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Bernard Dov Wisser's Journal of advice, opinion, and ventilation...also raps about art, spirituality, being a human being and everything else....
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Friday, July 18, 2003
 A Burning Bush © by b.wisser For Large View of Art Piece Click on Picture My Time PaintingsLanding a job with a permanent contract was easier said than done. Almost no one over forty could land a job with a permanent contract. For at the time, Netherlands employers started a policy of hiring most new workers on a temporary basis from Temp Agencies. One reason for it was that in the Netherlands the older you are when you begin a job the higher your starting pay. We won’t even discuss the logic of that or we will be on a whole different subject, but let me assure you the logic behind that is impeccable Dutch logic; which, slightly deviates from impeccable logic proper. Well, as you might have guessed, my worst fears were almost realized. My wife fell in love with a Doctor and went to live with him. I gathered by that fact our relationship was over. My own mother wouldn’t have blamed my almost-ex for trading in a state supported artist for an M.D.; but, I certainly flawed her for it. It was bad form as far as I was concerned, especially since I had spent all the surplus money I had saved in the states on fixing up our apartment overlooking the North Sea to her taste and buying new art supplies. Also running into my wife, and her new lover, making kushey, kushey, on the ten block Boulevard (of broken dreams) or somewhere on the six or seven block downtown area disturbed me a heck of a lot; besides, I was then in the situation of having to find a job with a contract or get married to another Dutch woman. One was practically impossible since I was 53 at the time, and the latter was darn near emotionally impossible as well as a nauseous idea to contemplate. However, going back to the states penniless, and being homeless, was a grotesque nightmare.. My saving grace was I had a studio. A great guy (the late) Mr.Koos Sloos let me have a space in his silkscreen shop. He gave me a 2000 sq. foot space on the top floor of his building. It was rent free, all Koos wished was to come up now and then, enter the door to my studio with my permission, watch me work and help me create a silk screen series, also for no charge. Since, I knew I couldn’t keep up with my rent at the apartment without my wife’s contribution, I decided I might have to move into the studio. However, that was not to be. Almost as soon a my ex- moved in with her little-guy lover (oh I didn’t tell you he was a little-guy) (it made me feel better calling him that, than her man, the doctor) my benefactor gave me a month's notice to leave, because his wife had pressed him to make the top two floors of his silk screen-shop into an apartment for them to live in. So there I was, I lost my wife to a “little guy;" almost worst than that, I would soon have to leave both my studio, and my apartment, or be evicted, and to top that off I had a year to meet the police criteria or be booted back to the states penniless—which we all know is a fate almost as bad as thinking death is the end of our sparkling personalities. I started to panic and felt like I was about to have a psychotic break. I was really in a bad way I have always consoled myself during a period of crisis by doing art--painting. When I paint there is no before after, there is just painting time, Bernard being a painter, Bernard being painting. However, I had been given only a month of that type of therapy, before I had to let go of Bernard the painter for a while. So, what to do? A voice that felt like it came from deep inside of me gave me the solution. It told me to have a controlled -minor- psychotic- break, and get as much work, as I could, done in the time I had left. So I had the local lumber yard send over twelve large water proof Masonite boards to my studio. And now I’ll tell you what I did. And if you are wondering what this has to do with Time & Art…keep reading! On the morning after, the Masonite boards were delivered; I showed up at the silkscreen shop with a day’s worth of food to eat cold. My benefactor had a quizzical look on his face when he saw the carton full of groceries I was carrying. After dropping off the groceries upstairs, I came back down to talk to Koos. I told him I was going to work straight through to the next day; that I didn’t want to be disturbed; that he might hear some strange sounds but not to worry, that I was going to conduct an experiment in painting. Having done that I bolted upstairs entered my studio and locked the door. Then I laid out the twelve boards on the floor in a circle and I rolled two coats of prime on each of them. It took at least a couple of hours. When the boards dried. I got completely nude and applied war paint to my face and body. I had a mirror on the wall, so I could paint my war paint on to my liking. I had set out pots of open paint, and empty paint containers to mix new colors. Soon I was in the middle of circle doing a war dance and whooping like all get out in my American, Jewish, Buddhist, abstract imitation, of a Hopi war song or something like that. Little by little, I rolled paint on different boards in different colors, never relenting in my jumping and dancing--even a little bit--I danced around the boards with a painting stick doing my mad whooping while dripping paint on the boards. Other times I whooped and squirted paint from old detergent bottles onto some of the boards. Sometimes I whooped, dipped a rag or a sponge, and squished some color on some of the boards. Somewhere in the first couple hours, Koos arrived upstairs and inquired if I was alright. I told him all was A OK but I needed not to be disturbed. He asked what the stomping was, and I reassured him nothing was being harmed. I don’t think he cared, but his wife had come for a visit, and I found out later she couldn’t stand my doing something weird in their building. Koos was actually thrilled for finally I was acting like an artist should act--in his opinion--albeit too late. I worked through to the next morning. During the early morning hours I had added brush strokes to many of the paintings. Anyway, by the time Koos opened up the next day I had 12 paintings finished to my satisfaction. I removed my war paint and dressed again. I also had completed my "psychotic break" in a very controlled fashion. I went downstairs and told Koos I got twelve paintings done. He joined me upstairs to check them out. He was stunned and not positively so. I began to see the pieces in a new light, and it would be an understatement to say I wasn't satisfied, although a few minutes earlier I had looked at them with delight. The fact is each painting was very exciting but still didn't work; they were passionate paintings, nevertheless, each one was unfinished. But I had no more painting left in me--for the time being. The next day I packed up my gear and friends helped me move the stuff out of the studio. Koos was saddened I was leaving. But he was glad to get his wife off his back by hiring work men to immediately convert the top two floor to living quarters. Well, I won’t burden you with all the heart warming and gruesome details, the sequence of miracles which resolved my seemingly irresolvable problem, but all came out well in the end, and I was allowed a residence permit, much to the chagrin of the immigration police. I finally started showing and was able to make a living (a bare one) in Netherlands. It took me almost three years of maneuvering to get the permit, and in the meanwhile I stored those paintings away. Eight years later, in a new location, with a new woman I had a show coming up celebrating my 60th Birthday. I took out those twelve paintings and one by one I finished them. To finish them I used a lot of iridescent paint, which was not even available to me when I began them. Anyway, they turned out to be some of the most exciting paintings I have done. I called the series Time Paintings. Why did I call them that? Because finishing them was like collaborating with a Bernard who obviously was very different from the Bernard who was completing the paintings in the (then) present. All the stress and hardship had softened my heart. I was both tougher and gentler, and at the same time more grounded. I also gained twenty pounds had grayed, and age spots had started covering my body. What's more, I no longer smoked at all (let alone 2 ½ packs a day), nor did I bite my nails to the quick. In fact I had completely stopped biting my nails though I had done so since primary school. So what time did I do those paintings in 1988 or 1996 and which Bernard did them? Does the time the paintings were retired count on the time they took to do? My conclusion is that the continuity of identity seems to me to be a function of memory rather than any stable reality. Of course if that is a true statement it is just as true for second to second as it is for Bernards that are eight years apart in age , and experience. And yet if I introspect beyond the Bernard’s (who are mostly personae’s, and hypothetical constructs, which in themselves are, a combination of memory, plus imaginary fillers created to fill the gaps between memories, forgetting, and not having been recorded or stored data and experiences Those fillers give meaning to the memories) I am aware of sort of an empty type of consciousness non-distinct, very elusive, very lighthardly known by myself, nor sensed by others—even those closest to me. I felt that “Time Paintings” was an appropriate name for that series; now I’m doing time paintings of time paintings (on the computer)—what should I call this new series “Time after Time Art”? You see before the time paintings I had done many paintings, and after them too. On the computer I am able to combine them over each other playing with the transparency or opaqueness of the different layers, cut out pieces from some of them and use them as elements in the new piece of work. I can even remove some of the colors from a layer; or make a negative out of it; or both and create new forms and elements to paste on it, in the computer—it’s endless. In addition, for the last five years I have done art that is entirely computer generated. I can then combine in the same way with the combined paintings, or with each other or both. How many years can I say it took me to do a piece? Moreover, how many different Bernard’s collaborated on it? Is personality ever anything but a concept developed from memories? Is there an identity that generates those concepts and imagines the missing pieces that makes the memories fit together in a meaningful way to form a concept of self of personality? If so, does that identity live on after death? Did it exist before life? Is the continuity of Bernard’s just a continuity of stories generated within consciousness which is the potential to feel, imagine, think, and create anew each second? Anyway I can print these new pieces in almost any size on many different surfaces with a new printing method called giclee. Above is a Time after Time piece. *To SEE MORE OF WISSER'S ART--CLICK here-- Click : Marvel Place* STATE YOUR MIND--OR ASK FOR ADVICE: Post You Comments Click (below) To Enter Forum You are invited to send me your criticism, or you can contribute your own material for publication. Make this your site also--use the Forum Box above. I sure appreciate your interest and would love your participation..
RATE THIS JOURNAL? COLUMN? BLOG...WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT...below... Top Colored button means "great!" Bottom colored button means "Feh!"
CHECK OUT MY LINKS: CLICK BELOW ON ADD A LINK
CLICK HERE FOR WISSER'S ART SITE: MARVEL PLACE  "Your Weekday Abstract Art Piece"WELCOME TO ARTS OF PARADISE--Go Gallery hopping at a series of virtual International Galleries--and for you ARTISTS this is the spot to exhibit up to 30 of your works and be received by an international audience-- and what's more there are not finer people to deal with than those who run the Arts of Paradise Gallery...CLICK HERE For A Most Important Art Site Click below on wwar: 
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
 Bernard's Calm Center © by b.wisser For Large View of Art Piece Click on Picture A Pick & A Peck About Consciousness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ...the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source.... Here is the fountain of action and of thought.... We lie in the lap of immense intelligence. Ralph Waldo Emerson Knowledge is structured in consciousness. The process of education takes place in the field of consciousness; the prerequisite to complete education is therefore the full development of consciousness--enlightenment. Knowledge is not the basis of enlightenment, enlightenment is the basis of knowledge. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi The above quotes are from Soul to Spirit... Soul to Spirit AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST... A human being is a part of the whole called by us "Universe." A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein THE QUESTION IS: How is Individuality related to Consciousness; and I would ask, “Are such questions as this one whether it is asked of one’s self or others, really fruitful in anyway in dealing with life. Does it necessarily lead to spinning one’s mental wheels, or another case of just thinking to hear our own mentations, or rapping just to rap? THE QUESTION IS: How is Individuality related to Consciousness; and I would ask, “Are such questions as this one whether it is asked of one’s self or others, really fruitful in anyway in dealing with life. Does it necessarily lead to spinning one’s mental wheels, or another case of just thinking to hear our own mentations, or rapping just to rap? Bernard dov ( Aum-pa ) Wisser (today) *To SEE MORE OF WISSER'S ART--CLICK here-- Click : Marvel Place* STATE YOUR MIND--OR ASK FOR ADVICE: Post You Comments Click (below) To Enter Forum You are invited to send me your criticism, or you can contribute your own material for publication. Make this your site also--use the Forum Box above. I sure appreciate your interest and would love your participation..
RATE THIS JOURNAL? COLUMN? BLOG...WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT...below... Top Colored button means "great!" Bottom colored button means "Feh!"
CHECK OUT MY LINKS: CLICK BELOW ON ADD A LINK
CLICK HERE FOR WISSER'S ART SITE: MARVEL PLACE "Your Weekday Abstract Art Piece"WELCOME TO ARTS OF PARADISE--Go Gallery hopping at a series of virtual International Galleries--and for you ARTISTS this is the spot to exhibit up to 30 of your works and be received by an international audience-- and what's more there are not finer people to deal with than those who run the Arts of Paradise Gallery...CLICK HERE For A Most Important Art Site Click below on wwar:
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