About the Flaneur
![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](../../wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
I walk through my blindness the way I wander down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, alert to the raw material of the senses. I am a flaneur. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm, unless I ask. What’s a flaneur? Read the first post, Return of the Flaneur to Galerie Vivienne. After that, try Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur. Then stay tuned.Kiki: Man Ray’s Dada Muse
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.Lee Miller: Surrealist Muse
Lee Miller traced a meteoric trajectory from flapper fashionista to surrealist muse. She played the Statue in Jean Cocteau's first movie. Picasso painted her portrait. She apprenticed with Man Ray and later became a noted war photographer for British Vogue. Read more.Miss Tic: Paris Street Art
Poet and street artist Miss Tic isn't exactly a kid in a hoodie with a can of spray paint. Maybe she can still run like hell when the police show up, but can she sprint in high heels? Well-known in international avant-garde circles, her work is exhibited now at the Venice Biennale as well as the alleys of Paris. Read more. See Ethics of Love for a video montage of Miss Tic's provacative poetry. More Paris Street Art.
The Lake and the River
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
I’ve canoed on Lake Superior for almost as many years as I’ve been losing eyesight. I return year after year like a migrating loon to learn the other side of a slow, uncertain process that we could call “going blind.” After 35 years with the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read Big Water. See more about the Great Lakes.
What is a village? A small place, yes, as wide as the world, layered with histories and stories, where you can walk wherever you want to go. My vision of that place is Yellow Springs 2.0.
Not This Pig
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.BottomFeeder U.S.A.
![Grant Wood. Parson Weem’s’ Fable. 1939. Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth.. Steven Biel describes the painting: “Parson Weems, imitating Charles Willson Peale’s pose in The Artist in His Museum (1822), opens a red velvet curtain on the legendary scene: Augustine Washington, elegant in crimson coat, white ruffle, tan breeches, silver-buckled pumps, and green tricornered hat, grasps in his right hand the slim trunk of the bent cherry tree. A row of cherries dangles from the perfectly rounded treetop, mirroring the very cherry-like fringe of the Parson’s curtain. Augustine’s outstretched left palm and furrowed brow signal a serious inquiry. His son George, boyish in stature and dress—coatless, with sky-blue breeches and petite buckled pumps—is manly in his expression. In fact, his white-wigged head is that of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait and the dollar bill. He points with his right hand to the hatchet in his left. Wood chips lie in the circle of soil at the base of the tree, its lower trunk smoothly incised and poised to split off. In the background, a well-dressed slave couple harvests the fruit of a second tree.” [Alt Text Source: Common-Place/ http://www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-04/biel/ ]](../../wp-content/uploads/2011/08/grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px.jpg "grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px")
BottomFeeder U.S.A.- Attention Economy – October 14, 2023
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Category Archives: Tom Roberts
Tennessee Needs That Beacon In A Sea of Red
The Obama banner hanging outside Tom’s studio in Loudon, Tennessee caught the eye of blogger David Ettlin,who stopped to chat and later wrote about the visit in The Real Muck: There wasn’t much – the depressed town only recently received … Continue reading
Brave Beacon in a Sea of Red
Tom Roberts sent this photo of his artist studio in Loudon, Tennessee. He volunteered the studio for Obama campaign headquarters for Loudon County. Tom writes: The building, across from the county courthouse, faces motorists heading north on highway 11, and … Continue reading
Perusing the Portland Farmers’ Market
Saturday morning, market day. Almost time to walk to the farmers’ market. I’ve been going there longer than I can remember. This summer I realized how these outdoor markets are a movement now, as much a part of the daily … Continue reading
Ransacking The Archive: Letter to Tom Roberts
This was written for Tom on the August night in 1975 when the world learned of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich. Letter to Tom Roberts I stopped reading books. Is that possible? My eyes hurt. My doctor says there are … Continue reading
Flaneur’s Gallery: Market Day in Costa Rica
A market in Feria, Costa Rica. [Photo by Tom Roberts] There’s more snow and ice here this morning. A stroll through a farmer’s market in the Tropic of Cancer would be a welcome respite. Thanks, Tom! Tell us more.
It Isn’t Georgia O’Keefe, But Look Again
Eve Koch. Figure. Acrylic, 60?x40?. Private Collection of Tom Roberts. Tom sent me images of two acrylic paintings by Eve Koch which he found in a Santa Fe gallery in 1999. Tom writes, “Her work has a frank and poignant … Continue reading
Where a Whiff of Pinyon Smoke Leads
Georgia O’Keeffe.Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills. 1935. [Source: Wikipedia] A blind flaneur follows his nose, and his heart, whenever he can. So when I heard a friend’s story about a trip to Taos, one detail took me back … Continue reading
Flaneur’s Gallery: Figure
Eve Koch. Figure. Acrylic, 60″x40″. Private Collection of Tom Roberts. Tom Roberts sent me images of two acrylic paintings by Eve Koch which he found in a Santa Fe gallery in 1999. Tom writes, “Her work has a frank and … Continue reading
Flaneur’s Gallery: Hand Applying Lipstick
Eve Koch. Hand Applying Lipstick. Acrylic, 15″x12″. Private Collection of Tom Roberts. See also Eve Koch, Figure.
Two Readers Are A Movement
When I came home from Toronto recently, I found an over-sized, flat envelope waiting for me. I recognized the handwritten address without being able to read it. I knew without opening it that it would contain visual art that would … Continue reading
