By DJ

October 8, 2007 7:57 AM | Link to this

First of all, I’m very excited that the AJC has finally decided to get an art blog. I’ll definately be a weeklyreader.

Second of all, I think that I’d like to see reviews of local artists, maybe feature their artwork, or just tell about the artist and when they’ll be in art shows.

By BDF

October 8, 2007 8:33 AM | Link to this

First, I think that its a great idea to begin this blog, secondly, I am assuming that this will include the performing arts as well. I feel that our performing arts community in Atlanta is so disjointed, there is truly no sense of a unified community. Being the largest city in the south, you would think that first and foremost, our local newspaper would have a significantly larger arts section. Covering what is really happening in our theatrical community. Yet it seems that the AJC has little to no interest in covering the performing arts community as a whole. There is more to the arts scene than the Alliance winning a Tony, or the Alliance staging a new show. Its not just about the high dollar professional companies…what about featuring profiles on local theatres…the Atlanta Lyric Theatre, which is undergoing major structural, artistic and internal changes. Did anyone write about their recent production of Little Shop of Horrors? It was a first class presentation, in just about every way. In a 150 seat theatre, the sound was next to stellar, and yes they used mics in this tiny space. The cast was amazing, the voices were as good or better than any off broadway or broadway show for that matter. Why are we not in the know about these things? I was truly surprised as well on an article written recently about the new Cobb Center by Ms. Fox. It was such a negative account of the building prior to its opening. I was truly shocked, that here we have a brand new facility opening in Atlanta. The first of its kind in over 40 years, and instead of embracing the truly positive aspects of it addition to the community, she slammed the architectural elements of the venue…whats up with that? I will definitly be a regular contributor to this blog, a nd I surely hope that it does not end up disappearing from the web.

By Chris

October 8, 2007 9:16 AM | Link to this

I was just eyeing the calendar for Eyedrum, and it looks like they are going to have an incredible month!

[http://www.eyedrum.org]

They are having a large opening this Saturday, with a lot of programming associated with this show throughout the month. See you there!

By Atlanta Pearl Girl

October 8, 2007 10:03 AM | Link to this

Art Blog???? Whooooo Hoooo!!! :::turning back flips:::::::

Great idea!!! More culture.

Atlanta Pearl Girl

By Russ

October 8, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this

I read Mr Ruhe’s review of the opening opera in the new Cobb center of, I guess, a week ago. Surely, you were not talking about the same opera, with the same cast, and from the same seat that I experienced yesterday. The new center is beautiful and the set was stunning.

Also, I guess the orchestra was quite good, but I go to the opera to hear the singing—particularly of the leads. We sat near the front of what is called the “Main Tier”, and we could barely hear Calaf singing and certainly very little of his enunciation of the words. The exception was possibly Nessun Dorma, which got him a rousing applause. Liu and Timor [if I have the spellings correct] were the strongest singers. The rest seemed echoy and garbled.

It was if singing sounds did not reach our level, at least directly, and the orchestra unquestionably drowned much of the sound. The chorus performances were blurred out, and there was no distinctive enunciation of the beautiful Italian language. I could not tell! if it was the singers or the performance space. Perhaps those on the floor enjoyed a better performance. I have been a subscriber for many years and, yes, there are good and not so good performances. However, this was something different.

I would be curious if you have had other feedback. I certainly intend to comment to the Atlanta Opera web page.

By Mike

October 8, 2007 10:20 AM | Link to this

Good morning, I am not an opera expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I thought you might be able to help me digest what I experienced last night.

We sat in the last row (H) of the Grand Tier 1, about in the middle. For most of the performance, the orchestra overpowered, and in some cases totally drowned out the voices from the stage. This was less of a problem with Turandot and Liu, but much more pronounced when Calaf was singing.

As we walked out, many in my area were talking about the beautiful costumes and staging; my limited experience with opera is that we should have been talking about power and emotion of the vocal performances.

So, what went wrong?

Were we too far from the stage? Were/are the acoustics poor? Was the orchestra playing too loud?
Were some of the vocalists having a bad evening? We want to enjoy this opera season, but frankly, it wasn’t a very encouraging first time. We had a much more enjoyable time at the ASO performance of Le Bohemme where there was no staging or costumes.

Your feedback and constructive suggestions would be most appreciated. Thank you,

By Molly

October 8, 2007 10:56 AM | Link to this

We saw Turandot Tuesday night with a sellout crowd (we were amazed at the numbers on a weekday) It was wonderful, but I wanted to share a layman’s view.

When I read your review the other day, I thought you were harsh, but now I can agree with much of what you said. I often disagree with you, but fair is fair.

The theater was nice, not outstanding, but 15min from my house and $5 parking, what a deal! The architect got his ideas from some obvious sources, but we are ready to forgive because of the good seats and acoustics. The soprano who sang Liu was angelic, so clear and clean. I adored her voice. Turandot was good, but was heavy in her dramatics. She didn’t seem to understand the tortured soul who badly needed some therapy. Calaph was earthbound in my view. His movements were stolid and he lacked presence. We didn’t see a misguided romantic whose dreams exceded his common sense. His voice was adequate, not soaring. I wasn’t thinking of Pavorotti, but the many others who have carried the role as well..

Of course the audience cheered Nessun Dorma, but it was the music, not the performance. Did I read that La Boheme is coming?No one seemed to know what I was asking about.

Keep up the good work. It’s nice to read about something other than crime and politics in the AJC.

By BPJ

October 8, 2007 11:26 AM | Link to this

It’s not an architecture critic’s job to give a positive review to mediocre architecture - and that’s what the Cobb Center is - not awful, but not first-rate, either. There were other articles decribing how the center is an improvement, as a performance venue, over the Civic Center. But as a work of architecture, it is lacking.

By Artlover

October 8, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this

Art Blog is a great idea and thank-you!

Editors should have deleted comment posted by KEITH at 11:01am, too

By Stan Woodard

October 8, 2007 2:28 PM | Link to this

The addition, by the AJC, of an arts blog is an important statement about the importance of of art and culture to the Atlanta area. With so many issues swirling around the “real value” of the arts to any city, my hope is that interested parties will use the blog to discuss problems and solutions, and that the blog will help to prove how important the arts are to readers of the AJC and to users of the ajc.com web site. Thank you! Stan (www.thecontemporary.org)

By Robert Cheatham

October 8, 2007 2:46 PM | Link to this

Two questions: why is there no link on the links section to Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery? Eyedrum brings in more interantional artists than any other art org in the city besides hosting around 250 events a year, certainly ONE of the active if not MOST active art org in town, especially if you consider the range of events that happen in the 6000 sq ft space…oh, and we calculated that eyedrum hosts approximately 500 different local, national and international artists in the course of a year…so why no link in the links section? (http://www.eyedrum.org)

Second question: Why no link to Public Domain Inc.? PD hosts the longest running arts and information listserve, Artnews, in the southeast. It also hosts PERFORATIONS, one of, if not the longest running journals on the net. In fact Public Domain was one of the first arts organizations on the net period. so why no link in the links section? (http://www.pd.org)

The way the links are set up reflect what has long been wrong with the arts in atlanta: the idea that there can only be a top-down approach.

RC

By BPJ

October 8, 2007 3:15 PM | Link to this

RC is right - Eyedrum should be on the list. But the 35 year-old Atlanta Contemporary Art Center isn’t on there either! Nor is MODA (Museum of Design Atlanta). Nor are the art museums at Spelman, ClarkAtlanta, or Oglethorpe.

This is inexcusable. The list of museums on the arts page has room for “Imagine It” (which is an adorable place for children to play, but not an art museum). So room can be made, on a website, for links to the area’s better visual arts museums.

By Jim Demmers

October 8, 2007 3:22 PM | Link to this

Ok, so I have an idea. Let’s have a public discussion about why no percent for the arts money has EVER been collected by the city of Atlanta. I know that the law has ONLY been on the books for 30 YEARS!!! but you’d think that Atlanta’s arts mayor (oh, excuse me - she’s now the sewer mayor) could take some time out of her busy schedule to mandate the collection of a measly 1.5% from city projects. But then that would mean 1.5% less money for — What?? Or for Whom??

Here’s something to chew on — just think what the arts scene in this city would be like now if our elected officials had been doing what they are legally bound to do all of these years with the millions of dollars they’ve let slip through their fingers. Personally, it makes my head hurt. Cows on parade indeed…

JD

By ILL-logical

October 8, 2007 5:18 PM | Link to this

Good first step guys,I hope that it grows by leaps and bounds. Mr. Demmers is on point; the artistic, cultural and pedestrian enviornment of the city would have been miles ahead from the present state of affaira if there had been a concerted effort to address it.Call in Maria saporta if you must but please put the heat on City Hall re this issue.

Again, thank you guys for caring enough to send the very beat minds to the task!

By GH

October 8, 2007 9:56 PM | Link to this

I’m thrilled that the AJC has taken such a positive step in support of Atlanta’s vibrant arts community.

I’d like to take this opportunity to tell your readers about the upcoming Mattress Factory Open Studios on Saturday, November 3rd, from 12 noon until 10:00pm.

The event will provide an opportunity for Atlanta arts lovers to see painting, photography and sculpture created by some of Atlanta’s finest emerging artists, and meet the artists in their work environment.

For additional information: http://www.myspace.com/mattressfactorystudios

By ccleaver

October 9, 2007 6:47 AM | Link to this

How great that the AJC is reaching out to the Atlanta arts community - kudos to the writers who are taking on this mighty challenge. How sad that well-established groups have to solicit the AJC’s recognition.

The arts reflect the vitality of a community, yes, but the AJC mirror is still very small. The arts community isn’t waiting to be formed; it is the larger Atlanta community that is still waiting to be INFORMED about the arts scene here. If the AJC were to employ a full complement of highly trained and experienced art critics, including theater and dance plus a roving reporter for alternative media, the arts community would expand, as readers from all over the metro area could make informed choices among the myriad offerings.

AJC print circulation would be bolstered, as would Atlanta’s image, which is also good for business. Back in ‘96, when Atlanta hosted the Olympics, I was part of the team which provided information and tickets to Cultural Olympics venues to reporters from all over the US. They scoffed at the idea that there was anything artistic worth writing about in Atlanta, anything that would interest their sophisticated readers back in New York or Chicago or LA. Why this attitude? Because they had done their research in our local paper prior to arrival. The arts scene has grown in the past decade; has the arts coverage?

By ccleaver

October 9, 2007 6:48 AM | Link to this

How great that the AJC is reaching out to the Atlanta arts community - kudos to the writers who are taking on this mighty challenge. How sad that well-established groups have to solicit the AJC’s recognition.

The arts reflect the vitality of a community, yes, but the AJC mirror is still very small. The arts community isn’t waiting to be formed; it is the larger Atlanta community that is still waiting to be INFORMED about the arts scene here. If the AJC were to employ a full complement of highly trained and experienced art critics, including theater and dance plus a roving reporter for alternative media, the arts community would expand, as readers from all over the metro area could make informed choices among the myriad offerings.

AJC print circulation would be bolstered, as would Atlanta’s image, which is also good for business. Back in ‘96, when Atlanta hosted the Olympics, I was part of the team which provided information and tickets to Cultural Olympics venues to reporters from all over the US. They scoffed at the idea that there was anything artistic worth writing about in Atlanta, anything that would interest their sophisticated readers back in New York or Chicago or LA. Why this attitude? Because they had done their research in our local paper prior to arrival. The arts scene has grown in the past decade; has the arts coverage?

By BDF

October 9, 2007 7:28 AM | Link to this

Of course the arts coverage has declined in the AJC. When a local paper is as biased as the AJC towards certain arts groups in town, and subjects others to unnecessary ridicule and sometimes scathing reviews, who would want to read it? CCLEAVER is right…hire properly trained, experienced critics, restructure your arts mission and lets get going. Atlanta hungers for total, concise coverage of the arts, in all genres. Food critics should review food, music critics should review music, and theatre critics should review theatre. Until the AJC realizes what the arts community is all about in this town, we will continue to read the same boring Arts section every sunday, where the advertisements are more interesting than the stories. How about writing features and profiles on various groups weekly in the arts section? Focus on profiles of our local arts leaders and I mean all of them. Profile local actors and actresses, and technicians, costume designers and such. What do we have to do to assure that the arts coverage in this city doesn’t go completely in the toilet??

By verge

October 9, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this

Atlanta is currently undergoing the most significant building boom in its history… and doing it in what is basically a critical vacuum— more critique and articles about architecture and urban design are key to improving the state of architecture and urban design in the city and its suburbs— how about a separate Architecture and Urbanism Blog???

By cool breeze

October 9, 2007 9:44 AM | Link to this

Less folk art, More Real Art. A major Henry O-Tanner exhibit at the High Museum. Cheaper entry price for the High Museum. If you go to other major american cities the prices for museum entries are alot lower or FREE. With all the major corporations and buisness base in atlanta there should be more corporate support for the arts. I’ve seen alot of art galleries come and go rather quickly in various parts of town. I was pleasanty surprised when i went to Indianapolis and saw how nice their art museum was and how great their collection was and wondering how they do it with a smaller city than atlanta. Atlanta needs to raise its game. It’s trying to be a real city but there is still a long way to go.

By Hormuz Minina

October 9, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this

% for the arts

By ccleaver

October 9, 2007 1:30 PM | Link to this

Given existing on-line resources to find arts events (see below), what I hope to read in this blog is an educated, well-researched perspective on what is offered. A dialog about events one has attended could be interesting - as a separate thread, please! - but when previewing options, I don’t need to slog through a dozen untrained opinions.

Since a former business reporter is one of the three AJC contributers, it will be interesting to see if and how the arts are portrayed as an industry, an economic engine that deserves recognition at least on a par with sports and convention busisness.

A comprehensive listing of arts organizations, artists and resources can be found here: [text to be linked] (http://www.artsinatlanta.org) thanks to the efforts of Hilary King. The best resource for performing arts continues to be: [text to be linked] (http://www.atlantaperforms.com), just in case any readers are not already aware of these sites. ;-)

Now I will retire from posting to give other voices their due.

By Antique Arts

October 9, 2007 4:09 PM | Link to this

I don’t find enough emphasis but on antique arts in Atlanta. If what Atlantic Station sponsored 2 weeks ago is art, we have a long way to go. Historic preservation and the antique arts of past times is facinating and quite worthy. I have witnessed a growth over the past 15 years or so in the interest and appreciation of antiques in Atlanta. We have a market hungry for information. We need to know about the latest shows/exhibitions, auctions, including the big monthly shows as well as small showings and sales. Atlanta needs the quality neighborhood markets like NYC Chelsea, Paris Market and London’s Portabello Road. We already have the big 2nd wknd market. As for museum showings, The High has many good examples , but nothing like the NYC Met or Chicago Art Museum. Too much new art and not enough antiques in Atlanta.

By eggtooth

October 9, 2007 4:49 PM | Link to this

The co-existence of art genres as they relate to Atlanta. It is my belief that the origins can be traced back to a bond that, with logical reason, we as an art community do not sense. It has grown “on its own” and has many varying vibrant areas. These areas have appeal and some have grown, some have not. Some have disappeared. Individual experience rates their overall value. The unfelt bond will only start to reveal itself by perceiving our public spaces and community as relevant to you. It is relevant to the walls in this city where you show your work. We are related only by this thread. Our mediums and intents are as beautifully individual as they should be. As artists,our duty is to our work and that is as it should be. Bringing this work into Atlanta, referring specifically to Atlanta, the sense of place and the value that work sustains, is dependant on unquantifiable or untouchable factors. The feeling of the context in which it is perceived. This is created by the body, the words and the movement of such through the air. The written words in the past ,the geography of the actual experience in the now, to your own motivations in the future.. How you see yourself in relation to the city. The possibilty of your individual chance. It even gets as specific as just who you are, this is art we are dealing with. Who is to say you are not being yourself? Nobody. It is my belief that Atlanta’s art community is suffering from symptoms that are universal and modern, as well as specific to its own location and history. I would like to address the latter, for without doing such, Atlanta will never be in a position to even consider the previous. There exists a belief that funding for the arts from our government is wasted. Many individual artists do not care because the thought entails a concern for things of a political nature, as well as the reality that it will most likely not benefit them directly. Prior to that is yet another reality.This funding is promised and not delivered. Why? Because they don’t have to. That is why. The powers that be know and kick back the scattered voices of reason with little or no shame. The community is essentially told to go figure it out on its own.The bond is not perceived and this is obvious. The community plays the part, which i would go so far as to say is one that is even itself a bad mimic of other existing functioning models. The ceiling IS there and our heads are being mashed and malformed, and have been for years now. and yet we still manage to raise that free wine glass to our mouths and pour it into our secretly unsure guts.Opening after opening, year after year, new fresh faces, old experienced faces merge and blur and moan and meet..to what end? It is trying to play the part, a part that has a double edged goal. The creation of value for our work. Having it seen.
The ceiling is created by a mood of work that technically, we must allow. But it prevents and develops only itself by its very mood and feel.. It tells other ideals of work to “f” off, in its own way. Actually, what it does is smother it.Having it beside, close to or on the same wall, even, in the same proximity of anything else, draws an association- because what we perceive is an untouchable.This existing model sets a standard that does cause a sense of relation. The value is already being pretended to be perceived, and in some cases it actually is! Its flavor has an appeal that limits itself to only functioning on this antiquated level.It does this to everything else and it does so with a pride.(As it should.) It does it in a subtle and comfortable way.It is polite and holds the moral high ground with its status as the “incumbant”.It must have value!…and besides it’s so pretty! This generalization permeates beneath the entire atlanta art geography as a felt presence. I’ve heard different versions from many different scenes,the same gripe regarding our art community.This includes artists from varying walks of life. It perpetuates itself. There are moods that should be allowed to grow,ones that open up for much much MORE opportunity and in fact, INCLUDE the existing one. In fact, i twould ultimatelty increase the existing mood’s value. But no..we’re fine how we are. as you were Atlanta,pardon me for caring. So what do we do? Where’s the bond? Where do we start? If your duty is to do what you do and be the individual you are, i cannot ask you to make certain kinds of work. The funding for the arts is the gesture. The use of public spaces is symbolic. Will it help you the individual today or tomorrow or next month? maybe not. In fact, im trying to be blunt here..probably not. The funding will go to something you think is a waste and perhaps even counter-productive to your idea. Maybe not. remember the general public as well as the self important art circle you stand around in. The success will be in the perception of a unified demand for it. And the following year. The hope and dream, as artists do when they show their work to the world, right?.. is that some of it will stick. Some of it will take root. Some if it will grow. The only other choice is to moan or not moan and just do. and ..i guess write emails to listserves. i dunno you tell me. i say this for you…not me.

eggtooth ist rad

By MBW

October 10, 2007 2:00 AM | Link to this

I’d like to see more coverage of theatre by, for, and about young people.

By MBW

October 10, 2007 2:01 AM | Link to this

I’d like to see more coverage of theatre by, for, and about young people.

By Bee

October 10, 2007 7:13 AM | Link to this

I would like to see some of the new age pop art news… stuff on artists like Joe Ledbetter and such.

By jd

October 10, 2007 9:26 AM | Link to this

Pssst….% for arts. Pass it on.

By Susan Todd-Raque

October 10, 2007 11:11 AM | Link to this

Dear Cathy, Kirstin and Pierre, I applaud your effort to have a direct dialogue with the arts community here since the government seems bogged down with bureaucracy, favoritism and mediocrity. And the Mayor is not listening.

% for the Arts! Show us the money!

By heARTist

October 10, 2007 3:48 PM | Link to this

Hey eggtooth. This is a blog, not a place for pages of your thesis. Your writing could be equally eloquent, and far more powerful in making your point(s), by using half of the keystrokes.

By eggtooth

October 10, 2007 6:33 PM | Link to this

My intent is not eloquence. My points are stated as necessary.Given the level of importance of the topic, I find the thoughts to be constrained as they are. Their meaning is one that appeals to reason,something that i feel is obvious when reading them. All of them. Their meaning, its importance, Requires the use of Any and Every means of distribution. With thought that motivates action and curiosity. The gross misallocation of Atlanta art funding, the empty long winded gestural meetings-do you know the ones? held for who knows how many years now.this is what is in the wrong place. It’s in your face. Nothing is being done. It’s in everbody’s face.

This? this is just a post. Nothing is being accomplished. % for arts. teach me about it heARTist.teach others while yr at it.

By dadahorse

October 11, 2007 5:40 PM | Link to this

there doesn’t seem to be anything “daily” about this blog … am i missing something?

By Torquemada

October 11, 2007 6:10 PM | Link to this

has anyone heard anything about this people’s arts tribunal thing? weird, and a little frightening.

By Torquemada

October 12, 2007 11:04 AM | Link to this

following up on my previous note on the arts tribunal. I found a link:

http://peoplesartstribunal.org

torq

By robert cheatham

October 13, 2007 4:16 PM | Link to this

A reminder that Dead Flowers: Haunted Gardens; Seeded Wastelands

opens tonight October 13th at Eyedrum 7-11PM

We met next afternoon at the top of Dawson Street, outside a florist’s. The idea, of course, was Ted’s, since even the writing Irish were not literate in the language of flowers. But for Mrs. Yeats only the best would do, and when the shopgirl produced a conventional bouquet, her offering was greeted with not-so-friendly roars of disparagement.

“When I say flowers,” Roethke growled, “I mean real flowers, not limp, dead stalks ready for the garbage. Christ Jesus, I was reared in a greenhouse!”

The assistant cowered, and I cowered with her.

“I’m going to see a lady, a great lady, a specialist in spooks! Have you ever heard of the poet Yeats and his wife, George?”

The poor girl was clearly not a great scholar of poetry, so I interposed on her behalf. “We are going to see an old friend of mine, the poet’s widow. Perhaps we could see some roses?”

“Yeah! Roses! Let’s see some roses!” roared Roethke from behind me. “Real roses, not these dying, crumpled things! Bring me your best! I know everything there is to know about roses.”

Indeed he did, and would celebrate them in that wonderful poem, “The Rose”: And I think of roses, roses,

White and red, in the wide six-hundred-foot greenhouses,

And my father standing astride the cement benches,

Lifting me high over the four-foot stems, the Mrs. Russells, and

 his own elaborate hybrids,

And how those flowerheads seemed to flow toward me, to beckon me,

 only a child, out of myself.

The manager was called, and the matter was settled only when he and Roethke descended into the bowels of the shop to choose a basket of flowers, mainly roses. Ted seemed mollified, but he was still fussing as we hovered on the pavement outside.

“Do you think we got it right, John? Is there anything else she might like, besides flowers?” And then the leading question, “Does Mrs. Yeats drink?”

He swayed anxiously on the footpath like an outsize Red Riding Hood, swinging his basket of flowers. He was nervous as a kitten, or a swain on a first date, and badly in need of fortification, which I thought it better not to seek out; Mrs. Yeats had said she wasn’t feeling her best, and the idea of the two of us turning up late and bombed on her doorstep did not appeal to me. When I assured him that she did take a drop, he was relieved, but he was less happy when I directed him to a fashionable shop, Smiths of the Green, to buy a bottle of Bristol Cream.

“Sherry! Good God, she drinks sherry! I don’t know anyone that drinks stuff like that! That’s for old ladies!” (Which, of course, she was.)

We hailed a taxi by the Traitors’ Arch and left for Rathmines, the basket between us with the nozzle of the bottle protruding among the flowers like a gangster’s gat. But when we reached the gate and steps to her late-Georgian house, Roethke was still in a tizzy; all those years of studying Yeats were fizzing in him like champagne.

“Is this her house? Did Yeats ever live here himself?”

As the bell rang and rang in the depths of the house, Ted became more agitated, taking out the bottle to swing in his left hand while he held the flowers in the right. Finally I heard Mrs. Yeats shuffling toward the door, which opened slowly, all the more because the carpet had got curled into it.

“Hello, John,” said George Yeats, bending to smooth the rug with her left hand. The wait was too much for the tense Roethke, who now shot out his right hand in greeting.

“Mrs. Yeats, I brought you some flowers!” he bellowed, whereupon she straightened her back, scattering most of them across the floor.

“Hmph!” she said, a cross between a hoot of dismay and a cry of astonishment, and turned to disappear in the direction of the kitchen.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” cried Ted, as we gathered the scattered flowers. “Is she coming back? Did we upset her?”

When she returned she was carrying a vase, and she began to beam with pleasure as Roethke tidied the flowers into it.

“Roses! How nice of you. Poor Willy’s favorite flower, the only ones he could recognize. He was nearly color-blind, you know.”

As we helped her select a spot for them in the sitting room, she explained that she was not feeling well and could not guide us through the library. Sensing a companion in misery, Roethke detailed his own health problems, and soon they were discussing cures for arthritis and the relationship between rheumatism and climate, the Pacific Northwest being nearly as rainy as Ireland. He offered to rub her back as she stretched on a couch, but she accepted a glass of sherry instead. Soon they were at ease, gossiping about critics and poetic contemporaries. One English poet-critic who had bored her got short shrift.

“He keeps sending me his absurd books. As a critic he may have some place in a university, but as a poet he is intolerable!”

Her vehemence delighted Roethke. “I’ve been thinking of the right word for that fella for years. And intolerable hits the nail right on the head. He’s dry as a bone in the desert.”

It was clear they had taken to each other, and I left to wander into the library. In due course I was joined there by a (for once) totally contented Roethke. I showed him some of the mystical notebooks with designs elaborate as geometry or higher algebra, and he was boyishly impressed. He had simmered down to a thoughtful quietness, his best mood, as when we were looking together at the poems. We said good-bye to Mrs. Yeats, who was nearly asleep; Ted tucked the rug around her with great tenderness.

Instead of going home, I brought him to a large, comfortable public house in Rathmines that I sometimes frequented on my way to and from the library. I ordered a fine, slowly drawn pint of Guinness, but before it had arrived with its priestlike collar of froth, Roethke had already sunk two large whiskeys and called for a third. It seemed a good time to be serious. I asked why he drank in the haphazard way he did and said I found it hard to reconcile the two Roethkes, the sensitive poet and the other, the roaring boy whose heart somehow did not seem in it. He hunched his large shoulders, and his domed head glistened with nervous sweat.

“I drink like this,” he said, “because I’m afraid of death. It’s all I seem to think about.”

(From Theodore Roethke: Gentle Giant by John Montague in Southern Review, Summer, 1996)

A reminder that Dead Flowers: Haunted Gardens; Seeded Wastelands

opens tonight October 13th at Eyedrum 7-11PM

By eggtooth

October 14, 2007 9:27 PM | Link to this

i liked the part where he was beaming and happy and giddy.cuz retkey was a big feller he was. and then the part when he was all sad..you know, about ..death.. i related. i really did. i related. the dead flowers show was the most amazing beautiful thing i have seen in a while. each piece is a fascinating thing unto itself, so many delicate little details, the organic flow, how the entire place just felt. it was beautiful. i loved that guy stan woodard’s kudzu install.The wall mural was a writhing fascinating eyefeast as well. and oh..the small gallery? how atmospheric was that?that was something else.Im gonna go back and emerse myself in it some more.

By k tauches

October 17, 2007 2:51 PM | Link to this

someone said on this blog…that the atlanta arts operates in a critical vacuum. and I agree.

critical voices are rare here, with so many here frightened to burn a bridge…I hope we can get over that (post anonymously with a fake email address). also, we have no central location for really good critique…newspapers are lucky to employ citizens to do art criticism for free. I hope we can be interested to do a good enough job.

borders between cultural disciplines lie wide open due to technology, due to a rapidly changing physical city, rapidly changing populations. unlike new york city, we are not particularly defined as an art town. .and this can be an opportunity…we are free then to be fresh without having to copy the clichés of the 20th century contemporary arts…since so few know what that was like anyway. . .but if we want remarkable culture . . we need to discuss it & participate in it passionately…(and it’s ok to reject the guidance of art authorities.)

I want to know what we think is going on here that is unique to our locality and not just a caricature of other places’ successful art?

if something radical, independent and wonderful occurs that we do not know how to process…what happens…it just disappears without comment.

I would love to see this blog as a source for authentic cultural reporting.

k.tauches

By Sloane Robinson

October 19, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this

When one searches for art criticism in Atlanta the wanderer will trip on a creative loafing left at a pizza joint and stumble in to a vacuous hole; and ‘tis not as fruitful nor as thoughtful as the hole the fair blond, Alice, found while humming her life philo.For when it comes to the arts coverage Atlanta receives, there is much to be desired; and I mean not only locally.Works being shown and made in Atlanta are certainly on the level with art anywhere else in the world, and I wonder why there lacks an international coverage prescence…? Do the local critics submit Atlanta reviews to any other papers, journal,s magazines, on line or print? I believe there lacks an intellectual component in the conversation around art in Atlanta. Perhaps if the world started talking about the work here, our city’s own would take notice and think it’s worth supporting the arts.I understand Artpapers wanting and needing to venture outside of the city to cover art but come on give us more than the token region’s glance. Artpapers should cover Atlanta the way Art in America covers New York or the way Modern Painters covers London.