That guest artist again, since she insists.
Posts Tagged ‘Colleen Nelson’
Walking The Planck
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010A Tale Of Two Tarps
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
This is a tale of two “tarps”. But it is also a tale of two collaborators, Colleen and myself. The Nelson line is unmistakable and very strong. But what makes it a tale of two artists is that I think we see it in very different ways. If I understand Colleen right, she sees it as a tale of people who suffer and of people who are greedy, callous and oblivious in the face of that suffering. So far, so good. No doubt about that. (Well, maybe there is. Angela?) Does that mean that if we had better people running banks it would be different? I think this is where we diverge. To me, this is a tale of how the gears run in the machine we call our society. Banks and the making of money have very high leverage in this machine. Hunger, disease, poverty, not so much. Some 80 or 90 years ago, W.E.B. DuBois pointed out that since the early 1800′s we have had the knowledge and installed industrial capacity to feed, clothe and house everybody. (With population growth, that now hangs in the balance.) At some point, that has to become the central problem — not “Why don’t we do it?”, but “How can we re-order the machine so we do?”
Well, that’s art. Lotta different views.
Emily Again
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
I suppose everyone has their own Emily. This beautiful drawing is Colleen’s response to Why do they shut me out of heaven? Where I see spiritual despair, spiritual starvation, she sees Emily Rising, Emily Fulfilled, Emily the Beautiful. Go figure!
A Poem With A Mutant Snow Flake
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Colleen sends a poem and a do-it-yourself mutant snowflake.
Ode To Snow…
Pristine white there is no sun
No golden photon to emblazen
Absolute all color pure reflection
It blinds my every rod and cone
Blue cup clutched I step into that light
Crunched beneath the waver of my boot
Leaving broken edges no less bright
Behind me
Rustling snow from every branch
Hardly waiting for my retreat
The brave ones take the chance
Cardinal red splashed
Black grey junco
Cluster at the feeder
Shards of yellow bill
Eagerly pecked between snowflakes
I stand, breath white on white
As
Seed hulls scatter at my feet
I ponder thus:
St. Francis never had a plastic cup
Nor plastic sack of seed
Nor heated room to venture forth from
Still – when I fill the feeder
No less wonder makes my moment
Free from that disgust
That drains the living not connected
By the bridge of life
To Life
L’Chaim
Horace’s New Year Word Contest
Friday, January 1st, 2010
Inspired by his long meditative practice (called Scrabble), Horace has created a new word for a New Year. Let’s see, that’s J-8, A-1, well, you figure it out. But what does it mean?
So, that’s our contest. What does it mean? Don’t forget etymology and pithy phrases. Even better, can you draw it? Wonderful and mysterious prizes, yet to be determined.
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Colleen contributes this rare portrait. Recent scholarship suggests it is none other than Benny Goodduck.
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It is a special pleasure to welcome Special Guest Artist Helen Gaims. Helen, take it away:
The Liebergrinch
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Special Guest Artist: Colleen Nelson
Ms. Colleen Is Pissed Off At Rush Limbaugh
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
Special Guest Artist Colleen Nelson is pissed off at Rush Limbaugh. And why shouldn’t she be? The guy is a freakin’ tumor.
Foreclosure
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
The Foreclosures of the Apocalypse by guest artist Colleen Nelson
Funny how the housing crisis seems to have disappeared from the front page. I suppose that means everyone’s back in their house, right?
Of course, “housing crisis” is a misnomer. The houses were fine. They just stood there, ready to keep people warm and dry.
If the houses were fine, where was the crisis? In the made-up stuff. We call it finance, politics. It’s all belief, a collective agreement to imagine a binding web, a collective imagining that escapes our control, fantasy stuff. We’d call it make-believe if we saw it clearly. “Let’s play Capitalism!” But it takes on a life of its own. We don’t know how to stop it. So every day, its consequences are no less than life and death.
Nation: Beware what you imagine.
Those Memos Again
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
“Dirty Laundry” by special guest artist Colleen Nelson.
A lot has happened since we first started bloviating about this. Depending on your view of Obama, he either a) Tried to sanitize the situation by releasing the memos but promising not to prosecute CIA agents who tortured “in good faith” (!!!) or b) knew that once the memos were out, the shit would hit the fan wthout it looking like he threw it. Regardless of his intentions, the shit has hit the fan, and a good thing, too. We are, finally, a nation where this kind of shit will not stay swept under the rug and good for us!
I’d like to put in my 2 cents here: The anti-investigation crowd is framing this as “looking forward” vs. “retribution”. This is pure spin. If you like it, you call it “justice” or “accountability”. If you don’t like it, you call it “retribution.” The point is not retribution — as emotionally satisfying as that might be. The point is deterrence. And deterrence is “looking forward”. It’s looking forward to 2017 or 2035 when some yet-unkown President is once again tempted to grab un-Constitutional powers. I want him (or her) and his henchmen (or women) to stop and think. I want them all to think, “Wait a minute. We could go to jail for this.” That, my friends, is looking forward.