DAD

July 16, 2007

I had what I think was the best sports experience so far for me, the day before yesterday. At Claire’s Girls Softball 9-12 League. This was their next-to-last game. They had around seven scheduled. A couple were canceled in advance because of severe lightning. This was the fourth I’d been to.

When I say 9-12, I mean all the other teams are 12! Some of those girls are bigger than me! I went to the first game, an away game, across the mountain in Randolph. Where both Claire and Lily were born. Now, Claire’s team are all 9 and 10 year-olds. And they’re all about the same size, and there’s maybe 11 girls on the team, they can play ten at once but you have to have nine, at least; they may even have had one canceled for not enough players, so—they all get to play.

They have great uniforms, too. They look like miniature major-leaguers. And they’re very serious about it. In the beginning their skills were not very good at catching, throwing, and batting. But it seemed most of them had near the same abilities and had had about the same experience—except for a couple already-beginning-to-stand-out fierce competitors

Claire and I had played a lot of catch through the years when there was nothing else to do. So she was prepared, if not completely immersed in the game as an important skill to have.

The Randolph team that they played in this first game turned out to be the biggest baddest team in the league; The Sparrows’ coach is chewing a toothpick and wearing batting gloves and has a pen behind his ear, and he’s hitting hard grounders to his infield and at the last second telling them what to do with the ball, like it's 3-2 and one out, where’s the cut-off and suchlike and they’re fielding it like the semi-pro prospects they must be, and whipping it like a pill among them as they bring it home one by one. Then the Rochester Rockets take the field and try to do the same thing.

Our coach is a girl, a woman, I mean. She’s got some issues, I admit, but she’s much improved over the season, the girls did her good, it seems. Anyway, to begin with, the Rochester Rockets, Girls 9-12, were mostly just heart and desire. But, there’s a rule in their league, that if any team gets ten batters up in any one inning, that inning’s over. For the most part our girls haven’t been keeping score. And they’ve been getting killed, but they’ve been happy as larks about it.

By the time I caught up with them next, it was probably Game 3, a home game, and now they looked like they could play. I think the score was closer. Claire nearly always hits when she swings, and gets on base. She’s got a natural eye. We’ve played in the backyard since she was 4 or 5. All of her batting was with a whiffle ball, but throwing and catching tennis balls, softballs, and baseballs, whatever was around. She could always hit once I showed her what to do with her feet and how to hold her hands.

But she’s real intent at not swinging at any really bad pitches. They all are. Four balls is a great way to not strike out. One neat thing about this league that creates a lot of action, is that a lot of base-stealing is encouraged. No catcher can throw anyone out, certainly not at second, and if any tries there’s a pretty good chance for an error and more base-stealing.

So the base-runners are all flying on the pitch. They even steal home, but if they do, the rule is, they have to slide. I’ve never been able to get it straight why that is. It’s been explained to me several times but everyone says something different--but I’m getting that it’s more dangerous not to slide, in lots of ways.

So, they’re base-stealing fools, and their first-base coach volunteer dad-of-the-prospect knows his stuff, and they listen hard, so they’re learning.

And in the next-to-last game the other night, an away game way out west of Randolph, it all came together. They were all playing well, catching flies, and throwing people out at first, and at bat, nearly always making contact with the ball and hitting it somewhere, if often getting thrown out at first, but they were already ahead 9-4 in the bottom of the fourth. I don’t think they knew.

But the six of seven parents huddled against the 55 degree weather in the little bleachers behind right-center sure knew.

Suddenly, you could feel the spirit come up. We could win this son of a bitch. You could see now, if you looked, the way the other team’s girls when they batted, they jumped back out of the way of the pitch, as if it had been inside and a ball instead of the perfect strike anyone from our angle could plainly see it was. . . .

We wanted a win. Bad as sin. And as quickly as we began to think we would get one, our kids would, I mean, that quickly, it began to slip away. Before you could believe it the Hawks had scored five runs somehow while all the parents were yakking. It was tied 9 to 9 going into the top of the last inning. Visitors, that’s us, batting. And if we visitors don’t score, we’re (our kids, I mean) going into the home team’s last at-bats with no cushion at all. If they score, even a single run, it’s over, just like that, our sudden and unexpected dream of by god winning one for a change is snuffed out.

The first batter for the Rockets works it to a full count before knocking a weak one back to the pitcher. It's caught on the fly for one out. The second girl up bats last in the order. She’s one who has never quite gotten the hang of this hitting thing. She swings well enough, bats lefty, but when she swings it seems to have nothing to do with the ball that’s being thrown to her. After the ball is in the catcher’s glove, the ump about to speak, she’ll suddenly lash out with a vicious cut. Or as likely when the ball has barely left the pitcher’s hand. Once she was able to swing at the same pitch twice, having fully recovered from her first swing while the ball was still on its way. Today, as ever, she goes down swinging whenever the mood strikes her.

It’s two outs now and everybody knows that those damn Hawks are going to score a run and beat them if they can’t at least get one run for a little cushion, something to send it into extra innings, an inning with three more fat outs to go, instead of this noose slowly tightening.

Two outs.

The top of the order comes up. Phoebe, the pitcher, one of the naturals I mentioned, and daughter of the first-base coach I also mentioned, comes up first. She wants a hit so bad she swings at one down by her ankles. Fortunately, the next pitch is a good one and she hits a hard grounder right at the shortstop who bobbles it just briefly but long enough for Phoebe to beat the throw to first, depending who you believe. I’ll admit it was close.

Now, Claire’s up. Naturally, she started out the season batting tenth and playing right field. It runs in the family. We’re easy to take advantage of. But the coach started to realize, with Claire, every time she swings, she hits, and even when she gets thrown out, it’s usually for a couple of RBI’s.

This game she’s the catcher, and batting second. And now at the plate. She’s got a stance like a true hitting machine, no flourishes, no quirks, just focus.

Still, I thought it would end badly. And I would have to console her for her failure to master a situation she wouldn’t even concieve until I pointed it out. Oi vey. To mix messages. It’s enough to give a parent a headache. Especially at my age. So I’m seeing this situation on the ballfield as do or die.

Meanwhile, Phoebe’s screaming around the bases. She’s on third in two pitches. Both balls. Claire pulls one hard just foul of third base, then pops one back weakly to the screen. The next one’s a low passed ball but the pitcher covers and Phoebe can’t come home.

3 and 2 on the batter, two outs, top of the sixth, go-ahead run on third. Claire drops one into right-center for a double. Phoebe scores. The other natural is up next and she tears into the first pitch thrown but it’s right at the shortstop, who doesn’t even move to make the grab, and the inning is over. 10-9, Rochester.

Well, they didn’t win, but it didn’t matter. In that last half-inning every one of them was featured in some incredible, miracle play, really. Claire’s was: runner on second, winning run on third, she’s in center field now, it’s starting to get dark, and pretty boring compared to being catcher, and in on every pitch but, relaxing that’s for sure . . . just then, smack! that big girl that’s their pitcher creams one that touches down once about ten feet out into the outfield. Claire launches herself to her right, reaching backhand and snares it as she rolls and comes up, and disbelievingly has already tossed it to the cut-off man so quickly that the girl going home is going back to third and our shortstop is chasing another one back where she came from. On the next pitch, they had two runs score, but only one counted, the minute she crossed the plate, it was over.

God, what a game!


--R Skogsberg

O To Go Down To The Sea Again

to be rent, to be washed into grit
swept along the floor of the deep
was too exalted a position for me;

why I walk these decks a doubloon
rolling among me fingers like the
very pearl of the world; and

let her tits push me in.

The Scraps Remaining

are hereby dedicated to the upkeep of the memorial itself, which was
nice, everyone thought so, was it all for nothing? I don’t fucking think so,
the day the shit-eaters take over the world is the day I lay it down.

Those fucks are twisted but I wasn’t swerved, I put that bad shit down like
a glass of milk.

Anyway, any brothers around? let’s load up, gather 'em in,
or let ‘em go, they still have no clue, fuck, I barely do, here,
smoke this. It was true; purple mountain's majesties were

all over the sky. We were all still alive, and that was sweet, man,
I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make my throat move, only my eyes showed
I didn’t know where we were going, but I was glad

I was going too.

Kulture

It's coming to meet me in order to smother me,
but first to take my last-born, she capered
like a fawn at the tinsel knee.

I didn't stand a chance, nor anything, she was
gone to it, and would I be here to witness the pay-out
when it came?

All Hell turned out to watch me be broken


--R Skogsberg

Ars Poetica

You can say more complex things with complicated syntax and fifty-cent words. Most of those big words you wouldn't qualify as 'plain speech' but I might need them for their nuance. A blunt hatchet won't slice an onion. The purpose of language (of speech as well--but with only text we must do entirely without inflection. What could possibly mask such a loss?) is nothing if not to allow increasingly refined shades of meaning and intricate mixes of those to simultaneously express their newly synthesized natures, adding, in abundant measure, remembrance, scent, and basic instinct, all to communicate what is within. Which must out. Otherwise, we suffer isolation, and her henchmen loneliness and shame. But O happy event, we are not so deprived.

So that's the why of it. My mandate extends to just-barely readable, at the outside edge of comprehension, as it is for me, of course. And if I run with every flourish that shows a knee, and go some heavy on the cussin,' I am what I am. But I will always do my very best to bring you only the best that I can do. I promise to that.

--R Skogsberg

The Second Coming--W.B.Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannont hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spirtus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

~William Butler Yeats

TO THE ATLANTIC

Editorial Department
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20037

Dear Editors:

In 1996, fresh MFA in hand, I submitted to The Atlantic my best poem to date, hoping your editors would be as entranced with it as I, and would rush to include it in a forthcoming issue. Then truly (I believed), I would have arrived. This fantasy was only slightly more unlikely than what did happen. Your poetry editor at the time was a gentleman—and I emphasize that designation—named David Barbour (sp?), I believe. I might be mistaken about his name, a doubt that pains me, because whatever his name, he did indeed treat me, not only gently, but with a refinement composed equally of consideration and class.

Contrary to what I might have rightly expected, had I been better informed both as to common practice in the poetry “industry,” and to the worth of my poem, I received a personally written letter back explaining at some length that the editor along with several colleagues had gone over my lone submission repeatedly, feeling somehow drawn toward a desire to publish it, yet, regrettably, finding it “not quite there yet.” I was, however, invited to re-submit either a re-working of this piece or other examples of my work, that I might choose.

At the time, I was still too “green”—I’d been admitted to a fairly prestigious MFA in Writing program within six months of suddenly becoming rabid about poetry, and taking up writing, having had virtually no prior exposure to real poetry, or even to literature, and was lacking a Bachelors degree as well—to realize what a rarity was the personal, explanatory rejection letter, much less the grace, and kindness, I was being shown. I should say that now and then over the years since, I’ve run across that same poem in my files, and I certainly agree that it was “not quite there yet.” In fact, my cringing appraisal of it is not near so generous as was your editor’s.

All this by way of saying, I have a special regard for The Atlantic. Your editor took special pains on my behalf for no reason that I can see. Except for, I guess, that that’s how it ought to be done.


For the decade or so following, I specialized in the sort of short poem that often is found in your pages. And got quite good at it, all the while fiercely suppressing any particular burning to see them in print. Only recently have I left off that demanding discipline, feeling finally qualified to return to the longer lines and extended possibility offered by the page-width-length poem. I’m no newbie now, however, and I feel suited to address the craft of short poems, two of which were featured in your September 2007 issue. I don't usually offer critical comment to editors on the content they feature—but when favored institutions are smeared—someone must say something.

Wasted words, extra words, the decidedly wrong word—these are egregious enough in any poem, but are especially deadly to the short poem. Even worse are unearned declaratives that aspire to gain their credential for being there by faking universality, when actually these hollow statements, far from serving the poem, at best simply serve the poet’s mood. The entire second stanza of William Logan’s The Early Birds fits into that shoe. The first line of that second stanza might be permissible but for what is either fuzzy thinking, or redundancy, or both, depending how and to what one applies the abstraction, “justice.” I’m not going to try to write that up. You can do the math.

Unless it’s that, being dead (in the poem), Logan correctly but unnecessarily assesses, he’ll be no worse off than Justice, (Donald), who I think I heard is similarly indisposed. This last is so unlikely, I must conclude that the fuzzy thinking, while not intended to be such, is intended to serve the rhyme scheme. But then, is “just” allowed in, dragging its error along, simply to go with “disgust?” Surely not, “disgust” must be the most poorly chosen word but one in the whole poem. So, then, it must be that “disgust” is poorly chosen to go with “just,” which then can only be there because Logan hasn’t bothered to think it through.

But the worst word in the poem by far is “stumble.” This alone should have disqualified this assemblage from your august pages. (Why, I think I hear violins. No, wait, that was Muzak.) C’mon, guys.

Pinsky’s poem is far better. But the nifty linkage he gets between the sound of “Y” and the meaning of “quandary,” seems ignored for “X” and “Z.” I could be missing something. Actually, surely I am. Why is “evasion” the last of signs? You could make a case for “sleep” as the last of signs, and that would tie in with the “Z” as a symbol, oh never mind. Give it a “B-.”

Logan, however, should be stripped of his overcoat and forced to draw his specious conclusions here forward adorned with mustaches, lest any other prestigious forum fail to note their transparently crude disguise.


Thank you for your fine magazine, and for registering my sorely-felt quibbles. To be fair, I’ve enclosed a short poem of my own. It speaks first and foremost to the power and reach of the medium itself, and thus establishes a frame for what it says about us in general, and the detail of the personal epic, both of which are sub-textual to that honoring.

Sincerely (or nearly),


Rick Skogsberg



I Don't Think You Should Touch That

organ
it could be haunted

A SOFT ANSWER . . .

THE TRAIN CLANKED and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty - a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows.

At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into our car. He wore laborer’s clothing, and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was unharmed.

Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that on of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up.

I was young then, some 20 years ago, and in pretty good shape. I’d been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training nearly every day for the past three years. I like to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. Trouble was, my martial skill was untested in actual combat. As students of aikido, we were not allowed to fight.

"Aikido," my teacher had said again and again, "is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it."

I listened to his words. I tried hard I even went so far as to cross the street to avoid the chimpira, the pinball punks who lounged around the train stations. My forbearance exalted me. I felt both tough and holy. In my heart, however, I wanted an absolutely legitimate opportunity whereby I might save the innocent by destroying the guilty.

This is it! I said to myself, getting to my feet. People are in danger and if I don’t do something fast, they will probably get hurt. Seeing me stand up, the drunk recognized a chance to focus his rage. "Aha!" He roared. "A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!" I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart, but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad, so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss.

"All right! He hollered. "You’re gonna get a lesson." He gathered himself for a rush at me. A split second before he could move, someone shouted "Hey!" It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it - as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something, and he suddenly stumbled upon it. "Hey!"

I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little old Japanese. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.

"C’mere," the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. "C’mere and talk with me." He waved his hand lightly. The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels, "Why the hell should I talk to you?" The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter, I’d drop him in his socks.

The old man continued to beam at the laborer.
"What’cha been drinkin’?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest.
"I been drinkin’ sake," the laborer bellowed back, "and it’s none of your business!" Flecks of spittle spattered the old man.

"Ok, that’s wonderful," the old man said, "absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree had done better than I expected, though especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening - even when it rains!" He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling.

As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. "Yeah," he said. "I love persimmons too…" His voice trailed off.
"Yes," said the old man, smiling, "and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife."
"No," replied the laborer. "My wife died." Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. "I don’t got no wife, I don’t got no home, I don’t got no job. I am so ashamed of myself." Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body.

Now it was my turn. Standing there in well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was. Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. "My, my," he said, "that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it."

I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair.

As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat, and the essence of it was love. I would have to practice the art with an entirely different spirit. It would be a long time before I could speak about the resolution of conflict.

--Terry Dobson

BREAD and PUPPET THEATER

Biting social commentary, achingly poignant, for all its epic scale. Read the rise and fall of civilizations, recognizable in their cruel and caring complexity, since men and women first raised their eyes to their oppressors and joined hands in asserting the indefatigable human spirit’s eternal struggle against its own greed and folly. This unstoppable rising spirit triumphs in these canny, wordless fables, all enacted in totally original never-before-seen forms that yet speak plainly to both the absolute uniqueness and the undeniably shared essential identity of each of us, every one.

--R Skogsberg

Coming soon to BigTown Gallery, Rochester, VT

The Fruits Of Our Labors

were pressed between sheets of vellum, vised between
oaken covers; in eighty or a hundred years our stories
will be told. Our open-mouthed antecedents will thrill
to my exploits for sure. I’ll probably be mythologized
in addition to all the anthologizing.

By that time I’ll have abandoned that husk I thought
was me, reluctantly. I’m afraid my stubborn loyalty
leaves me largely without judgment, or sense of scale.
Only when every last conflated wisp had been chased down
and proved to be of zero substantiality could I turn from

those puppets I thought I loved so, or owed so much to,
and reach for something else to cling to.


--R Skogsberg

Last Rites

won’t be necessary for my ass. I’ll be beyond the twilight’s gloaming
afore those fucks come seeking some measure. I can only say you’ve
been screwed by the best, the most low-down skunk o’ these four
territories, the non-pariel, les gaufaunier, the tits, I mean this man
would plow down your problems, make your troubles fly away,
just get him a pack o’ smokes, let him get through his day, all those
nigglings were barely reaching his butt with their shiny teeth,
a miss as good as a mile, hey? Weren’t that the way?

ALICE QUINN and JONI MITCHELL

This week's New Yorker has an execrable 'poem' by Joni Mitchell. Alice Quinn, the resident poetry editor--known for her gushes over John Ashberry, her deification of Elizabeth Bishop, and her otherwise inscrutably hit and miss taste--is either a star-fucker or is being forced into this by the publisher to jack up sales. Either way, they spent their entire literary equity on this bone-headed move. The 'poem' perhaps meets the standards (barely) of a song, which would explain the oddly placed occasional end-rhyme, and perhaps permit the polemic, but here we have the mighty New Yorker and the lofty Ms. Quinn calling it a 'poem.' Alice, perhaps it's time to step down. You've betrayed us. Joni, stick with painting. You're not half-bad at that.

--R Skogsberg

It's Been A While

since anyone would hitch their hem hereside; what got into you?

Never mind, a body in the river’s no worse’n one coming loose

in the ground. Not the worst of any saint you could mention didn’t

have his time of trial, his lowering of lights, his slipping by

in the evening where once he’d’ve trailed you on his arm like

the very spirit of hallowed youth, going crazy, going down.

This meditation knows no boundary. This darkness knows

my name is Denis Johnson, and knows where

to slip the tithe in.

--R Skogsberg

NANCY H. TAPLIN—RECENT WORK: Paintings and Drawings

The rivulets of color caught braiding and twisting toward form in Nancy Taplin’s paintings suggest that even the most loosely strung of coalescences yearns toward its like—and with the same energy that binds its own threads into being.

Taplin finds her preoccupation—and its resolution—in the attack and decay of a line. Her occasional opaque forms, if seen vivisected, reveal the same reaching tendrils composing both surfaces and subcutaneous interiors.

Her recent work begins with small linear drawings in graphite or colored pencil, or larger ones on rag paper with paint. She approaches large paintings on linen in much the same way as the drawings on rag paper—moving through the wet surface, drawing into it, letting it dry and working back over it again— letting the brush have its way with the layers of color, bringing different dimensions into the work.

NANCY TAPLIN holds degrees from both the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design, and has received numerous grants, fellowships, and awards for her painting and drawing. She has shown her work widely in solo and group exhibitions at galleries throughout the Northeast.

--R Skogsberg

Recent show at BigTown Gallery, Rochester, VT

VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN—A SURVEY:

Collage, Watercolors, & Sculpture

Is this stage all we have? ask the works of Varujan Boghosian—the tarot’s Fool answers with a shrug and a wink. Since the first vaguely expressed symmetry of their calligraphy emerged, artists have reiterated authenticity by outstripping the originals.

Boghosian’s mastery of ‘the line in its time’ and its particular and universal projections—both those on paper and as seen in the relic object which, in new community, transcends its history to become symbol—seems to alchemically precipitate his unique cornucopia of remembrance in exact proportion to a discovered need for re-visitation, and thus, re-invention.

Here Leonardo goes native in the Age of Victoria, then explodes like a psychedelic time-bomb into the 1960’s. Poor, hopeful Orpheus is imprisoned in brick—the sensuous declinations of an architecture eternally undercut by myth and iteration. Intersecting watercolor shredding form into a blizzard of life erupts in every fissure where, if it did not, the Unchanging might show through.

These works exist where to make means to endure, where with rough hands held palms up we seek record of the loss that it is our birthright, The Fool’s wink will advise: This is the place.

VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN (b. 1926), a native of Connecticut (MFA, Yale University), was a Fulbright Scholar in 1953, and twice Sculptor in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. His work is collected in The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, as well as in many other important museums around the country.

--R Skogsberg

Recent show at BigTown Gallery, Rochester, VT

FORM FOLLOWS FANTASY:

Sculpture and Drawings by LAWRENCE FANE

Catalyzed by the drawings of early Renaissance artist-engineer Mariano Taccola, Lawrence Fane has said that, it is in his sculpture of the last decade that he has found his true work.

It is a work so deeply rooted in imagination that its hard-hewn physicality, at first, simply astonishes. As the viewer’s imagination grasps for the familiar, these machines never-before-given-form suggest by their sure and knowing lines an everyday utility that one might almost discover, given time.

Others, no less robust, express in an architecture otherworldly—yet still nearly familiar—a precise and delicate inter-dependability among parts and materials, one whose essential and enduring bond seems as emotional as it does physical.

Here medieval creations in mahogany’s waxy red seem to stand alone against the end of time, just as intricate dual constructions in butternut’s bruised pale express in touching symbiosis the impermanent physics of what is good, what is true.

LAWRENCE FANE’s work is collected in museums throughout the U.S., and in Canada, Italy, and London, He has exhibited as widely.

--R Skogsberg

Recent show at BigTown Gallery, Rochester, VT

Sutra Says

"The Diamond Sutra says that when a person is ridiculed by others, the sins of his previous lives are the cause. Yet, it says also, that at just that moment, by submitting to the ridicule, those sins can be erased. Is this so, teacher?"

"Repulsive idiot, born through an anus!"