So many other things going on, I won't be able to attend to everything in the order in which it was received. (Not that everything is crying for attention.) Triage favours whimsy.
I think somebody mentioned stream of consciousness upthread. I missed my cue! As my way of saying hello again Jurek, I have chosen the following limited edition reprinting:
We start with Google as I have nothing Jurek-y in my files.
Encaustics looks interesting, pardon the umlaut. It involves torturing beeswax out of bees and adding pigments, which as a vegan I cannot in good conscience condone, but all art involves sacrifice.
The technique "was notably used in the Favum mummy portraits from Egypt around 100-300 AD." Jasper Johns also worked in the medium. Let's follow that lead.
Here's a famous encaustic work of Johns, being licked by a patriot:
That is both a painted flag and a painting of a flag, in case you were wondering. It was said to be inspired by a dream the Neo-Dadaist had of Old Glory during the McCarthy era, when Dadaists of all stripes were still regularly burnt at the stake for refusing to add "under God" to the pledge of allegiance. (Thank God we've come a long way since then, as Obama pledges allegiance to what's left of the Constitution.)
Johns was on very intimate terms with Robert Rauschenberg, who when questioned about this neon sculpture in Berlin replied "Riding Bikes? That form came straight out of my imagination. What's a 'bike'?"
In 1983 Rauschenberg won a Grammy Award for his work on the limited-edition LP version of the Talking Heads album Speaking in Tongues. It "featured a clear vinyl disc in clear plastic packaging along with three clear plastic discs printed with similar collages in three different colors."
there were no tongues pictured on this one eitherTalking Heads translates as Gadające Glowy in Polish. I know this because that's also the name of
a short documentary which involved the filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski asking a one year old boy three questions, none of which were "Can you talk yet?" Kieślowski is perhaps better known for directing the Three Colors trilogy Rouge, Blanc, and Bleu. He was born in Warsaw, which is 267km from Ogórki, which turns out the briney cucumbers made famous by Jurek, who I'm guessing could ride 267km in his sleep. Dreaming of pickles.
Make of this what you will.
