Clouds, Fifth Seal

 

Kurt Weiser

 

Kurt Weiser: work from light to dark. Fascinated with territory, unregulated space, fascinated with exploration, maps of the old world, so the globes are my feeling of what's around of all the stuff that happens in the particular world, with as little preplanning as possible. The ideas come together in the work, start with one element and work their way out from there [let the lines reveal the lines, the planes, the forms] . There's no fun, no surprises in plans on paper, so the pieces are an exploration rather than just work, maybe 25 gal of slip in one globe, I'm not sure what's going to happen until I get there. Its not china paint I love but imagery, i love making things out of clay but felt something missing, which was imagery, ideas about things. I tried underglaze, black slips, conformist as the rest. It wasn't till i got older that I realized to do what I want, who cares, do what I want, what really interests me, nobody's watching anyway. It's a little unnerving to view the past 30 years. I try not to pay too much attention to it,  having done this for this long a time i don't take myself as seriously as i used to, i just do what i do, Sensuously decorated porcelain, the pots he creates are among the most vivid and decadent of modern ceramics

 AE Reiff sculpts figures in clay developed from traditional ceramic forms of pots, pitchers, bowls, vases. The technique involves joining multiple hand thrown forms together serially.  He brings to these figures a range of understanding of literary characters from his life long study and love of English Literature in which he holds a doctorate.

--I supply the words of the world, politicians, pastors, news broadcasts, films, plays, all business correspondence, every treaty and agreement of any kind,  letters to editors, the words of editors themselves, every correspondence, all the books in the world, all the secrets and revelations boasted of in the deep net, all the speech scripted for all the gifted acting, every aspect of accounts of discovery and space travel, all written by me. Yes I wrote all that stuff, and that doesn't include the other millions. Do I regret it? Wait, there's more.

How mountain and plant wrestle with the human / A Letter to the Tempe Arts Center

 1/27/87 Dear Jan Sheridan

I have enclosed my resume and slides for your advertised landscape exhibition. Since crossing over into art I have had two shows, in Dallas, fifteen free standing stained glass panels at the Stained Glass Studio (Shiprock Center), the second, thirty acrylic paintings at the Zale Library of Bishop College where I was  faculty. The landscapes here are pastels.  A brief statement follows on how the mountain and plant wrestle with the human.

Ordinarily nature takes no recognition but dominion by developments forced recognition in 1) "The White Thistle" carnivorously devouring the human figures, the gigantic bare 2) Mazatzals which invite tourists to perform the time-honored act of kiss my, the more secluded rock towers along the Four Peaks Road in their 3) 'embrace' now humanely reproducing the child of the Golden Age, a large womb of granite birth to 4) "Rockababy" near Mule Spring's threat to nature  implicitly and darkly forbidden, 5) 'Lilly's Rock.' Does all this make us wonder at 6) "The Needle/" of the Superstitions were nature to reflect human culture  with sexual gesture. Yet nature is so balanced and sensuous that even these must seem beautiful and inviting themselves. So nature makes our ugliness beautiful.

The rocks also seem like beasts we fear ourselves may be from the top of Canyon de Chelly where the rock cliff path to the White house lurches 7) "Elephantine" and 8) "Crown King' seems a dark fish swimming in a Pleistocene Sea. 9) "Herb-light' and 10) 'Eyrie' are included for the viewer to personally find what it is that hides beneath the surface.

Sincerely, AE Reiff

Visions of Taurobolium

 Illustrations of Trojan.

 

Standing Effigies. Preparations for the Resurrection of the Dead.

Sarcophagi Preparations for the resurrection of the Dead. Keepsake Standing effigies, of Andean style, Peruvian, Bolivian statuettes, Andean women, men, children statuettes small enough to stand on a table or shelf. Abstract keepsake funerary urns + statuary depicting characters from everyday life of various social classes, animal figures.

 

Embacing the Daughters

The best we can do is give the word. And be attractive, but having failed…I wasn’t made to be a politician....starting at 12.30 AM a week ago, 19 May, with explosions going off in my head, I did some work, then took a nap before 4, but  woke in a short hour with a stiff web of little bugs in the air around  on my head. I tore off the web and dumped it outside.

Then the next thing I knew my mother was reading a book in the rocking chair and I saw my two daughters in law, whose names both start with S, One was in a turquoise gown, The other in a violet purple red gown as they embraced me on either side! My mother sitting in a rocker in the living room was reading a book all the while. All this is told to explain the piece shown here after its composition last night, a week after this event, to show here we three are. I'm in the middle tightly embraced. Interwoven I should say, in the ones they love the most, their own lovely children!

In admission, my mother couldn't do anything with me either. Of course she was prejudiced in my favor, but that did not revoke my arguing around the table at 9 that black people should be given full access to the amenities of the middle class, a home and school. She had seen her north Philly neighborhood turned to Beirut by transplanted southerners in the 50s and forward. That was where her father had built the Tioga Presbyterian Church. But my mother was born with a cowl, which means she knew things. She dressed me up as a big green book one Halloween. Straps inside the box held in on my shoulders. There was a slit like in a mailbox on the front so I could see. Dressing up somebody as a book who published seven books in one year would seem prescient. She held her good spirits against the death of her first son and all hardship until a massive stroke stripped it away. She did not die. I dreamed there was a long ling waiting to get on a bus. My father was waiting there with here, but the line was long. She ultimately died, tired of it all, resigned in a posh retirement home after my father with old age passed. She stopped taking her meds and died. I am inspired with her courage and fortitude even if my daughters-in-law can't do anything with me either. I had a dream in the midst of repeated offenses held accountable for, not to  relate them. Offenses do as offenses are, scapegoats for the sins of others, yes?  There is talk among my sons as to how my wife can put up with me, something heard before. Well she likes what I am! Sorry. That being I am of my own people, stalwart, strong minded, living in opposition to the world, made a poet.