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10 things i L O V E Sunday!
20 hours ago
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What's Beautiful in Your Life? - Facebook
On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I am adding one thing that is beautiful in my life to my Facebook site titled "What's Beautiful In Your Life?" These are images from my last two entries. The Facebook page is set up so others can add what is 
beautiful in their lives as well. So far, someone else has posted a couple of pictures of beautiful baby ducks. If you are already on Facebook, check it out, become a fan and share with the world what is beautiful in your life. If you are currently logged onto Facebook, click here to go to What's Beautiful In Your life?
It has been a satisfying experience to share something beautiful in my life everyday. It has helped me to see those things in my life that are beautiful, things that I rely on but generally give too little attention to. Although I am not always successful, I am trying to feel the beauty I witness. I am not trying to simply record something beautiful but, on a daily basis, I want to take a moment to let beauty sink into me. It helps me to relax, clears my head and makes my day go better.
What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
Monday, July 20, 2009
Art Dandi - The Lion of Russia
Art Dandi here with a critic of a fine exhibit and stories from the good old days. A couple weeks ago, I graced my presence on the Museum of Russian Art in south Minneapolis. It is the only Museum of Russian Art in the United States. There were two shows on exhibit. The first was a postage stamp exhibit in the basement gallery titled Postage Stamps: Messengers of the Soviet Future. The basement gallery was an appropriate place for this exhibit - something to view on the way to the bathroom. The stamps were fine examples of engraving and, what the message of the show was about, displayed an ideal future for the Soviet Union. We all know how this one ends. But a nice filler exhibit while waiting for the real art......which was upstairs in the exhibit Russkiy Salon. Now this was an excellent exhibit. Some wonderful Russian painters with big visions and wonderful ability. But best of all, this exhibit gave me a chance to reminisce about my time in Russia.
Just out of high school, I was being recruited by many fine art universities and academies. I was invited to visit Ukhu Te Mas, an elite art school in Russia. I was so happy to see in the Russkiy Salon a few of the artists I met at old Mas; Nikolai Nikolaevich Danilin, Mai Volfovich Dantsig and Aleksei Mikhailovich Gritsai, eventual winner of the Stalin Prize. I remember one night I was talking with Nikolai, Mai and some professor at a restaurant where Nikolai had some knock-offs hanging on the walls in exchange for a few free meals. We began to talk about the impact of the European art scene on Soviet art. Of course, vodka was flowing and the next thing I know the four of us are in a fist fight. The Professor was calling me some name in Russian, later I found out he was derisively calling me a genius (he was right, except for his tone). Nikolai was defending me, saying that I was the greatest young artist of our time and that U. T. Mas should pay me to attend. This did not sit well with Mai, who had just completed his schooling and didn't like the idea of me being better than him, never having had advanced training. We shouted, we drank, we shouted some more and suddenly, we were fighting. Aleksei, visiting from Leningrad, entered the restaurant. Aleksei grabbed a painting off the wall, yelled at us to stop fighting and put his foot through the painting. We all ended on the floor laughing until we could hardly breathe.
The passion of these artists almost convinced me to attend Ukhu Te Mas, but fortunately for the world, things turned out different.
The Museum of Russian Art is in a beautifully renovated old church in south Minneapolis. You should visit just to see Aleksei's Winter Twilight and Last Snow. Two of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. The exhibit is up until August 30, 2009.
Remember, Art is Dandi.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tracy Reese Exhibit - Homewood Studios
I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Tracy Reese exhibit, 40 Days in Mexico, at Homewood Studios in north Minneapolis. Tracy documented her stay in Mexico during a language-immersion experience. When she returned home, her husband had taken
the pictures she had sent via e-mail to Homewood Studios and had arranged an exhibit. It was a surprise for when she returned. Tracy is presently working toward traveling to all twenty one Spanish speaking countries
and document their people and surroundings. her work has strong color and captures isolated incidents, vinettes and moments in time on the streets of Mexico City. The pieces look great in the beautiful surroundings of Homewood Studios.
I had an opportunity to meet Tracy's husband and children. They are an attractive family with a great story behind this exhibit. The last show I saw at Homewood had a wonderful story behind it as well. To read about that exhibit, The Nomadic
Project, check out my blog entry on it.I will be having an exhibit of my work at Homewood Studios in October of 2010. I will share the dates when they are finalized. To learn more about this wonderful community oriented gallery and studio space, check out Homewood Studios website.
What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
Thursday, July 16, 2009
New Landscape - New Technique
The image here is of an oil landscape painting I recently completed. The landscape is of the Mississippi River and a couple of viewing spots on the Saint Paul side. My style of painting is changing as I am adding more line and fields of color into my work. I believe I have figured out this new style for flowers and people, but landscapes are a bit more challenging. They have such a need for a sense of dimension. But I will try to suppress or work with that concept as I move forward. This painting will be in a Project Art for Nature exhibit in Morris, Minnesota in October. It will be my first exhibit with this newer style. I am excited to see it in a gallery next to excellent work by other people. I think I will learn alot about what direction to go from there.What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
Monday, July 13, 2009
Self-Transendance and Beauty, Part 2
Having been feeling a bit un-unified in all of my many activities lately, I have been looking for something to help move me forward, to help me find more meaning in what I am doing. Finding meaning in my activities has been helped tremendously by a concept of Victor Frankl's, as presented in his book Will to Meaning, published 1969. The concept is called dimensional ontology. Ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
Having read Frankl's definition, I realized that all of my activities make sense to me, as indivdual activities, but as a whole they are not ordered or grouped in a way that makes any sense to me. But then he had the following diagram in his book on page 23.
Basically, Frankl talks about how an object in a higher dimension can look contradictory in a lower dimension. For example, a cylindar, if viewed in two dimensions from a side view-point, will look like a rectangle. But if it is viewed in two dimensions from the bottom, it will look like a circle. A rectangle and a circle are contradictory, but they both describe a cyclindar.
Perhaps my activities are like dimensional ontology. Perhaps what looks like several different activities actually reflect one activity or concept in a higher dimension? If I were to add up all of my activities; painting, writing, Art Dandi, coordinating gardens, coordinating public art maintenance, starting an education department, seeking local food access for the city I live in, fixing up my house, fathering, friendships and family, what do they all reflect in a higher dimension, from a broader perspective? An unruly mess. :P But as I look more closely I start seeing a larger concept of creating environments where transformation can happen. I am not focused on what elements create transformation, i.e. knowledge, time, physical growth, communal growth, etc. But I am very concerned about transformations happening. One form of transformation is self-transcendance. Another larger concept I see is the creation of beauty and beautiful things. Beauty creates transformation within an individual or group of a kinder, more compassionate way. Even a way of transcendance. So, I am beginning to understand the broader themes I find in my life. Like a child flexing its muscles until it can control what it is doing, I am building upon my life experiences to create environments for transformation, environments for self-transcendance.
These ideas have helped me to organize my life in my head, now I'll see if these concepts hold up when I apply my hands to them.
What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
Having read Frankl's definition, I realized that all of my activities make sense to me, as indivdual activities, but as a whole they are not ordered or grouped in a way that makes any sense to me. But then he had the following diagram in his book on page 23.
Basically, Frankl talks about how an object in a higher dimension can look contradictory in a lower dimension. For example, a cylindar, if viewed in two dimensions from a side view-point, will look like a rectangle. But if it is viewed in two dimensions from the bottom, it will look like a circle. A rectangle and a circle are contradictory, but they both describe a cyclindar.
Perhaps my activities are like dimensional ontology. Perhaps what looks like several different activities actually reflect one activity or concept in a higher dimension? If I were to add up all of my activities; painting, writing, Art Dandi, coordinating gardens, coordinating public art maintenance, starting an education department, seeking local food access for the city I live in, fixing up my house, fathering, friendships and family, what do they all reflect in a higher dimension, from a broader perspective? An unruly mess. :P But as I look more closely I start seeing a larger concept of creating environments where transformation can happen. I am not focused on what elements create transformation, i.e. knowledge, time, physical growth, communal growth, etc. But I am very concerned about transformations happening. One form of transformation is self-transcendance. Another larger concept I see is the creation of beauty and beautiful things. Beauty creates transformation within an individual or group of a kinder, more compassionate way. Even a way of transcendance. So, I am beginning to understand the broader themes I find in my life. Like a child flexing its muscles until it can control what it is doing, I am building upon my life experiences to create environments for transformation, environments for self-transcendance.
These ideas have helped me to organize my life in my head, now I'll see if these concepts hold up when I apply my hands to them.
What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
Friday, July 10, 2009
Self-Transcendence and Beauty, Part 1
I have been reading The Will to Meaning, by Victor Frankl, published in 1969. Frankl is a psychologist who created a technique called logotherapy - a form of therapy that helps a person find happiness through moving towards meaning.
Recently, I have been feeling scattered. Not because I cannot focus on any one thing - I feel scattered because I have too many things I am interested in. In the last forty five years I have experienced so many things, felt so many things, thought so many things that I am feeling full.
Humans learn by building on previous experiences. We start, as newborns, by jiggling our muscles around. Eventually, this activity becomes familiar enough that we can start to control our muscle movements. We then build upon that to learn how to reach for things we want, move to where we want to go, ask for what we want. Building on these skills we learn what are effective and/or pleasing activities that help us acquire the things we need in life. We also learn how to help others acquire what they need.
I am feeling that my experiences have built upon each other so much over the years that the breadth of experience is becoming unruly. It seems that certain parts of my life have progressed so far down one line that they have nothing to do with other parts of my life. I have been feeling un-unified. I have been searching in my art, my personal relationships and in my work activities for something to help unify this crazy mess.
Frankl, in his book, talks about self-transcendence as a uniquely human quality. He states that there are only two ways to transcend ourselves, we must move toward others or toward meaning. At this point in time, I feel like I am struggling with the meaning of all my activities. Where are they heading and why do I feel so compelled to do them? Ultimately, I think both moving toward meaning and people are intertwined.
So this has been my dilemma - for awhile now. At first, I felt that beauty was an idea that would help me unify my thoughts and activities. I have continued down this path, as witnessed by the title of this blog that has been running for a couple of years now. Beauty inherently has meaning in it. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But any experience of beauty has inherent meaning in it. The odd thing about beauty is that it can show you meaning at any given moment. It is easy to understand the meaning one connects with when one sees a beautiful aspect of their child, spouse or close friend. It is also understandable when people see beauty in those things that are meaningful to them; their garden, a song by a musician they like, or the worn look of a chair their granmother used to own. But beauty can connect us to meaning in the oddest moments through the oddest things. We may suddenly witness the beauty in a plant we used to consider a weed. We can find beauty in a fleeting glimpse of a landscape as we travel across our highways. We can find beauty in an experience that only happens for a brief moment and then disappears, never to be experienced again. We may find beauty in the smallest and most ordinary of objects to which we had never previously given any meaning.
Recently, I have been feeling scattered. Not because I cannot focus on any one thing - I feel scattered because I have too many things I am interested in. In the last forty five years I have experienced so many things, felt so many things, thought so many things that I am feeling full.
Humans learn by building on previous experiences. We start, as newborns, by jiggling our muscles around. Eventually, this activity becomes familiar enough that we can start to control our muscle movements. We then build upon that to learn how to reach for things we want, move to where we want to go, ask for what we want. Building on these skills we learn what are effective and/or pleasing activities that help us acquire the things we need in life. We also learn how to help others acquire what they need.
I am feeling that my experiences have built upon each other so much over the years that the breadth of experience is becoming unruly. It seems that certain parts of my life have progressed so far down one line that they have nothing to do with other parts of my life. I have been feeling un-unified. I have been searching in my art, my personal relationships and in my work activities for something to help unify this crazy mess.
Frankl, in his book, talks about self-transcendence as a uniquely human quality. He states that there are only two ways to transcend ourselves, we must move toward others or toward meaning. At this point in time, I feel like I am struggling with the meaning of all my activities. Where are they heading and why do I feel so compelled to do them? Ultimately, I think both moving toward meaning and people are intertwined.
So this has been my dilemma - for awhile now. At first, I felt that beauty was an idea that would help me unify my thoughts and activities. I have continued down this path, as witnessed by the title of this blog that has been running for a couple of years now. Beauty inherently has meaning in it. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But any experience of beauty has inherent meaning in it. The odd thing about beauty is that it can show you meaning at any given moment. It is easy to understand the meaning one connects with when one sees a beautiful aspect of their child, spouse or close friend. It is also understandable when people see beauty in those things that are meaningful to them; their garden, a song by a musician they like, or the worn look of a chair their granmother used to own. But beauty can connect us to meaning in the oddest moments through the oddest things. We may suddenly witness the beauty in a plant we used to consider a weed. We can find beauty in a fleeting glimpse of a landscape as we travel across our highways. We can find beauty in an experience that only happens for a brief moment and then disappears, never to be experienced again. We may find beauty in the smallest and most ordinary of objects to which we had never previously given any meaning.
Beauty is not about hoping for something yet to be experienced, it is about the present moment. There is an immediacy to beauty that can overwhelm us, move us beyond ourselves, in the Now. To begin to see beauty in all things means to live in the present moment. To begin to see beauty in all things means to begin to transcend one's self. I hope that I can live in the present enough to see something of beauty every day - to transcend myself at least for a moment.
More to come.
What's beautiful in your life?
http://www.mgranlund.com/
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