Irksome. Banksy, Me and Everybody (spoiler)

I discovered him a couple of years ago, when we vacationed in Bristol.
It was love at first sight.
There happened to be an exhibit at the Bristol City Museum. We didn’t see the exhibit, only the lines stretching for blocks of people who were already showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder just from waiting so long. We had seen enough traces of his work around town tho, Bristol being Banksy’s Ur, that I knew I needed more. Now I wish we had just given our kids over to juvenile detention for the day and gone to the exhibit. So, what I didn’t have to do in Bristol, I got to do last night: “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” Banksy’s documentary film debut.
It was irritating.
Nails on the chalkboard stuff.

It took me a while to get behind what it was. What was the film about anyway? Was it asking what was once a standard high-school philosophy question, “What is art?”
No, that wasn’t it.
Closer would be, “Who counts as an Artist?”
But for someone who has been telling people for the last couple of years, that EVERYONE is an Artist, I was overly irritated by the unforeseen twist in this movie.
(spoiler)

The film is not actually about Banksy, but about Thierry Guetta, a small, eccentric Frenchman with a filming addiction, who seems to be making a movie about Banksy and a number of other semi-criminals. He follows and films and “assists” Banksy and these street artists the world over for years, but when it becomes clear that Guetta is a borderline “Messy,” and doesn’t know the first thing about film making, Banksy turns the tables, and tells Guetta to handover his enormous collection of tapes (tapes Thierry has never even watched himself), and go do his own artwork for a while. Having “apprenticed” with the Space Invader, Shepard Fairey, Andre, Borf and Buffmonster, Guetta begins to follow their lead. He first creates an image for himself, or rather has someone else do it, and begins posting it in all shapes and sizes around LA as Mr. Brainwash. He then hires a team, sets up a large warehouse, and begins crankin’ out (or rather, has his team of Artists crank out) an Andy Warhol - Banksy mashup of pop-culture Ikons. At the climax of the film, Thie… um Mr. Brainwash gets in way over his head, when he wants to make a big, no, huge splash on the LA scene with a debut exhibit… Everything looks as though it is leading up to the ultimate belly-flop, until the doors open and people start pouring in by the thousands and money pours in by the Millions! It is insane.

I was irritated.
Banksy is obviously irritated.
Shepard Fairey is obviously irritated.
Even the people who were hired to set up his exhibit were pissed (I’ve worked for a psycho Frenchman before, so believe me, I know what they were going thru!).
But it also appears they can’t really put into words, what it is that bugs them so much.
Was he a copy cat? A poser? A wanna be?
Or a successful apprentice, who they hadn’t realized was apprenticing?
With no real artistic mastery of his own, he hired skilled artist to carry out his artistic direction. He seemed to have stumbled more onto a recipe than a message. So, in a way, it’s like he had stolen the answer sheet, crammed for the exam the next day and gotten an “A”, while the other guys slugged it out through the years old school style… with mastery, skill, meaning and depth.
Irksome.
But it still takes a kind of genius to pull off what Guetta pulled off; why do we allow him his piece of the pie so begrudgingly?
Just before falling asleep, I realized what it was that irritated me so much, and might have irritated Banksy, what it was that the film reminded me of, that feeling it was tapping into.

Thanks to facebook and the internet, I have reconnected with or been updated on people from just about every chapter of my life… and there have been many chapters: Ever so therapeutic. Several months ago, when I had slowed down long enough to listen to my own heart beat and opened up space there for new perspectives to grow, I became intensely aware of a deep truth. Of all the mean and nasty and terrible things I have thought and done in my life… more than running over a cat while driving before I got my license, more than getting busted, dropping out of school, getting kicked out of the house, puking my guts out at keg parties, or peeing in alley ways; more than cheating, lying, stealing and yelling at my kids,… the thing I regret the most, and will, on my death bed, regret more than anything else,
is a life time of underestimating people.
Time and time again, with each new “friend” request from a ghost of the past, seeing where people had gone, what had become of them, how they too had “grown up,” I became aware of what a small box I had up until that moment kept them in…what limited expectations I have for so many; how quickly I size people up and arrange them in a small corner of the world stage, never expecting them to be called out for an encore. Knowing myself the pain of being shoved to the back of the choir and not being expected to ever give a solo, makes this trait in me even more regrettable.

So, tossing from side to side, trying to wrestle this movie out of my head so I could get at least a few hours of sleep, I finally made the connection: The irksome aspect of Thierry Guetta or mbw, was that, in his quirky, sideways, clumsy way, this funny frenchman surpassed everyone’s expectations.
He became a huge success, and no one saw it coming!
How dare he!
How irritating it is, when we are sure someone isn’t playing with a full deck, and they end up winning the pot, because, as it turns out, they have an Ace up their sleeve!

I have been trying to allow other people’s stories to remain open-ended. I have been reminding myself, that there is usually more than meets the eye, and that anyone of the various people criss-crossing my life has every chance in the world of exceeding my amateur estimation of them. But my annoyance at watching Guetta, poised for a belly flop, succeed in doing a swan dive, shows me, that I better keep working on it until I make that final “exit through the gift shop.”

Third Way? One Little White Man in a Sea of Black People… Emergent 2010

The car was packed. Last meeting over. Last stop at the ladies room…. and that is when it seemed the fun began!

I’m the wrong person to give a good complete picture of this past weekend in Essen, since I spent a significant amount of time in only 3 rooms, but I guess my perspective is also a perspective, so here it is.

The smell of the kerosine burners wafting in from the buffet in the adjacent room accompanied the obvious Black and White themed room decoration with living room lamps and soft candle light wresting a cozy atmosphere from the otherwise unattractive, all purpose room big enough to hold the (plus/minus) 130 of us. A rough start with the visual and sound technics, which seemed intent to buck us off our time plan, had to be subdued by the incredible team from the Weigle Haus before we were able to jump into our theme for the evening with a fun ice breaker, that got people talking to each other. This was followed by a personal introduction from me, which was meant to highlight the problematic of the dualistic, “either/or”, “black and white” thinking that presupposes a need to look for a “Third Way.” (I’ll post that in German with the pictures I showed). The official part of the evening ended with a beautiful meditation and sung call and response prayer (gregorian style).

What everyone else did after that was lost on me, since I was again engulfed with the final preparations for the theme room which Esther Deletree and I spent many, many hours creating. A better title for our room, than the one given to us, would have been “Exclusion and Embrace: a way forward for individuals and communities to negotiate their boundaries (values, ethics, needs, wants) with each other and avoid the unfruitful and stifling polarities of victimization and violence.” As it was, there was some confusion! We had a slow trickle come through our very elaborate installation throughout most of the day, which only picked up in the evenings after the other workshops were done. However, those that did invest some time in our presentation, found it to be well worth it, and we plan to put it to good use in the near future.

The lounge area was filled with mostly young people!!! Lots of young, white guys with something in their hand with which to twitter, and when any given one was asked, most likely would admit to being in seminary. The few that I met were very “sympatisch” or “likable.” Lots more young women this year than in previous ones… (yeah!) also studying theology some of them. Most people were there for the first time. Few were die hards, like us, who had been to all four Forums. And it seemed like the big question on everyone’s mind was “how can we change things? How can we do things differently?

Saturday evening found us all together again for a great wrap up. First Sandra Bils, had us all laughing as she told of attempts to explain “Emerging Church” to her colleagues who wanted to know what this new “Emergency room” is. In this humorous way, Sandra was able to touch on the somewhat “elitist” nature and insider language often used at these forums, and helped us all to laugh a little about ourselves. Then came my favorite thing from the whole forum: An artist had been invited, who had had no previous connection to Emergent, to experience the entire weekend and then make comic sketches and present a review. The sketches can be seen here, which, along with his honest commentary, again made for a hilarious, somewhat ironic laugh at ourselves. Directly following this was a photo montage by Judith Goppelsröder, whose unique way of seeing things was a feast for the eyes and provided me with a peak in the rooms I hadn’t gotten to see at all. I’m hoping all of her pictures will come online soon.

I can’t say much to the “meat” of the weekend, since I didn’t get to visit any of the rooms except for ours. The titles of the workshop rooms can be found on the Emergent webpage.

As we were packing and loading, cleaning and putting things back in order, another group was slowly starting to gather and pick up momentum until by the time we were just about ready to get in the car and set our navigation systems, they had burst into song and dance. An African church service uses the Weigle-Haus facilities, and tho there was a regular trickle of finely dressed African people still making their way into the building, the vibrant worship service was already in full swing. We couldn’t help ourselves, and stood sheepishly in the doorway, letting the music course through our limbs and persuade them to convulse in time to the music. I wanted to stay. I wanted to dance with these beautiful people. I wanted to meet each one of them, hear their stories, and just soak them in. I became acutely aware of a deep thirst and hunger to be in their presence and thrust myself in this black sea, but we had a long drive ahead and three children waiting for us to finally come home. And then I saw a funny sight… a couple of rows from the front of the room, there was a small, white, middle aged German man in his Sunday best suit, also moving “expressively” to the music. He was so out of time and looked so out of place, that it was quite amusing to watch him. But I was filled with admiration for him, and had to think of David dancing before the ark… making a fool of himself for the lord, with no thought of his own honor.

This man was doing what we at Emergent Forum had yet failed to do, and that is to cross over cultural boundaries. As different as each person was from another, and as from as many places on the map of Germany we had hailed from, it was still a pretty homogeneous group, with narrowly defined aesthetic appreciations, and a rather narrowly defined cultural niche. We have not yet truly, in this frame at least, “opened ourselves to the distant other” as Volf would put it, and the ache I felt as I drove away from Essen was of a child artist who has been given a box of crayons with only a few varying shades of just one color to play with, and the disappointing suspicion, that a truly “Third Way” still lies far beyond us.

pictures by Judith Goppelsröder

Elephant Baby

I just beat the elephant in being the land animal with the longest time of being pregos. Yup, my three years (plus) of gestation out does their wimpy 22 months hands down, and yesterday my colorful 14 p. 3 hr. cuddly baby finally saw the light of day. We’ve had a name for a few weeks now, and if you’ve kept up, you’ve gotten the “birth announcements” in advance of the big day and know that we our calling our latest offspring “Brunch-n-More, for body and soul."

Fourteen of us ages three to 43 gathered in rooms we are renting from the CVJM at 10 am yesterday for a continental breakfast, good conversation and a messy adaptation of musical chairs. Everyone got to mix his/her own unique color of choice (no two people could have the same color) and choose a painting utensil (bottle brush, paint brushes, basting brushes etc.). We each started off at a blank Din A3 page and after putting our name on it, had about 5 minutes to begin a picture while music was playing in the background. Each time the music stopped, we rotated to the next picture and painted for a couple of minutes. We did this until we each made our way around to all of the pictures.

As you can see, the pictures are bright, colorful and unique. What one might not see at first glance, however, is what the pictures and indeed the process tells us about our social interactions, the fact of life that we are not an island, not solely responsible or “in-charge” of what ends up on the canvas of our life, and that, whether we want to be or not, we are sometimes major, sometimes minor contributing artists on the canvas of other people’s lives. This was frustrating for Charis, soon to be 12 yrs, who started off with a pretty concrete idea of what she wanted her painting to look like. When little Constantine came and painted a big blue blob on top of her little pop art people, she felt that her picture was ruined. For me it was no new revelation that Charis would have the hardest time of everyone “letting go” of control and finding beauty in something outside of her own narrowly defined objectives.

It was interesting to see that some chose loud colors which they used plenty of, some quieter, warmer colors, which they used more sparingly. Some responded more to what they were presented with in the painting already, choosing to “fix,” enhance, react to, continue something that was already going on, while other’s contribution was an object or pattern carried out through each painting. I believe this says a lot about who we are and how we interact with others.

It was also no surprise to see that the smaller/younger the children were, the less concrete their contributions were and the more “space” they took up on the page, the more likely they were to ignore whatever else was going on, and seemed intent on just getting as much of their color out there as possible. And I have had my years of my “painting” being dominated by the blue blobs!! It takes a real artist to work with those, find the balance of letting the blue blobs fill up space, and helping them to notice the beauty of the other colors and that those other colors need some space too without suffocating the artistic exuberance of the blue blobbers. That takes a lot of creativity and Grace, a lot of grace.

I just finished Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, which I was in the thick of Sunday afternoon after we got home from Brunch-n-More. I have to quote one of the many cool things she says in trying to describe her understanding of Grace. She writes, “Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.” Thank you Ms. Lamott for that bit of color, that brush stroke which describes so well what I’m hoping Brunch-n-More might be. People coming out of isolation, learning to “paint” with each other, give each other enough space to be, but not too much space to monopolize and become mono-color. I guess we do the best we can and hope that when the music stops, we will all get to take a very bright, colorful and unique painting home with us.

"We're All Gonna Die"

Just found this link to a cool project (click on the title):

"100 meter long panorama picture of Berlin displayed online

Photographer Simon Hoegsberg spent 20 days on a bridge in Berlin taking photos of pedestrians from the same perspective resulting in a fascinating 100 meter long panorama image. The project with the rather gloomy title, “We’re all gonna die” captures the number of different styles and variety of people in Germany’s capital. The 100 meter long panorama photo features 178 people and was shot from a spot on a railroad bridge on Warschauer Strasse in the summer of 2007.

The Copenhagen-based photographer writes on his website that most people did not even seem to know that their picture was being taken.

The freelance photographer is no stranger to unique projects. In winter 2004, he packed a few belongings including his camera, pen and a notebook and set out to travel the 1700 kilometers from Copenhagen to the Mediterranean Sea with just 14 euros in his pocket."  Young Germany

Exposure

I love the internet!  I love google! and facebook, myspace too!  It has been a blast getting back in touch with people from my past.  I'm talkin' waaaaay back!  I've reconnected with my best friend from high school; we hadn't seen each other for about 25 years! we still only have virtual contact, but it's a start.  She is doing what she always dreamed of doing: acting and teaching others the art, whether at University or at their non-profit community children's theater.  Then Eric was a guy i worked with in my waitressing days.  My girlfriends and I were big fans of B-Time, his band back then.  Thanks to google, I found Eric now as a full time musician in Nashville, gone totally country and cranking out albums with the band Last Train Home.  Our contact is also still just digital, but I'm hoping to be back dancing in front of his stage like in the good old days, when they return to Germany (maybe next year?).  Cara Luft already had a guitar growing out of her belly when she was a student at Holsby in Sweden, where i was on staff, so it is not too big of a surprise to find out that she is making her mark on the Canadian Folk scene.  I love her new album, and am nuts over the trio The Wailin' Jennys, which she started, but left recently to pursue her solo career.  And it IS a small world!  She is dating a guy who is in the Celtic rock band, Spirit of the West.  One of their guys is also in my favorite band the Paperboys!!  So, I'm told, my chances of getting to meet them are pretty good next time they role around!!   Another student from Holsby days has blossomed into a vibrant and radiant artist.  Kelly is painting, doing art installations, photography and hopefully will get around to illustrating an awesome new kids book for me.  She has also started her own company, Messy Monkeys, which does team building for corporations through very out of the box, artsy play.   Lothar Schöneck is a graphic artist, who also does installation art.  He is a long time friend of Jan's and is also one of my favorite people.

So why am I telling you all of this?  Because I want you to check out their links on my blog under "Check it Out."  The artists, the musicians, the "out-of-the-box" thinkers are just so valuable for our societies, for culture AND YES for our faith communities!  Unfortunately I have witnessed and experienced that it is just these forward, out-of-the box thinkers who get run out of institutional religion.  And perhaps nowhere more so than here in Germany.  (as an aside, I believe that WW2 left a gaping deficit of creative and intuitive people, which is eerily tangible in many aspects of the culture even today).  This is a tragedy!  It is as if we are deliberately plugging up the holes where the light and fresh air come in.  Isn't that what they call suicide?  

Of course i know that not everyone shares my taste, but that is not the point.  Expose yourself to something new!!

Grillenöd

Just got back from a wonderful weekend.  Short but wonderful.  A few years ago I ran across an article in one of my many home deco magazines about a farm not too far from here (almost a 3 hour drive), and it was love at first sight.  I had always been hoping to find a nice get-away, where we could spend some holiday time each year, gather memories, have adventures and just let our souls lavish in beautiful surroundings.  Well, I’ve found it!  Grillenöd is a romantically isolated property about half an hour away from Passau (itself a jem), at the end of a long winding dirt road which leads up through an “Alle” of oak trees.  The Swedish style farm was lovingly and tastefully built over a ten year period by the Swedish wolf researcher, Eric Zimen and his artist wife.  Since his death 5 years ago, Mona Zimen has managed to run the farm, work full time as a teacher, raise their 4 adoptive kids from Columbia, host children’s camps two weeks every summer as well as several weekends throughout the year, run a guest house, and expand her already impressive artistic repertoire to include sculpting.  It was inspiring and exciting to meet such an accomplished woman.

Contrary to the internet weather reports, the sun held the stage until  way past supper time Saturday, when stormy weather finally drew the curtain on out door activities.  Jan, our kids and the two Zimen boys cooled down in the pond before and after lunch, while I tried to relax and read on the pier.  This was after visits to the horses, ponies, and donkeys and an energetic soccer game.  The kids got to hold a new born lamb, and play “Mary” to the tame lamb, which would have even followed them to school had it been a Monday.  It was hilarious watching this sheep “hang out” with the group of kids as if they were a flock of sheep.  Charis made breakfast for Jan and I, even getting the eggs herself from the chicken hutch.  Sunday was another beautiful and sunny day of sleeping in, an unhurried breakfast, and quickly packing. The kids took another dip in the pond, while we enjoyed getting to know Mona Zimen, who was finishing off a bronze bust, and an acquaintance of her family, Joseph.  Again, it was the stormy weather which called curfew to our visit, and finally sent us on our way home an hour after we had actually planned to leave.  

We signed the kids up for a week-long summer camp, which is the first week of summer break in August.  Jan and I hope to get back there sometime as well for a longer stay, if not this year than next.  Sure beats the long drive to Sweden! 

 I'm posting more pictures on piccasa, and you can check out the website to see even better pictures from my list of links under the title "Check it Out.