Oil Protest Sunday

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Varg

Oil protest scheduled for Sunday at Washington Artillery Park…

Murdered Gulf: Stop the BP OIl Flood Now!

I am not sure why but, there are a lot of people that just hate protests. Even if they are for the cause, they just have this aversion to the gathering.

I’ve been to three protests since I got all civic-minded in 2005. The first was the 2007 crime march, the second was a rainy and early Eddie Jordan protest and the third was the Canal St. protest of Ray Nagin’s leadership award.

The last one could have really been considered fun. Protesting a mayor for being as ineffective and arrogant as Nagin was allowed for a raucous protest to mock him. The Jordan protest was tiny and Fox news reporters were giving us instructions on how to look better organized (“walk around in circles”). The crim march was awesome though, as years pass I wonder how much good it did. The Nagin administration was never really the same but I can’t say if any of that had to do with the protest. It did give him an opportunity to herald his crime camera program and we all know how that worked out for him.

The worst thing about protests is they seem to be easily mocked. If the cause isn’t right, if the numbers aren’t large enough, if the organizers don’t have it together, it all just looks like a farce. A few folks I have talked to have wondered what would be protested on Sunday. They posted it on their site.

Good luck yall.

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.