what makes Robert Smithson so great

The day after Thanksgiving, us Brookses (and Sweeneys) found ourselves grateful for Mr. Robert Smithson. I am thankful indeed that he finds the same kind of art and beauty in Utah landscape, most especially the Great Salt Lake. This was my third pilgrimmage to the Spiral Jetty and I would say that it gets better everytime but really it is just completely different. In late July you can wade out to the jetty tip in water that reflects your image as still as a mirror. When I have gone during the winter though the lake recedes and has taken on a foamy red tide. The wind is nearly unbearable but makes the whole experience so sublime despite spending an hour driving on burley dirt roads and passing endless cattle grates.

It was lots of fun.

We made salt shadows.

Matt got really cold.

English said I looked like a barge hauler on the Volga River (rightly so).

And I found a neat stick.

The best thing though was that I was able to experience it this time with that dear Matt of mine.

Brookses in the park

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

(Click to enlarge picture.)

art in my classroom

There are lots of adventures for an art instructor who teaches everyone from the unsocialized levels of kindergarteners to the attitude-know-it-all sixth graders. Until this last month, I would say that I more often mourned my role as art entertainer to 600 students than celebrated it; I have quickly learned that the role of "entertainer" is an inherent characteristic in the work of any public school teacher. But I made it through the first of four terms and I tell you what - I believe that my art class is fun (even for me).

We have done all kinds of projects so far. The kindergarteners were awed by the wonder of leaf rubbings as well as the fact that when you turn over a sheet of paper you can use the other side as if it were a new sheet; I am learning time and again that less is really much more for them.

The first and second graders learned how shadows don't have details like smiley faces (that took quite of bit of prompting on some of their first drawing exercises). First they outlined each other's shadow outside with chalk. The next week they took turns posing in front of an overhead light for the other students to draw the shadow in their sketchbook. Of course, I "only picked shadow posers who were sitting quietly criss-cross applesauce". Then this last week we made a shadow dance mural with butcher paper from the projection of a poseable figure we put on the overhead and outlined on paper where it was projected.

Really though, I think my favorite results were from the 3rd-6th grade sketchbook/masterpiece activity. We took a month talking about how artists practice for a masterpiece in a sketchbook first like making a draft for a paper. They had to plan what materials they would use for their masterpiece and why. Watercolors aren't good for details and colored pencils aren't good for soft looking textures, etc. And then, I stopped the teaching and let them decide what to do. And that's when the transforming robots, dragons, birds in fast flight, delicate arches, gigantic drills appeared on their papers. The stuff they made was so incredibly creative. I swear they were taking from the kind of inspiration that anyone from Kinkade to even the Dadaists cry themselves to sleep for not having. It was marvelous. I am so proud.

But to those 5th and 6th graders that wish to continue dishing out the "-tude" and their pre-teen triumphs as top of the elementary totem pole... just wait till middle school and acne hit you next year ... Then you'll long for the validating comforts I offered in this art classroom.

and to think it was a last minute costume...

From the Sunset View Elementary Halloween parade, working at the public library, and living too close to BYU campus, I saw a lot of pretty great costumes this year.

But nothing really competes with Old Man Autumn.

Good work, Matt.

tribute to autumn

There have been lots of things to make this years's Fall eventful and really beautiful. The kick off probably started with the Utah State Fair. Gosh! I will never get too old to eat funnel cakes and pet goats. And what is it that is so captivating about old people square dancing in folksy tutus and cowboy boots? It is almost like watching a migration of co-ed aquasizers move with the season from the pool to the dance floor. There is something beautifully absurd about it.

And those of you Provo peeps, have you taken an autumn pilgrimage up Rock Canyon yet? It is something great. The colors get as rich and overwhelming as a yellow orange forest where you could be sung to a 'O Brother Where Art Thou ' baptism. I just got back from another trip up there where I collected oak and maple leaves for my students. I can't wait for them to do their leaf rubbings or outline them with crayons then watercolor the rest until the paper crinkles when it dries. If I had another month and there weren't so many aphid infested trees we would do a lesson on Caulder and make leaf mobiles.

I can't stop with making soups and ciders either. Winter squash and green apple bisque was one of my favorites. The grape cider was more of an improv when we boiled the grapes with too much water that we had to add mulling spices to give it more depth of flavor. It was perfect for our tea party. We served it with pop tarts and cinnamon tea and the compliments given on the flavor were no match to how proud I was of the color.

What else makes for a good rite or ritual of Fall?

tonight when i was driving home

there was this car in front of me going about 15 mph in a 25 zone. She pulled out in front of me right when I was turning out of the library parking lot. Then she braked her way down the four block street until the intersection where I hoped to part ways. Nope. Turned down the same street I needed to go. I started to lose patience. It called for an unprecedented tail-gate. So I began to approach her gigantic bumper. Slowly her license plate border came into view:

"I may be slow...but I'm ahead of you"

oooooo...that made me so mad.

welcome to art class

So here it is: Mrs. Sweeney's art classroom. I have to say that I am pretty proud of it. I never thought I would see the day where I would get paid for talking about and doing art with kids; in other words, I was unsure I would get paid for doing something I want to do. For all those who said "What do you do with an art history degree?" I say "Ha! get paid to do something inspiring and fun."


Also note that although these pictures may not seem profoundly impressive to you they are a giant leap from the before images I should have caught on camera. Let's sum it up by saying that Miss Bliss, the previous art instructor, had been there for years with a different curriculum than the new one I got. Although I am indebted to her for some cool ideas for the upcoming year, she left way too many in that room and hauled the rest of her "stuff" away in a U-Haul. Yup, we're talking a lot of stuff. What kind of stuff? Well, everything from the good ideas I want to keep for beginning drawing exercises to really junky (like hundreds of coloring book pages of clowns and boatload of broken plastic soda lids - for mixing paint?) and at times bizarro remnants (baby doll heads...I really don't know).

Once I got over feeling mean for depriving the students of what maybe beloved coloring book activities and perverse for throwing baby doll heads in a dumpster, I started to really feel like some great things are going to happen this year. I am so excited to paint Sistine murals on butcher paper taped underneath desks, make styrofoam plate prints, and cut out tissue paper to make Matisse masterpieces with these little ones. It's going to be marvelous.

Tales from the OPL - "the Sedaris type"

I love my job at the Orem Public Library. Let there be no mistake. I really love it. Part of what I love so much about it is the public part. It's funny, well maybe not funny as much as great that us library workers all refer to those we serve as "patrons". An accurate term really, they all are tax payers. It's beautiful. The library is the one place that students, elite business folk, families, illegal aliens, and those weird types that you always see walking home from a gas station on state street with cheap nachos and a 90 oz drink can all be considered patrons. There have been many times where I have found a satirical quality to this term at work. But today's tale is not one of an ironic use of the word patron, rather it is more a tale of an awkward conversation with one.

An evening not long ago, perhaps a week or two, I was working the fiction reference desk in the South wing basement. It was a slow night and I wondered if I was going to have any real public in action to pass the evening. Right when it seemed hopeless a young man approached my desk.

He appeared unlike the average Orem resident. His hair was cut to a stubble exhibiting a mosaic of tattooes covering the skin around the crown of his head which was reprised on his tan forearms in similar patterns. The shirt he wore was tight but not in the same way as a blond Provo High popped collar type. Instead, it was fitted in the way that you would see on a charming Banana Republic clerk. Around his neck hung a thick beaded necklace that fell right above the neckline of his shirt which seemed to form the utter compliment in hue and design of his overall composition. He was a 'lone artistic ranger' in the Orem community and I was refreshingly intimidated.

"Hey" he started, "I'm not sure if you're who I talked to about this. I've got a weird question."

I wondered if it was sincerely something weird like when that old Asian guy who brings his entire modem and Windows '97 computer monitor in and asks for a Chinese translating hook-up.

"Well, let's see what it is." I coaxed him.

"Have you heard of David Sedaare-is?"

Hmmm...SedAare-is I thought...Sedaaris....ah! Sedaris.

"Yes, the This American Life contributor? David Sedaris?"

"Un hun. Yeah. That's him. I just finished his Me Talk Pretty one Day and thought it was cool. Is there something else around here like that?"

That is a hard question to answer, I thought. There's a lot of stuff that makes Sedaris read like he does. Is this guy the cynic or the intellectual satire? Well, judging be his "something else around here" line, I'm going to assume cynic. Maybe, though, he is like me and just wants the self-reflective thoughtfulness of a This American Life episode. I decided to give him all of the above.

"Oh I'm sure there's something around here like that. Gosh there's Nick Hornby who has been read on the same NPR show as Sedaris. His stuff has the same kind of humanely funny tone to it."

He took a scrap of paper and a golf pencil from the desk and started to write the names down I was suggesting. I started to look up these names on the computer catalogue to see if any were checked in.

"Then there's also Sarah Vowell, she is a historian with a raw cynicism that can be really funny if you can read it rather than listen to her reading her stuff in that nasally voice of hers. Oh and you might like David Rakoff. He's a gay writer like Sedaris with that same humanistic qual-"

"Oh" He stopped me. "I'm not necessarily interested in gay writing. I mean it's not like I only read gay writers." He finished the last part with some hestitancy and his tattoos were starting to go flush.

"Right." I assured him, trying to overwhelm this awkward conversation turn we had just encountered with complete understanding. "I mean, Rakoff is great. He's got the same interesting...political...or uh...humanistic perspective as Sedaris. Just another contributor to that radio show I was talking about earlier...."

I looked from my computer search to him and he quickly shifted his dumbfounded expression to his little paper he had briefly forgotten. I tried to respond with absolute confidence to defy whatever "delicacy" the conversation now held. It was hopeless. He looked back up at me appologetically as if to try and sincerely coin the cliche "not that there's anything wrong with being gay."

"Uh thanks" he started.

"Oh no problem. I hope that gets you started with some ideas. Good luck."

I meant the last part as "good luck" with the search not with the being gay part. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being gay.

happy 24th of july!

Here's a few gems from an old lady's garage sale off of 9th East in Provo. I was glad I got to spend some of my 24th holiday on her front lawn thumbing through these.

writing about idaho

What is it about Idaho that is so poetic?... Maybe not just poetic but worth writing about. I was thinking all last summer while I was swimming in glacier lakes, running, hiking, backpacking in those magnificent Sawtooths that there was something so neglected when it came to Idaho. Everyone liked the Napoleon Dynamite version but when it came to finding a place for vacation, no one believed a place called "Stanley" could really be that great. Well I tell you what, there's more to Idaho than Rexburg and Pocatello.

But also, there is something to the Idaho that is the stereotype. Not just the Idaho of podunk towns filled with suburbia sprawl and guys with strawberry blond afros. I mean, what about the sage brush stretches near the Utah border that always seem to be windy and every exit reads "no services"? With so little to describe itself I can't help but fill it in the way poetry would dictate for a place that barren. T.S. Eliot must have seen South East Idaho in a Wasteland dream or heard tales from Ezra Pound. There are also those town names you can pass along the way like "Burley" or "Rupert". What could be more worthy of words than towns like that?

There's also this special place I've found. Somewhere between Shoshone and Twin Falls the landscape gets dark and rocky much like the surface that the Mars pathfinder would navigate. Nothing breaks that post-apocolyptic scape until you begin to site those who have tried to make a living off the surrealistically disfigured nature of that earth. Here, one man has done it with a cave he found and claimed to be of "Mammoth” proportions. From his road signs and the 2 mile dirt road commitment it takes to get to the cave, it is clear that this is a cave that would put Idaho into the Rick Steve’s archives.

I finally took the trip because for once I found time to diverge from my journey to Stanley and I had always felt fleeting curiosities about the mammoth cave. The road snaked back and forth. Occasional arrows pointed where to turn next placed at the last moment before you decided to turn around because of disorientation and the frustration of losing so much time and energy on what should be a quick road trip thrill.
The cave place emerged from the dirt like a large beast rising from sleep. And there it was, a junky pile of trash supporting the edges a wooden shack placed over the cave. The heat and the entropic desperation of the place were sublime to anyone who had been introduced to this wonder by highway 84. It was unbearably marvelous. After photographing all but would make me obnoxious and examining a stone outside resembling an ancient Olmec head I walked into the museum/cave entrance.

Inside was so dark my eyes struggled to adjust to the dark entry. It was hot and musty. I squinted to see a sweaty 20 year old boy with a lopsided goatee sitting behind a counter. It was like I was getting my cave vision. The fee was overpriced at $8.00 a person. I though maybe hanging around a bit with no one there but us would start some kind of fold or bargain between me and the sweaty goatee boy. I looked around without being able to see much until Mary started to draw attention to this 12 foot alligator in a diorama-like bed on the opposite wall. “whoa…cool” I thought for a moment as I began to approach it. I guess we don’t have to pay the fee for this.
Then I thought a minute longer…so there’s this alligator…hun…
I saw a picture on the opposite side I had walked around to with a picture of this massive animal in the back of a pick up truck struggling to break free like a Snowy River horse from a rope around its neck.
“So…” I began, directing my attention to the cave keeper. “Where did the alligator come from?”
“Florida”
“Hun…” hmmm.
“My dad had it fedexed from Florida.”
“Really.? And so” pause pause “what is it doing here?”
He didn’t seem to find any inconsistency between a stuffed alligator from Florida and an Idaho mammoth cave. “What do you mean?”
“Wull, so what’s the connection between the alligator and the cave here?”
“Oh well” he said like he understood me this time “my dad is a taxidermist.”
Ahhh…I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that answer. I think that is as far as the two of us can go with that one. At that point, the room became illuminated in full view of dead taxidermed animals hanging from walls and ceiling, others resting against wooden stands. Overhanging the entrance were African masks attached with animal hair and leather. A price tag demanded $2000 for the masks.
“And the African masks?” Mary asked.
“Oh my dad has traveled the world.”
Hun.
Just then a stout, white-haired man drove up in a truck. Perhaps the truck that had carried an alligator four months before?
I really wanted to leave then. There was too much desperation building for one day. When the cave man came into his museum with a giant watermelon and a case of a dozen donuts I ducked out quickly before his eyes could transition from the desert sun to the cave entrance. One day though, I will go back and pay that entrance fee in full.