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Tuesday 26 October 2010

Fabrication


.

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Mural, Route 66, Tucumcari, New Mexico: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 2006 (Library of Congress)



for better
or
worse

people
make
art

what
it
is




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Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)

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Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)

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Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)

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Mona Lisa mural, Columbus, Ohio: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 2009 (Library of Congress)

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Mural, Dothan, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Mural, Mission District, San Francisco, California: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2009 (Library of Congress)

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Gas station next to hand painted revolutionary mural, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Mural in Chinatown, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Murals painted on a building on Dragones Street in Chinatown section of Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Committee of the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) mural, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)

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Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)

13 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Beautiful stuff -- (!) Carol Highsmith sure gets around, sees what's out there to be seen (in the scene) . . . .

10.26

light coming into sky above still black
ridge, waning white moon above branches
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

which “explained” simply as
still, since what can

and that which will be that
scene, so, and see it

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
whiteness of moon in sky across from it

manik sharma said...

tom,
some great shots by carol highsmith....i must say seeing the mona lisa painted like that on a wall somewhat makes my heart sink....the most famous art piece man has ever seen on canvas....

has art been distributed....or just stolen....beethoven's symphonies have been mixed and remixed...and her smile widened and wiped off....

Anonymous said...

Really? I love that Mona Lisa on its side. You've never seen it like that before.

Ed Baker said...

I like Nat King Cole's version!
and
the nude
version
with the mustache!

besides:
museums who buy and exploit pieces of art
are ruining art!

time should come when you have gone as far down a road as possible you can
it is time to take the other fork in the way...

I betcha that there is a naked, pregnant Mona Lisa "out there" begging for love!

manik sharma said...

ed,
i think i've seen it...

John B-R said...

Do you think there are any illicit murals on the walls of Pandaemonium?

Robb said...

I like it. A lot. And based on those photos and all the martio in them, I vote "for better."

Elmo St. Rose said...

congradulations to Ms Highsmith

It is important for those
traveling west into
the myth of light
to know
that the light
begins to change
at
Tucumcari

Bowie Hagan said...

Tom,

How are you? Art's promise is heretical, faithful too- all one has to leave or take, a promise-

existence, and giving. I hope you're well, living

Bowie

aditya said...

For me those are fantastic pieces done on walls and this, a fantastic poem made out of them(?). Carol Highsmith sure has an eye for things.

For better or worse people make art what it is.

I just took a beautiful poem, with its minimalism scattered into three stanzas and turned it into a sentence.

For better or worse

But the sentence has been deprived of the consonantal clustering of the 'r' in the first stanza and the 't' in the second and third stanza. Of the minimalism and how one single word at a time, lines up into a beautiful poem. The reader certainly, has been deprived of the eagerness which awaits the minimalism of words.

The discontinuity with which this poem poses itself as a question in the morning and as the answer in the evening is utterly great.

By the way Ted Berrigan did create some excellent pieces fabricating his own poems and eavesdropping occasionally at times onto poems not written by him, never but, giving the hint of an identity crisis.

Wonderful poem Tom. Sorry for the slightly long comment. Your minimalism pressed the trigger. Less is more(?).

billymills said...

for worse
or
better

art
makes
people

what
they
are

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

At one point we read your poem and looked at these pictures in my class (Listening to Reading) last night. . . .


10.27

pale orange of sky above shadowed black
plane of ridge, red-tailed hawk calling
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

followed form of particular,
place a brief present

of time, plane of the paper,
points toward side of

silver line of sun reflected in channel,
waning white moon in cloudless blue sky

TC said...

Thanks to everyone for remarkable comments, sorry to be a bit slow at this end, I've been struggling with pneumonia... which also means struggling with public transit, with Medicare, with, in fact, just about everything that comes under the heading:

Public

(Individual free and voluntary messages open to everyone to see and hopefully take thought... it appears these have been a primary artistic mode in many places, in many ages...)