictions, I would put many of these images in my forthcoming 22 minute videopoem, Tangled Garden.

From my Moleskine Project today:

Woman in Red and Blue, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, mixed media.


You might guess, I am working on studies for a self portrait painting. Still haven't achieved a good likeness (according to my beloved children), 'but,' they say, they 'like them anyhow.'

I layered this with different types of inks, pens, paints, scratchings, and so on. You might be able to see the detail if it opens in full screen and gives you an option to view at original size.

Let's hope so.

:)


While the darker image is from a scanner, this is closer to what the painting looks like in bright natural daylight (it's an earlier version, too).

From my Molsekine Project today:


Iridescent Blue Face, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multimedia.

Self-Portrait Study, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, graphite.

A study for a self-portrait that I plan to paint... will have to try a few more sketches, I guess. Not quite right, but recognizable enough. Just did this one now, after a frigid dog walk. I do look so serious, but then, I am. :) Though pretty much always smile, guess I was intently drawing - in a dark room, too. 2B pencil. Note to self: smile a little when you do the painting. :)


                              

Coil of Koi in Dark Water, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.

Finished, unless I slightly whiten some of those Koi edges. I sparingly brushed the koi with some translucent paints (vellum, blue, orange, yellow), which glimmer. The fish have a pearlescence that you can see if you tilt the painting in the light.

They are like angels rising from Dante's Inferno.



Earlier version: 


Coil of Fish, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, Moleskine folio Sketchbook, multi-media.


I have rubbed this out many times! Was going to scratch the koi out and add oranges, yellows, golds; so far, it's not working. I used a wooden toothpick to scratch the koi out, but the underpainting of acrylic 'bone black' had dried too much, leaving them with a ghostly presence.

They are like angels rising in dark water, and I may have to just accept that.

In process!

From my recent NaNo novel: 'When the plump Chinese lady who owned the store came over to feed the koi, the fish swirled to the top of the tank, a mass of watercolours and oils coiling and curving and looping in and out of each other as each fish rose to eat bits of the koi feed. Their gills translucent against the misted windows of the store.

The glass thinned, melted and the koi are flung out of the tank as the water rushed out, a coiling, spawning tidal wave. The gills of the koi became soft wings, they grew like when you drop a stopper of ink into water and patterns of ink coil and flow outwards and upwards as they disperse. The koi’s filmy, translucent wings spread and grew thinner as they rose, a coiling mass of golds, oranges, yellows and browns, a living tree spinning upwards, a whirlpool of fish like leaves flowing into the sky, for the ceiling had disappeared.'

An email notification on Sep 26, 2011:

The user named KiNo just added you as a contact on Vimeo.

KiNo's profile on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/maneatingseas

The email still unread, a few nights ago I clicked on the link. There are a series of videos of the "Poet of Sound and Image," a young man with a British-style accent who is likely of Russian origin called KiNo. KiNo writes songs, is a performer, a public personality.

His films are oddities in that they seem composed of a mash of images that are flung together without planning or thought. Are they brilliant postmodern montages of contemporary life or bits of filmic captures, the kind we would all have on our cameras if we walked around filming ourselves in the city? Are they a 'found poetry,' meaning not pre-planned but plucked from many hours of video and spliced together in an almost random way?

The video I chose (or it chose me, for I am never sure about this) for this week's VidPoFilm seems a patching of sequences of images together with a voiceover (by different narrators, one fully in Russian with no subtitles) that gives depth to the moving images of the band of musicians as they visit a medical museum, set up and perform before an audience, look at buildings, drive around in taxis, and disappear into Central Park discussing the moon with backpacks at night at the end.


Live! — Part 3 from KiNo on Vimeo.
Poet of Sound and Image KiNo presents a film in episodes: Live!
Documentary of life and collaborations in New Vague City.

This film is dedicated to my friend Ira Cohen who passed away recently; leaving behind a materialised account of the akashic records in his poems, photographs, films and inspiring conversations with the individuals whom were graced by his friendship.

With highlights from the KiNo Exhibition — Invasion from Within.
Featuring footage of the performances with musical legends Malcolm Cecil (Pioneer of electronic music) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths).

Ira Cohen film
The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda
http://www.arthurmag.com/?s=the+invasion+of+thunderbolt+pagoda

Made by 9
_

This film is ostensibly a memorial to a poet who KiNo knew and loved, Ira Cohen, 1935-2011.

Ira Cohen narrates a poem, presumably his, and, while it isn't until the end, because it is the core of the video, I place it here:


But nothing is dwelt on; nothing lingers. We move quickly. The video opens with a man walking up steps from a dark interior, like a boat's hold, to a square of light, and Cohen's voice, "Poetry may be next to prophecy, but I also know life is next to death, that sanity lives next door to insanity."

There are shots of a camera lens, with the subtitle, "optical purgatory," a name KiNo gave to a song he wrote about transcendental dreaming. A poem is recited by a woman in Russian, subtitled, "yes, please, rise us from the dead."

What follows is a smorgasbord of images. These is a skeleton on display and a brain on a stainless steel stem, images which I found took us into the strangeness of the body itself. We are in the realm of medicine, the body, it's construction, mortality. Subtitles appear, "we are still in the realm of blood and tears." Then, moving escalators, an old lecture room, a man's head in silhouette against a brown wall with name stickers on it. A silhouette of a hand, angelic clouds, "your palms hold a million starts to new legion of stars," a silhouetted woman in profile with her hair in a bun passes by. "But, man, permit us to land. At home, I am innocent..." and something that looks like tags on a wall showing the solar system with the silhouette of the back of a man's heading watching.

An older man's voice begins, Cohen's, and his poetry is the most interesting aspect of the videopoem. He says, "radio waves bouncing around in the void," and bright sparks from soldering metal appear.

KiNo narrates, "and this is the natural course in the events of the energy," while the camera zooms in on an office, bare concrete walls, a desk, two chairs and a white business phone. Then KiNo in white on a white couch being interviewed by a woman in black with long wavy auburn hair who speaks English, "You're a poet of sound and image...?"

Then an announcement, subtitled on screen beneath a brain on display, "KiNo Sonic Exhibition in June - Invasion from Within (Russian Announcement)." Dramatic zooming in on the brain, dramatic lighting. The music instrumental, gritty. An older sound technician or musician or professor, in a sound studio, equipment all around, enunciated KiNo, the name, then we see the brain again. This is followed by KiNo in a room with walls of controls, like the interior of spaceships in the movies. The older man keeps talking, but in Russian, and no subtitles are offered. Next we are on the street, looking with the hand-held camera lens, it is summer; then we are looking down from a second floor to an art gallery and an older man is looking up at us. There is strobe lighting an art opening, lots of people talking, though we never see the actual art.

KiNo appears in black, smiling. Cut to another scene with a band  performing, being recorded, electronic instruments and sound equipment all about. KiNo in black with white markings playing a large keyboard piano amidst other band members. Cut back to the people at the art reception smiling, drinking, watching and being watched, the way people are at such events, catching up with friends and acquaintances.

When the older man who has been narrating in Russian is finished, he turns to the camera, to us, and smiles.

Next is a shot, perhaps from a bridge of a yellow taxi, on a road at night. A voice, KiNo's,  like from a megaphone or public intercom system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is New Vague City"… "a leased apartment"…. "please remain dishonest (shots of a street at night, pedestrians, car headlights)…extend your fingers where they don't belong… (young designers fixing what look like paper lanterns in a store window) …and operate in total darkness… thanks for believing the New Vague City publicity machine."



This video depicts a world that is not altogether organized. It is an odd assortment of images of a band on tour.

It seems to say, the only plot is our journey through life, and it is a strange trip.



_

A reading of White Fire on CIUT FM in Toronto, 2000
on Nik Beat's show.

Longtime readers of this blog may not have ever seen this side of me, nor have my real life friends. But I can be a wee bit fierce sometimes. I am grateful for the outcome. This is not a review, per say, of this company's practices, but I share the email thread with you so you can see for yourself.


On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:53 AM, Brenda Clews wrote to Podbean.com:

Subject: My Files Deleted?

Notes: I uploaded a file in 2009 that appears to be gone. This is very upsetting as the hard drive that file was on is defunct. Podbean had my only copy. Can you retrieve it? http://brendaclews.podbean.com/2009/08/04/white-fire/ I did not know you deleted files. Most sites do not do this - at least without warning. Sorry to be a bother, but I really would like to download that file. Thanks, Brenda


Contact Podbean 9:47 AM (3 hours ago) wrote to me:

Brenda, Your files were not lost. They were mis-set after a system move. If the files are important to you, you are recommended to use one of our paid plans . Should there be any further question, please feel free to contact us. Have a nice day.

Podbean Team www.podbean.com

To get latest system status update, please follow us on Twitter @podbean_com


Brenda Clews 10:01 AM (3 hours ago) to Contact:

I am shocked. You didn't even *inform* me that my files were deleted! A "paid" plan will get my file back??? Wow. Ok, I am blogging this experience and posting on Facebook and Google+ and everywhere else I can find. I'll just relate my experience which = bad reviews.This is not a good way to treat people who try your site out. Wish I'd never gone near it. And would like to warn others who might consider your site. It's NOT worth it.


Contact Podbean 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) to me:

What ? We restored your account and you gonna to bad-mouth us.


Brenda Clews ✆ 1:42 PM (6 minutes ago) to Contact:

I am so glad and very grateful!

Now that the broadcast is downloaded, you can delete it if you wish. I use a Google Sites site to host .mp3s now, and there is also the trusty Internet Archives.

I know you guys have to eat, live, and so on, too, and need to charge for your services. Only it's not so good to remove a 'freebie's' file without informing them, and then to ask for payment for them to get it back.

But... eh, that's business for you.

Thank you,
Brenda

_

Yes, I got my file back, for which I am most grateful. But I did not like having to let the tigress out to snarl and gnarl at them to get them to behave with a modicum of business ethic! There is not a word of this in their FAQ, or anywhere else on the site that I was able to find before I initially contacted them.

Not a side I normally exhibit, and most people who know me don't know how I can bare my teeth when necessary. Ok. I lost it.

And I don't think this has happened in at least 7 years - when I had to deal with the moving company that transported my household goods from Vancouver to Toronto and offered storage in a warehouse in an outer suburb for $200./month and then more than doubled it to $450./month when my stuff got to Toronto. They could not legally throw my goods out because I had paid them a couple of thousand dollars. I refused to pay for the storage, many cross calls ensued, and when I called about 8 months later, they relented, and finally honoured their original quoted price and let me retrieve my goods before they had even received the bank draft (brothers and a son are awfully handy to have in times like these - we went and moved everything to another downtown storage place in an afternoon).

Sometimes, you just have to let your tigress out. :)

For me, painting is always connecting the inside to the outside. But I discovered a very strange thing a few years ago - that I could draw from my imagination and the figures and images were very like the ones I draw from life. This rather freaked me out, as you can imagine. Now I try to trust 'dreaming with the eyes open while holding a paint brush' ... as a valid process to creating that conduit between the world and whatever happens in the inner mind with its strange and beautiful lunacies.