The Orris asked multimedia artist Hilary Emerson Lay to  share her thoughts on creativity, inspiration, and making a career in the arts. We welcome you into her playful world of sock critters, self expression, and perseverance.

Tiny Hillside Town, 24″ x 24″, dictionary, charcoal, and Acryla gouache on canvas, 2012.

When did you realize you were an artist?

My teachers started referring to me as an artist way back when I was in kindergarten.  My parents are both extremely creative and imaginative people, so my sister and I grew up doing things like making our own advent calendars and leaving hand-made cards on our neighbors’ doors on May Day, and loads of other things we never thought were unusual.  I wasn’t until I was older that I realized that most ‘normal’ families never did lots of the things we did, and that I had been raised to see the world a little bit differently.  And it wasn’t until 2006 (the year I started my website) that I really began calling myself an artist.  Something about the legitimacy of having my own website gave me the courage to identify myself.  Maybe it was the fact that I could hand my business card to someone and say “See?  Look what I do!”.

What inspires you?

Everything.  Children’s storybooks.  Snowstorms.  Animals.  Other artists.  Old postcards in antique shops.  Things I find on Pinterest.  Dreams.  Conversations with friends.  Conversations with strangers.  Inspiration is absolutely everywhere; it’s just a matter of what speaks to you.

Joe Bags, 10″ x 10″, Acryla gouache, pencil, and sheet music on canvas, 2012

How would you describe your style?

Whimsical, quirky, colorful, playful, sweet, funny.  My art is just an extension of my personality.  People often remark upon the fact that I look like my paintings and sock critters.

What is your artistic process like? How do you work best?

I tend to work rather erratically, where I’ll furiously make art for three days and then won’t do a thing for a week.  I live off the momentum that builds when I’m making art, but it’s also exhausting, and I wear myself out.  Making art can be lonely, so I tend to get more done when I’m creating alongside a fellow artist.  I’ve recently been working on making sock critters and sock monstahs to restock my Etsy shop, and I’ve been inviting my friend over to crochet next to me while I sew.  We make a cozy fort in my living room and eat cheese and olives and listen to Motown.  Before I know it, six hours has gone by and we’ve both gotten a ton of art done.  We call each other art-ners.  I am lucky to have a lot of different artist friends in my life, and we all alternately encourage or yell at one another to keep each other motivated.  Making art is sometimes a group effort.

Eli’s Party Hat, 3″ x 3″, photo transfer, origami paper, dictionary, pen, and Acryla gouache on canvas, 2011.

What kinds of materials do you work with and why?

I cover my canvases with pages from old dictionaries, and then paint over this with Acryla gouache, which has a remarkable rewetting property which allows me to make the colors as bold or as subtle as I want.  I’ve always been attracted to the way printed words look on a page, and I love going back and looking at one of my pieces after it’s finished to see what lines of text I ended up using.  I also work with ephemera that a man from the Cape send me every few months.  He inherited a vast collection of old books, receipts, brochures, journals, advertisements, you name it, some of which date back to the late 1800s.  He happened to see an article about me in the Cape Cod Times about a year ago, saw that I used text in my work, and began sending me packages of papers to use.  He’s a great penpal to have.

Tracy (part of the Self-Portrait in Wigs series), 36″ x 36″, Acryla gouache on canvas, 2012.

You teach artist workshops, especially focusing on artist professionalization. What advice would you give to a starting artist?

My advice to someone just starting out on their journey to become a successful artist is to treat your art like a job right from the get-go.  You’d never slack off at your day job; apply the same work ethic to your art.  (And stop referring to your day job as your ‘real job.’  Start calling it your ‘other job’.  You’re an artist, damn it, and that IS a real job!). Get yourself out there. Make (or have made) a fantastic website of your work.  Get business cards and have them on you at all times.  Join your local arts council.  Get on the mailing lists of local galleries and arts organizations and submit your work to every relevant show.  Whenever you have your work hanging anywhere, get press.  Email your local papers and send them jpegs of your work.  You’d be surprised how often it works.
Be organized. I have two chalkboards over the desk in my art studio, one for specific commission requests (and the date by which they’re needed) and the other for general requests people have made. Be reliable.  When someone emails you about your art, respond immediately.  If someone needs a piece by a certain date, get it to them early.  Being a successful artist is hard enough as it is; you don’t need the reputation of being flaky and unreliable on top of that.  A happy customer can easily turn into a repeat customer.  And repeat customers tell all of their friends about you.

In my workshop called “Thinking Outside the Gallery Walls,” I encourage artists to explore avenues other than just traditional art galleries through which to sell their work.  Gallery shows are important; they’re great for your CV, and you might make a lot of connections.  That being said, I’ve made plenty of connections—and more money—hanging a show in a cafe for a month.  In fact, I’ve done a whole lot of shows at cafes.  Cafes tend to take 0-30% of your sales (as opposed to 40-50% at galleries) and what better way to get your work seen than hanging it right next to a line of bored people waiting for their morning coffee?  Craft fairs are another venue you can try, although they are extremely hit-or-miss.  Do research on a fair before you apply; make sure it’s a good fit for your art, or else you’ll waste the application fee and about fifteen hours of your life.

If applicable, have your art turned into greeting cards and postcards and magnets.  You can sell these at local stores (bookstores are a great place to try) and you can also toss in a couple of them with an Etsy order.  People love extra goodies.

Another tip I have for new artists is to both give stuff away, and to stop giving stuff away.  I run frequent contests through my Facebook page where I give away a tiny painting or set of greeting cards, which keeps people engaged with what I’m doing online.  But I also advise people to get over the uncomfortableness of charging friends for your art.  I used to give my art away to my friends for practically nothing.  But if they’re willing and ready to pay full price, charge them full price.  Learning to value your own work is priceless.

Erin (part of the Self-Portrait in Wigs series), 18″ x 24″, pencil and Acryla gouache on paper, 2012.

How do you feel about the state of the art world today? And, where do you see your place in it?

In the last ten or so years, I’ve noticed a trend towards producing work that would be categorized more as ‘craft’ than traditional ‘fine art,’ but there’s also been a reclaiming of the whole idea of crafting as a legitimate thing.  In large part due to the enormous popularity of craft shows like Bizarre Bazaar and sites like Etsy, people are realizing that you don’t have to have gotten a degree in fine art to be able to make a living (or at least a bit of money) as an artist.  It took me many years to become comfortable with the idea of myself as being a ‘real’ artist; I can’t render a gorgeous, photorealistic portrait in oils, but then again, fine oil painters can’t produce the kind of work that I do.  I teach a series of workshops on social media marketing for artists where I show people how to establish an effective web presence and have fun while promoting themselves.  I’m very outgoing and friendly and a natural self-promoter, so part of my ‘role’ in the current art world is to help artists embrace the idea of being artists. I think the world of art has expanded its definitions over the last decade.  There’s plenty of room for everyone.  More and more people are thinking of themselves as artists, which is a great thing, because the world always needs more of us.

Jared and el Conquistador

You mentioned the resurgence of craft culture in recent years; what does craft mean to you?

Because I am both a painter and a sewer, I reside in the gray area between what’s ‘art’ and what’s ‘craft.’  Although my paintings are mixed media, I still consider the process to be painting–although lots of mixed media painters would call it something else.   All categories of visual art, be it painting, sculpture, ceramics, are open to interpretation.  But I think the word ‘craft’ is the most undefined of all.  I consider my sock critters and sock monstahs to be crafting, but they can also be called ‘soft sculptures.’  I say label your art however you want to.  You’re the one who has the best insight into what category, if any, it should go.

Sock critter twins, 2012.

What is the value of art?

I think it’s impossible to put a value on what art does for the world.  For me, it has always been an invaluable form of self-expression.  If art didn’t exist, I probably wouldn’t have made it past middle school.  For me, art is how I bring joy and color to the world.  Without it, I have no idea who’d I’d be.  But I’d definitely have lamer hair.

Assorted tiny houses, 3″ x 3″, Bristol board, colored pencil, pen, and dictionary on canvas, 2012.

You can find more of Hilary Emerson Lay’s work on her  website, purchase prints and other creations at her Etsy shop, and follow upcoming events on her Facebook page.

Interviewed by: Lana Cook

It happened on the campaign trail of the presidential election of 2000. Five years before conspiracy theorists concluded that Dick Cheney brought explosives to the levees of New Orleans, major news organizations trumpeted that he “brought gravitas to the ticket.” No less than 16 different news commentators touted the same word-for-word hyperbolic revelation.  In a society that is fed sensationalism over substance, the message became abundantly (and redundantly) stale, made perfect for quick consumption, a complicated matter watered-down to a serving-size mush.

Was this the beginning of the skyrocketing use but non-use of the thesaurus? Not really. Its roots can be traced to the early days of the internet, before the internet was on computers. When Bill Clinton and Al Gore strapped us into our car seats and gleefully drove us along the new and exciting “information super highway,” they inadvertently relegated books, and the information they contained, to the dim mists of antiquity. Spell check became the new grammar, homogenization of the news became pasteurized, information became square and non-information became hip. A crisis was brewing.  (Or, at least, the news would have found it convenient if we believed there was so that more readers would tune in.)

When all the independent and impartial news professionals collectively found their thesauri at the very same moment in the autumn of 2000, the non-use crisis skyrocketed to the overuse crisis. Overnight, gravitas became the explosive catalyst to a crisis. Crisis added to crisis, leading to crises, and finally to crisii. The thesauri crisii exploded.  “Independent” and “impartial” were words used only to describe the news outlets of antiquity.  Sensationalism was in; accuracy was out.

I followed close behind the campaign trail to gain a grass-roots, American, cross-sectional perspective of the crisii:

“Nowhere is this crisii more prevalent than on the campaign trail,” proclaimed Tiffany Rees-Chiou, a high-ranking administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Having said that, it remains that experts are puzzled, as are our pollsters. Our polling indicates that we may not be getting our message out on the campaign trail. On the campaign trail we see that the middle class is getting squeezed with the thesaurus crisis.”

“On the campaign trail, as we advocate for the middle class,” Ms. Rees-Chiou continued, “we’ve also had to explain various self-explanatory concepts. Take the individual mandate, for instance. Our constituents are quite wary of an individual going out on a date by himself. And why just a man? Having said that, many of our constituent groups find this highly offensive. Our job is to educate.  And by educating, we can build unity.  Unity, of course, eliminates the need for unneeded individualism.  Give them an answer, and they stop asking the questions you don’t want.”

“Language is just another quaint way of self-expression,” spoke Georges Smythe-Beuragard III, a senior level barista who was wearing Oxford shoes. “Just the other day, I was speaking with a fellow colleague from Harvard, Mass. about the crisii. Experts are puzzled, but in my opinion what is needed is more funding for research. America is ranked first in Americanism, but falls to fourteenth in thesuarisism. Frankly, I’m fraught with pessimism about the outcome. I hope in this election season we hear more from the campaign trail on this crisis! My brother-in-law, who works for Yale locksmiths, agrees that it’s puzzling. It’s a slippery slope!”  Georges stared grimly out the window, an expression of sad confusion upon his face, seemingly struggling to make sense of his own revelation.

“So, having said that, we are still left with the evolving paradigm of what is to be done to rectify the thesauri crisii,” proffered G.B. Troutmouther, a senior campaign staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “What is to be funded? What is to be considered? It’s obvious that funding and re-investment is needed on a skyrocketing scale, even though no evidence supports it. On the campaign trail the crisii is barely given a mention,and where there’s no crisii there’s no interest.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “But-” he continued with index finger pointing upwards, “the crisii dominates every news cycle on every major network and news outlet, even though those involved are oblivious to their complicity. This passion, this fervor — this is what we need on the campaign trail.  Non-funding is skyrocketing. Funding is non-skyrocketing! The big issues are what lose the people.  The crisii is what we need.”

“I’ve been studying this phenomenon for quite some time,” spoke Professor Lester Moore, a pre-eminent expert and political scientist from Georgetown, Mass. “Frankly, my fellow expert colleagues and I are puzzled. There is a growing consensus that there is no consensus within the academic community. As we’ve advocated for standardized testing, critical thinking has skyrocketed to a new low. It would seem then that the evolving paradigm since the internet’s overwhelming pervasiveness is, ‘Why think on your own when you can click and ingest?’”

“Campaign trail? Crisis? Tell ya what ya need here is some good ole’ horse sense,” drawled Jimmy B McMann, a tobacco farmer from North Carolina. As he swept his arms and rolled his eyes, he pronounced, “You ain‘t foolin‘ nobody with all this bull pucky! Nobody! See that out there? That there’s a cow path and those there are cow pies. How ‘bout you call the campaign trail the cow pie path? Seems right to me. How ‘bout you call the slippery slope a hog trough? How ‘bout you call all these damn crisis things what they are? See that out there? That there’s the paddock for the bull. See what the bull left behind out there?”

Jimmy B gave a knowing nod, adjusted his hat to the back of his head, then gave out a long spit of tobacco juice. I looked down at my shoes……

Another crisis!

By Kevin & Megan McCormick

Life’s most impenetrable mysteries — death, love, purpose — often remain intangible aspects of human experience.  Art seems to be the closest we’ve come to deciphering these abstractions. Joshua Baptista’s mixed-media creations delve into the human experience, exploring life’s greatest obsessions with tenacity and vibrancy.

When did you know you were an artist?

In kindergarten.  My teacher, Dr. Fulsom, thought I had some potential and encouraged my parents to send me somewhere for art lessons.  My parents have always played an amazingly supportive role in my art.  My mother asked me if I would be interested in taking classes.  I responded, “Art is something you already know and cannot be taught.”  I still believe in that statement today.  You can be taught composition and draftsmanship, but not how to be an artist.  A friend once said art is what you do with your life.

Is there a message that you want people to get when they look at your work?

I don’t want to tell people what to think with my work.  I feel that there is enough white noise out there.  I don’t expect people to have the same relationship with the work that I do I guess.

Looking at your work, the concept of life, death, and human experience seems to infiltrate quite a few images.  Am I correct in that observation? 

Yes, death follows me and I don’t like it: but I try to embrace it.

What types of materials do you use in your image-making? 

Whatever is around me at the time.

What inspires you in your art?

People and landscapes.  People are just amazing in general; you never know what they will do next.  No strangers in my work.  I usually pull from personal experiences with friends and family.  I do feel a strong connection with my surroundings and I think that is because it’s always changing.

Who inspires you in your art?

My colleagues, Igor Pasternak and Bonner Sale.  I also look at all the contemporaries.

How old are you?  How old do you feel? 

32, and I guess I feel 16.  My art keeps me young.  Making drawings or just in general “making” is one of the first things we learn to do.  Most people stop for some reason or another.  I never did.

To be honest I can’t really explain my perspective on life or death. I guess I really don’t understand it.  I feel if I could explain it, I wouldn’t be as interested in exploring it.  It’s the curiosity and the unknowing that drives the work.

You can find more of  Joshua’s work on his website, or in person at the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts, Rochester, NH, beginning October 6 until November.

by Megan McCormick

The Orris is hosting a book swap at The Allston Village Street Fair this Sunday, September 23 from 12-6.  The Allston Village Street Fair is an all-ages, free event featuring live music, multicultural street performances, an artist market, vendors, an international food court, and community organizations.

Bring a book to the fair to swap it for a new one at The Orris booth!

Remaining books will be donated to Goodwill.

The Allston Village Street Fair Festival is held on Harvard Avenue in Allston and is MBTA Accessible via:

Boston College Green Line Trolley:

Exit Trolley at Harvard Avenue Stop - Walk 1 Block to Main Stage at Brighton and Harvard Avenues.

Bus Routes:

#57 from Kenmore Station to Harvard Avenue
#64 from Kendall/MIT Station and University Park to Union Square Stop
#66 from both Harvard Square and Dudley Station to Harvard Avenue

Location

Questions? Or want to arrange a book donation?  Contact theorrisjournal@gmail.com.

Clarity

“I first realized I was an artist when I was about 12 when I sold a sketch for $20 to a random person at an ice skating rink,” Bryan Ramey, the Georgia-born, now Boston-based artist remembers. “I’ve been drawing since I could walk,” Ramey says, citing sidewalk chalk as one of his earliest mediums. To learn to draw at a young age, he copied comic books and placed paper on the TV screen to trace out the cartoons.  So, how did this artist move from tracing cartoons to the realistically detailed, yet fantastically unreal aesthetic he is known for today?  The Orris sat down with Bryan Ramey to learn his story.

“I always liked art,” Ramey starts off.  He explains that he began taking art classes in high school, under the tutorship of a very traditional, Renaissance style painter.  He remembers working through hundreds of studies, compiling stacks of sketchbooks. Curiously, his art teacher also happened to be his football coach.  Throughout high school, Ramey was a three sport athlete, playing football and soccer as well as training in martial arts, which he has practiced now for 19 years. Ramey seems thankful that his parents encouraged athletics, recognizing the benefits of socialization and camaraderie that came from his time on team sports.

He says that “by senior year, it clicked” and he began preparing his portfolio for college. “Dad was military,” he explains, but his father encouraged Ramey’s choice to attend art school, though under two conditions, 1) Bryan had to minor in something practical (he chose marketing), and 2) the family would not pay for anything less than a B.

Art school was “very rigorous,” Ramey reflects, speaking of his time in the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He remembers staying up all night working on his art; teachers tearing him apart in review. “In art school, they don’t push you to do any one thing, but around junior year they ask you what you want to do with your life.”  If you say “to just be an artist, they kind of look at you sideways, ‘good luck with that.’”  There was a “reality check with the artist profession” and he “was aware of that reality.” Ramey seems sincere when he admits that he “did not have delusions that I would have a sold out show in NYC right away.”  He fully expected “having a second job” and maybe “getting a few things shown and sold” along the way.   After Alfred, Ramey went on for his post-baccalaureate at SMFA.  You can see this extensive training in Ramey’s detailed work. His representations of the human form are studied, with carefully chosen lines, colors, and shades that reflect the Renaissance influence of his early art education.

Delicate

“I typically sketch every day,” Ramey says, describing his work process, “when I find an idea I like I tweak the sketch until I’m happy with the layout. Then I crank some music, anything from John Lee Hooker to Underoath, and layout the drawing work on the canvas or Yupo. Lastly comes the inking which is almost meditative for me.” Ramey works primarily on Yupo, a plastic paper designed for watercolor.  Finding watercolor paints “too chalky,” he uses inks instead, which stains the Yupo and helps him achieve the crisp lines in his work.

Though Ramey has developed a distinct style, which he describes as “Dali Drew Comic Books,” he is always looking for new directions for his work.  Next, he’d like get into children’s book illustration. He sees it as a powerful way to reach people.  He mentions Maurice Sendak as an influence, who he once met at conference. He owns some of Sendak’s original sketches which he displays in his home as a reminder of “how important that book was to me.”  Ramey is also drawn to late 19^th century illustrations, like those in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. “Those books, the illustrations in them were these moments out of the story, how important, how iconic they became, the scene at the tea party, to me, speaks volumes more than just having your work in a gallery space. Art is so personal, this concept that your art is only validated by the gallery space, the critics, to me, it is silly.”  What’s important, Ramey says, is his audience, especially when his work “reminds them of something deep,” when “it haunts them.”  Ramey knows how “subjective” art is, a point that he feels “is really important for the mainstream art world to recognize.”  He takes particular issue with the artificial divisions between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ art, which only seem to restrain critical taste and limit the reception of deserving artists. Ramey is critical of much modern art, citing Warhol as an example, who he believes often relied on a “cheap trick.”  “They found the right trend at the right time,” Ramey explains, adding that “I would take Renaissance art over modern art any day of the week because of the skill involved.”  Though there is a clear lineage to Renaissance painting in his work, Ramey’s aesthetic is also clearly influenced by surrealism and the fantastic.

Foresight

Ramey is drawn to surrealism because of the sense of open possibility it evokes.  Ramey thinks one of the most important questions to ask in life is “What if?”  Ramey explains, “That ‘What If’ to me is really important” in not only art but in literature because it raises crucial questions about the nature of reality itself. He greatly admires Neil Gaiman, who “writes books just over the line of reality.”  Ramey is inspired by the mythology in Gaiman’s stories, naming American Gods in particular.  Gaiman’s work challenges readers to question reality. “You know it’s not real, but the way it is set up, the way he composed it, you want to believe it. I want that reaction, what happens next?”  Like Gaiman, Ramey sees fantasy as an aesthetic space to raise questions of reality in the minds of his audience.

Ramey feels his work is rarely political. “Everyone is so caught up on trying to be political or anti political, judgmental or make some brash drastic statement on the way our world is. Sometimes it’s good just to let your mind wander and explore the untapped and uncertain things that make life such a grand mystery,” Ramey adds. The purpose of his art is to “stir a passion in the audience,” “to transport you either metaphysically or emotionally.”  He hopes his work inspires people to dream. “People nowadays don’t dream anymore,” Ramey reflects, nostalgically looking back to mid-century America, a time he sees as ripe with dreams of space exploration and technological innovation.   Through the dreamscapes of his work, he hopes to rekindle that forward drive in his audience, “I want it to spark something.

Chance Encounter

Though the figures in Ramey’s work are often solitary, they invoke a longing for human connectedness.   This desire for connection is evident in one of Ramey’s pet passions: old-fashioned letter writing. He values the material physicality of letters, the feeling of holding them, of sending and receiving them in the mail.  He says, “Things like Twitter have made it so people don’t recognize the tangible.”  Though he sees Facebook and Twitter as “too impersonal and impermanent,” he certainly recognizes the growing importance of online mediums in the art world.

He is cautiously optimistic about the ways artists use digital platforms to share their work.  “I do feel a lot of people who aspire to be artists take the first thing that comes about to show their work.” He reminds us that “you are recognized by the company you keep.”  Ramey is cognizant of the established art community, recognizing the important role galleries and critics play in scrutinizing, curating and essentially filtering the mass of available works.  He reminds artists that “the galleries see where you show your work” and though “some venues will get your work out,” Ramey is “picky about where he shows his work.” He recommends that artists develop a process of self curation, whereby they think not only of the quality of their own work, but also of the vehicles they’re using to share their work.  Websites, like deviantART, could potentially “devalue your work in the eyes of the galleries.”  “The interwebs” are “this weird double edged sword for artists,” he says.  There is a need for “juried, curated” collections, for work to be “truly scrutinized.” He knows, by personal experience, that “young artists want to be shown, but you should also understand why some things are not as good as they appear. Don’t just jump at the first opportunity.”  “Be patient, make good work, and it will come,” he advises.

Perch

Ramey also points out the increasing influence the public has on the art world in the digital age. “The public is important in the online world,” Ramey comments, “galleries and critics know their opinion matters. If enough Joe Shmoes like it, the galleries will catch on.  They are a business. Like any business, they want popular things.”  Ramey differentiates between artists who are making money and those who supposedly “sold out.”  There is a difference between artists who change their ideals and aesthetic simply to fit in, and those who start making money off their original work. Sometimes, Ramey reminds us, the success of artists simply means they’ve “arrived.”  He brings up the painter Sylvia Ji as an example.  Sylvia Ji helped make the Day of the Dead aesthetic popular again through her senior thesis paintings which featured hauntingly gorgeous portraits of women in Day of the Dead costuming.  Her work went from that initial reception to influencing a much larger resurgence of this aesthetic in tattoo culture.  As Ramey sums it up, “she’s 27 and she can buy cups with her work on it.  She didn’t sell out. She found a way to self-sustain her work.”

Ramey is a “a huge proponent of Etsy,” seeing it as “a way for creative people to market themselves the same way you’d see at a vendor fair.”  Ramey sells sketches and prints off Etsy, but also sees it as an opportunity to network, a “way to connect with a much larger audience.”  Ramey recognizes that, in today’s market, it is “a lot harder to sell original work because you have to pay for it.” Though “people love artwork,” often “they don’t like to buy it” because of the cost of original paintings.  But Ramey reminds us that “you are getting what you pay for: the time, energy, skills, and materials” that go into a one-of-a-kind piece.   For a vibrant art scene to sustain, we must invest in the artists around us.  For him, it’s about “finding the right audience for your work,” “finding your patrons,” those “people who just like your work.”

If you like Bryan Ramey’s artwork, you can view more of it on his website or become a patron of his work by purchasing it on Etsy.  You can also view the original illustration Ramey made to accompany Guy Rotella’s “Revelation,” exclusively on The Orris.

Ramey is one of the artists featured in the 30 Under 30 exhibit at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA. The exhibit runs from October 4 to November 10, 2012, with an opening reception on October 18 from 5:30-7:30 pm.

Arsenal Center for the Arts

-Lana Cook

Thermal Pools at Dusk; Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Ives writes, “In the words of Henry David Thoreau, ‘I have been anxious to improve the nick of time… to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.’ In a very objective way, releasing the shutter for me is just that, to capture the present moment, and ‘toe its line’. I find this particularly fantastic in natural settings. As we continue to turn inward toward our screens, many folks find it more difficult to relate to the ecosystem that they are inexorably a part of. To be able to see a photograph and contemplate the minute details of what is otherwise an entirely fleeting moment in an infinite line of moments… for me, that’s powerful.”

Bald Eagle and Lake Clark National Park in distance; Ninilchik, Alaska

Mendenhall Glacier; Juneau, Alaska

Sea Lions; Astoria, Oregon

Rainstorm and Rainbow over Denali National Park; Alaska

“Minimalism, contrast, and scale are major components of my artistic work. A slight change in angle or exposure can completely change the perspective of a shot, allowing the viewer to see through different eyes, and hopefully appreciate the dynamic nature of the world.”

Alaskan Mountain Goat in Chugach Mountains; near Indian, Alaska

Twisted Juniper; Sedona, Arizona

Resting Elk of the Roosevelt Elk Herd; Northern California

Field of Sunflowers for oil harvesting; near Wounded Knee, South Dakota

Coastal Redwoods; Northern California

Christopher Ives is a writer, consultant, and audio/visual artist. He obtained his BA in Philosophy and Sustainable Living from the University of New Hampshire and his MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University. He has photographed for the TED conference, and had his film work featured in the documentary ‘One Day on Earth.’ He is the cofounder of A Migrant State of Mind: a blog on culture, travel, and simple living. You can find more of his work at www.christopherives.com.

Instagram: @christopherives

Vimeo: vimeo.com/christopherives

Unwinding a Life

It happened when I wasn’t looking.

It came, dragging its chains

of scorching days,

each fused to gather your image.

It tore through my house,

ripping my silences,

husking my voice

until it lay in tendrils on the floor.

The way it happened

is still a locked room dilemma,

murderer and victim

blinking in the harsh light of reality.

The day rose, the walls already scored with red.

Losing Selves

A dozen women dance

through my head,

scarves and veils,

tambourine like eyes

against their stomachs.

My mind loops around them,

trying to catch moles I might recognize

or slices of skin that

are familiar patches of cold ground.

But none of those creatures are me.

None of them feel like the one

I’m locked into

like a childproof backseat.

I see them dance.

I feel them weave out my ears,

to crumble to the floor.

I will never be those again.

The residue of their passing

smeared under my shoes.

-Valentina Cano 

What Do You Want!

Ernest Williamson’s paintings haunt.  They invite us to stare into the face of our innermost selves, those sheltered recesses of the mind where disorder and creative imagination work in surprising tandem.  Williamson’s work takes time to absorb as we weigh our response to these tortured faces behind bleeding lines of paint. Yet, the after image assuredly remains, haunting  our optical nerves.   To get a better idea of the inspiration behind these works, The Orris asked Williamson to share his thoughts on art and the creative process.

When did you realize you were an artist?

I’ve always been fascinated with visual art and poetics; however, I came to the realization that I was an artist at the age of nineteen. After a nervous breakdown, I began to create visual art at a feverish rate and interest in my work grew rapidly.

Pathogen of Social Misery

What inspires you?

Politics, nature, good and bad experiences, and the possibilities of creating something truly novel all inspire me.  The works of Picasso and Dali still inspire me today and my creative efforts inspire me as well. The poetry of Robert Frost is not too bad either!

Interchangeable Roles

What is your artistic process like?  

My unconscious mind frequently transfers experiences or snippets of information or images to my conscious mind and I feed off of that and create art.  I work best when I have extended periods of time to work on my paintings, usually during the weekends.

In Conversation With My Art

You are both a poet and an artist, how do those mediums work together for you? 

My poetic art is completely separate from my visual art in terms of process and in terms of style. When I write, I usually have to listen to Gregorian Chant and listen to my muse speak poetry to me and then I revise what I write. When I paint, I usually listen to classical piano or old R&B music for hours at a time.

The Ascension of David

What is the value of art?

The value of art is the value of life and the value of life is realizing that beauty, joy, sadness, ugliness all contribute to process and process at times can emit transcendental experiences.  For me, God is the at the center of overt and covert realities and art can be experienced on a supernatural plane via delving into the metaphorical mimetic signs evinced in color, composition, relevancy, and memory.

I Wish You Peace

I didn’t know then how he found out about my marathon, probably from Mom. I didn’t know they still talked. I thought back to when Dad signed up Mom for a 5K when I was younger, then bugged her every dinner about working out, one of them always leaving the table with their plate, the other asking what I learned at school that day. Once, he even took her to the track to time her. I played with my action figures in one of the outer lanes as he looked at his watch and yelled at her.

I was barely awake when I stepped off the elevator in my hotel, still tired from the three hour drive to Richmond the night before. He sat across from the reception, coffee cup in hand, sunglasses resting on his forehead. He looked lean, as always. “You should look like this,” he used to say, pointing to his body. I considered heading back to the elevator, making an excuse about forgetting my water, but he saw me. His sharp voice cut through the lobby: “Jason,” he said. “Over here.”

“Hi, Dad,” I said, holding a plastic shopping bag of with a water bottle, banana, and gloves inside. It’d been at least five years since I’d seen him, but he still had his firm handshake.

“Jason, good to see you,” he said. “Race starts at eight. You should be at the starting line by now.”

“I’ll get there,” I said. “How did you get here? Isn’t it an eight hour drive for you?”

“Got up early today. How are you gonna have enough time to warm up?” My father had run marathons his entire life until he blew his knee out playing basketball with some high schoolers two years ago. When he wasn’t punishing his body for hours at the gym, he would often ask why my mother and I weren’t as disciplined as he was. On his nicer days, he’d try to explain how wonderful “peak physical fitness” felt, how it could be obtained if we’d just try a little. But that was before he left. Before he said he’d found his soulmate in the form of Lizzie, a muscled trainer. Before he settled into a small one-bedroom apartment, even the standard every other weekend visit most kids get impossible. I tried to visit, twice actually. I invited myself, content with sleeping on his couch. Between waking up with a sore neck and watching Lizzie make scrambled eggs in one of his t-shirts, I knew there wasn’t room for me.

“It’s twenty-six miles! I wasn’t planning on warming up. I just want to finish.”

“Anyone can finish.”

“Dad, I’m not trying to win.”

“You should at least want to place in your age group.”

I didn’t tell him I was only here to prove to my third graders that I wouldn’t die like Pheidippides if I ran a marathon. One of the kids didn’t think I’d make it a mile. During recess one day, I looked at myself in the faculty bathroom mirror. I had grown chubbier since college, my khakis tighter, a not-so-subtle stomach hanging over my belt buckle. “I’m just trying to finish.”

My father pretended not to hear me, heading for the door. “You know my best marathon was a 2:43. I’m not sure if that family record’s coming down today.”

“I’ll let ESPN know.”

By the time I reached the starting line, there were runners everywhere, the “Rocky” theme blasting from speakers. I settled into the back, runners on both sides stretching, eating gooey substances squeezed from silver packets, adjusting headphones and heart rate monitors. I closed my eyes and saw my father’s face behind dark sunglasses, clapping at me, it seemed, rather than for me.

His presence made me nervous. A heavy weight settled in my chest. I’d spent the last years of my life avoiding him, content with my effort to repair the relationship and convinced nothing more could be done. I couldn’t change his inaction, make him want a relationship, I told myself. I knew who he was, his limitations. Therapy is a great place to hear yourself talk, and when the therapist asked why I still wanted a relationship with my father after everything he’d done, all I could say was, “Because he’s my father and one day he’ll be a grandfather.”

I was so far back from the starting line I couldn’t hear the starter gun. As I crossed the starting line, I started my stopwatch, hearing the beep that had become all too familiar the past two months. It was hard to move, one step too fast and I was running over somebody, one step too slow and I was getting trampled on from behind. As the street widened and runners spread out, I saw crowds cheering, holding signs, ringing cowbells.

By the fifth mile I was running with a small group. Adriana was a cancer survivor running her third marathon, Darryl an architect running his twentieth, and Sidney a freshman in college. They laughed when I told them my students’ comments. Darryl said that once I finished this race, I’d promise to never run again, but about a week later, I’d be searching for my next marathon. We stayed together through the halfway point. Then my leg cramped and I couldn’t keep up with them. Adriana stayed behind, walking it off with me. She took a small bottle of water off her belt. “Take this,” she said. “You just need some water.” After massaging my leg and walking for a half mile, I could run again. I’d prove to my father, and myself, that I could do this.

Adriana and I started slowly. Each step felt like my thighs were being stabbed. I adjusted my gait, taking smaller steps, the pain continuing.

Around the sixteenth mile, I saw my father. “Come on, Jason! Move it! You gotta move it! You’re not even gonna break four hours like this!” He held a water bottle out for me. I waved my “no thanks.”

“Move it!” My father yelled as I continued. He grimaced as he clapped his hands. It looked painful.

“That your coach?” Adriana asked.

“No. My father.”

“Oh.”

We ran in silence for the next four miles, my lungs burning. Adriana tried to talk to me, but gave up after my strained one word responses. Around the twentieth mile, my side cramped. I placed my hands over my head as the running magazines suggested. Adriana paused next to me, as I came to a complete stop, hands over my head.

“I’ll see you at the finish line,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” I said, determined.

“Okay,” she said, restarting her watch and taking off.

Over the next two miles, I walked and ran, feeling relief each time I passed a half-mile marker, knowing I was that much closer to the finish line.

My father waited near the twenty-second mile marker, offering a water bottle. Amidst the crowd’s cheers, I heard, “Come on, Jason! You’re quitting, young man! It’s time to man up! Man up!” Man up? I thought. Man up like when you left Mom for that personal trainer at the gym, the one that did those cycling classes you used to take? Man up like pack your things for you because you couldn’t even come to the house to look me in the eye?

As I continued to alternate between running and walking, I received pats on the back and words of encouragement from passing runners. “Almost there” “Couple more miles.” “You can do it.” I continued shuffling forward, knowing each step was one less I’d have to take. I pictured myself lying in the hotel’s king-size bed, calling room service and ordering the entire left side of the menu, then calling back an hour later for the right side.

At the twenty-fourth mile, my father stood near the digital clock, most of the crowd already gone. The only ones left were waiting for someone they knew. “This is embarrassing!” he yelled. “I didn’t run this slow on practice runs!” I moved to the other side of the street, still within earshot. “Ridiculous!” I heard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him slam the water bottle down, the plastic bursting, water splashing his legs. An older man running near me shook his head. “Asshole,” he muttered. My dry throat wouldn’t let me respond even if I’d wanted to.

I crossed the finish line in four hours and fifteen minutes, a time I remember because a woman finishing in front of me screamed it out, her arms stretched over her head in triumph. Volunteers placed medals around our neck and passed out aluminum blankets for warmth as we made our way out of the finishing area. “Keep moving,” the volunteers urged. I stepped over outstretched bodies on the pavement. Each gave a thumbs up whenever someone asked them if they were okay. When I left the chute I didn’t see Adriana, but I wondered if she was waiting. I looked for my father, anticipating at least a hug in between suggestions for how to run a better marathon next time. I circled the finishing area three times, sweat drying white on my arms, taking slow bites from a bagel between sips of sports drink, as my dizziness subsided. I saw Adriana. We hugged, offered our congratulations, made plans to meet for lunch later, but there was no sign of my father.

I felt a growing emptiness inside  as I began the slow walk back to my hotel, feeling the weight of my finisher’s medal around my neck, the aluminum blanket crinkling with each step.

My hotel room was empty, the bed still unmade. I sat on bed, my body moving even slower than I anticipated. I grunted as I swung my legs onto the bed, grateful for the privacy. My phone was filled with text messages offering congratulations from friends who followed my progress online. I found Dad’s number and called, the call going straight to voicemail. The weight in my chest was still there when I turned off my phone.

-Brian Kayser

beauty in the firecrackers falling in the distance,

the sound of earth baking, debris folding into itself,

clothing aflame, air on fire, light red and burning,

the trees swallow smoke, their limbs cackling like hoarse chickens,

the chickens scattering from the firefight,

bullets catching sleeping children behind walls of sheetrock,

blood the color of darkness within moonlight,

bombs falling into homes,

a mountain village a landscape of flares and somehow a gorgeous angel

dressed in tatters and silk, her face smooth and full of fruit,

stretches out her hands to catch

whatever falls from the skies and in the morning,

night’s beauty a black shadow,

more angels and us running from what once was whole,

but now broken bones and gashed flesh.

POGROM

They could not bury them fast enough,

the rain thick and slippery, the mud a river,

and in the morning’s blue sky, a whip of cloud,

pink haze, great green vines hugging short trees to strangle them,

Wide-open eyes came through the silk of earth

and we could identify many we had known

before the men came, and the cruel women with them.

Much had been stolen from us in the night.

Much had been broken: doors, glass, flooring fifthly with blood,

flesh caught on splinters and doorjambs, a wetness of fear.

Stains go away in time, but the exposed faces

staring upwards, no, those faces remain with us like skin,

a deep rash itching so badly we cannot stand in ourselves.

-Michael Brownstein

Illustration by Patrick Peltier

Told me, in reference

To my misuse of the word “polemic”

In an abysmal book review sentence

And to the concupiscence

Of my more solipsistic work,

That maybe I should shirk

Composition by belief,

And in repentance

I should revise my errant sentence

To one with more orthodox inherence—

Smirking, I left him to his attic,

Smug in his cape, slouching in the murk.

-Tim Strange

Illustration by Joel Brown

The Orris asked the Italian artist Fabio Sassi about his work:

When did you realize you were an artist? About 20 years ago when one of my pieces was mentioned during a group exhibition.

What inspires you? I’m inspired by putting together different subjects trying to create weird perspectives. I’m also inspired by the news and the global issues.

How would you describe your style? Weird… unusual… you name it…

How do you feel about the state of the art world today? And, where do you see your place in it? 

Today, art is more prolific and easier to share than ever before thanks to the web; there is a huge offer and it’s pretty difficult to be noticed. My place in it? Out of the crowd, in the suburbs.

You can find more of Fabio Sassi’s work on his website.

Keith G. Laufenberg

-1-
THE MAN

An impulse as irresistible as in the acorn to germinate is in the soul of the prophet to speak.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Journal, 20 October 1833

Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.

—Moses (14^th cent. ) Aaron (14^th cent. B.C.) and Miriam (14^th cent. B.C.). Numbers 12:6

One thing I learned, never to be a prophet … Prophecy is a dangerous thing. No prophet has died a natural death.

Eli Wiesel (1928- ).Response to a question from the audience, National Press Club speech, Washington, 20 May 1997

Bobby Barrow couldn’t seem to get the chicken and rice on his fork fast enough, as he shoveled it into his mouth much like he had been shoveling dirt into various wheelbarrows for almost twelve hours straight and he felt as if he was too tired to even talk; not that he particularly wanted to talk this sweltering mid-summer evening in 1963. He had just been fired from his job and wasn’t looking forward to telling his wife, who was sitting directly across from him at the dinner table.

Bobby Barrow was the first-born son of an alcoholic father who had spent almost 20 years in the army. His father had been of mixed blood, half Cherokee and half Irish, but his mother had been black and Barrow had been ostracized from the Caucasian race—almost his entire life. His father had served most of his tours in the Southern United States and Barrow had been forced to live as all blacks had in the Deep South during the forties and fifties, when not very much of a reason was really needed to lynch a black man. It had been his mother, and the all-black Baptist churches they had attended, that had been his salvation during those highly-charged and trying times for any black human being living anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He had married Opal Brown, his high school sweetheart—upon their graduation from high school—in the small Georgia town their father had moved to when he was forced out of the army.

Having made Staff Sergeant Bobby Barrow’s dad, Nathaniel Barrow, was on the very precipice of retiring when he had punched a young lieutenant who had insulted his wife to his face. He was busted to private but spared any time in the stockade when he was forced to accept an Undesirable Discharge, just six months shy of his 20^th year served—doomed to a life of scrimping and scraping just to keep food on the table.  Having no pension to help deter the cost of living for the Barrow family, of two boys and three girls, Nathaniel Barrow worked two jobs, as did his wife, and all of their children were also expected to work and help out the family, financially. Barrow Junior, who, at age 18 was working in Georgia for .25 cents an hour, had moved to Washington D.C. four years ago, in 1959, just after his wife gave birth to their first child, a son. In D.C., President John F. Kennedy had finally raised the minimum wage and in September of that year, 1963, it was set to go to $1.25 an hour. Bobby Barrow looking for a better environment in which to raise his children had begged, borrowed and scraped up enough money to buy a 1948 Pontiac, which gave him enough courage to make the move. They had moved in with his wife’s brother their first day in town and were still there four years later. B.J. felt his wife’s hand on his and stopped his fork in mid-air, halfway to his mouth. “Wha’ jew want O?” he said, looking at her worried face.

“Honey, Billy’s in with B.J.”

Barrow glanced at his watch and noticed it was almost 9:00 p.m., his son’s bed-time. Billy Brown, his wife’s brother, who had changed his name to Muhammad 2X, was sitting on B.J.’s bed and talking to him in low monotones, even while Bobby Barrow stood in the doorway, fuming silently.  His brother-in-law was a Black Muslim and had been preaching their doctrine to little 4-year old B.J. for the last six months. Bobby Barrow took his son to a local Baptist church every Sunday and was incensed over what he considered an intrusion into his son’s childhood. He shook his head. That’s enough Billy,” he growled.

Billy Brown stopped talking to B.J. and scowled towards the doorframe. “C’mon man, you know my name’s Muhammad—Muhammad Two-X.”

“Look, Billy—Mohammad— we’ve gone over all this before. We’re Baptists and we believe in Jesus Christ and …”

“White man, that’s a white Gee-zuz you is talkin’ about man—white man’s god man—shee-it man, who you think made ‘im white? The white man put all dat in yo’ mind man. I’m tellin’ Bee-Jay all about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, ’bout the profit and Malcolm and …”

“B.J. don’t need to hear about them; they’re preachin’ hatred and separation of the races and you can’t advance anywhere with talk like that. You have to …”

“Shee-it man, lotta good the white man ever did fo’ you—zebra.”

Bobby Barrow gritted his jaws together and put his head down. “Elijah Muhammad is not a prophet, as a matter of fact, he …”

“Mohammad was the real prophet and he din’ take no shee-it either; he …”

“Jesus Christ was the son of God and that I do know.”

“Ah-eh, that’s another silly-ass white man’s trick!”

“Gee-zuz wuvs me Uncah Bee-wee, for the bi-bull tells me so,” little B.J. said and immediately looked at his father, who smiled at him and opened his arms. B.J. ran over and Bobby Barrow quickly lifted him up and gave him a kiss.

“He knows about Jesus, Billy.”

“Man, how many times I gotta say it? My name’s Muhammad and I don’t think B.J. ‘id be so brain-washed either, if you didn’t make him go to dat Baptist church every Sunday. Lemme take ‘im to the mosque tomorrow—than he can really learn mo’ facts ’bout the black man’s history.”

“I’ll tell you what Bi … Muhammad; I’ll let him go with you tomorrow because he’s going to church with me the next day.”
Billy Brown smiled. “Goin’ to the march Wednesday?”

“Yup, are you?”

“I might; not that it’ll do any good man. Elijah Muhammad says …”

Bobby Barrow waved his hand in the air and shook his head. “Billy can hear all about that tomorrow okay? Now, it’s his bedtime.”
Billy Brown smiled and winked at his nephew and rubbed his head on his way out of the room. “See yah tomorrow little man,” he said.”
‘Gah’night Unca Bee-wee,” little B.J. replied, as his father deposited him on his bed.

****

     “It’s a waste of time sis’ —so—why you goin’?”

“I don’t think it’s a waste of time Billy, oh, I mean Mohammad,” Opal Brown Barrow replied to her brother, “and, anyway, I wanna hear Harry Belafonte sing.”

“Heh-heh, yeah, yeah I can’t blame you for that, Harry B can sing man.”

“Yeah-yea-uh Unca Moham-mud and Sammy Davis gonna be there too, you should come wif us.”

Billy Brown, aka Muhammad 2X, laughed and smiled at his nephew. He had kept him at the mosque for several hours the previous Saturday and little B.J. still remembered it but now, just after eating his lunch, little B.J. was excited because it was finally Wednesday and he was going with his parents to a large gathering of people—important people, his father had told him—people who were working for civil rights, something B.J. didn’t fully understand, but then his father told him that these people were helping everyone become friends instead of enemies. They were people who would speak of non-violence instead of revolution, peace instead of war and love in place of hate—people who would speak to everyone just like his Sunday school teachers spoke to him. His father had told him that these people worshipped Jesus Christ—just as they did in his church.

B.J.’s uncle had told him that the black men who he would hear speak would actually slow down the black man’s fight for progress; he told his nephew that only when he heard Elijah Muhammad speak would he hear the true prophet speak and his message was that the black man was not free and that he must take his freedom, or it would be—once again—taken from him.

B.J. couldn’t make up his mind—he was confused. He had spent almost the whole day at his uncle’s mosque and about half that much time at his father’s church and could still hear his uncle’s words, ringing in his ears: ‘Gee-zuz was white B.J. and Mohammad was brown and Mohammad was real, not like your dad’s made-up white Gee-zuz.’ These were awfully strong words for a four-year-old boy, who was being pulled in two different directions. He loved his daddy but he also loved his uncle, who he had known and lived with for as long as he had with his parents. He waved to his uncle as they left their home; Billy Brown had refused to go to the gathering of which he now referred to as: “traitors to the movement.” It was just almost 1:00 p.m. and Opal Barrow carried with them a picnic basket, while her husband carried a thermos, because they meant to stay right up until the end.

****

     It was a march on the Nation’s Capitol, for jobs and freedom, and there were over a quarter of a million people surrounding the Lincoln Memorial. It was late in the afternoon and the numerous singers and speakers had just about all had their say. Mahalia Jackson had brought tears to many eyes with her rendition of   ‘I been ‘buked and I been scorned’ and Bobby Barrow motioned for his wife to follow him, on his march from their space at the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, towards the very steps that the speaker’s podium rested on. Besides the stirring voice of Mahalia Jackson they had heard great voices sing for freedom: Joan Baez; Peter, Paul & Mary; Bob Dylan, Odetta, Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis Jr. and they had heard speaker after speaker talk about freedom but Bobby Barrow wanted little B.J.—as well as himself and his wife—to hear the next speaker because he had never before heard the man speak and he was determined to stay until he did. He gently picked his son up and carried him down almost to the front—to a row of people with a perfect view of the podium. He put his son down and little B.J. rubbed his eyes; he was exhausted and ready for bed but he smiled at his dad. “I’m tired Daddy,” he said and his father smiled.

“I know son but I want you to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak.”

“Mah-rin Woofah Daddy …?”

Barrow had to laugh. “Yes son, look.”

Little B.J. ripped his eyes away from his father’s face and to the podium, maybe a hundred feet from where he now was, standing between his father and mother.

A. Philip Randolph, the elder statesman of the civil rights movement, stepped to the microphone and quickly introduced the next speaker: “I have the pleasure to present to you the moral leader of the nation: I have the pleasure to present to you Dr. Martin Luther King Jay-R.”

Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up to the podium and he stared straight into the eyes of everyone in attendance; as most of them would swear to later, in the years to come. Opal Brown noticed B.J. frowning as he tried to get a better view of King and she picked him up and he smiled, then seeing his father staring intently and listening to the speaker, he did the same: “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition …”
The crowd was silent but burst into applause and cheering on numerous occasions and little B.J. watched his parents’ reactions very closely and when he looked around and saw so many people weeping and then saw tears streaming down his father’s face he looked towards the speaker and listened intently: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be …”
As the speech continued little B.J.s’ eyes became wider and wider, as though he realized who the speaker on the stage really was and he whispered it in his daddy’s ear; he thought that he might know who it was—who was speaking—sort of like his uncle took the name of Muhammad 2X; it wasn’t his real name but a name taken after his prophet—his god—and now he realized—in his child’s mind—exactly who this speaker was. He only whispered it; he needed his father’s reassurance because he wasn’t really sure and—after all—his daddy knew everything. His father made little B.J. laugh with glee and happiness, as only fathers can do, when he reassured him: “Yes B.J. —it is—it is Black Jesus.”

****

     Bobby Barrow scowled at his draft notice. He had gotten it three days earlier, on Monday April 1, 1968, April Fool’s Day, but it was no joke and it was also no joke that he meant to resist the draft, even if it meant joining several friends and co-workers who had already fled to Canada. God was against all wars and so was Barrow and the man who Barrow considered his spiritual advisor, his prophet, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was against the war, in Southeast Asia, also and he—one of the very few who did—preached against the war and that was enough for Barrow to know that he wouldn’t go. He glanced at his watch and saw it was past six p.m. It was Thursday and he typically worked a 12-hour shift— from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.—at the auto repair shop that he worked at, and it was now a few minutes past 6:00 p.m. He clocked out and walked out into the parking lot. It was then that he heard the news that would change his life—and so many other lives—as well as American history. What appeared to be a homeless black man was standing on the street-corner and was shouting: “Doctah King done been shot … he’s been shot and a white man done be the one who did it … Doctah King’s been shot …”
Bobby Barrow jumped into his car and pulled onto Maryland Avenue. He immediately began turning the knob on his car radio but he need’nt have bothered because the news of Dr. King’s assassination was all over the airwaves—on virtually every station.

Driving through the streets of the Nation’s Capitol, he saw large crowds of black men huddling on street corners and many were even stopping traffic as they yelled out the news of the assassination. Barrow watched as a Buick stopped at a red-light and when the driver rolled down the driver-side window to see what the group of black men wanted, Barrow saw that it was a white man behind the wheel and then he watched as a large black man reached in and hit the man. Barrow was about to get out of his car when the Buick screeched away and he quickly drove the last two blocks to the apartment they now lived in, just over his brother-in-law’s. It was 7:00 p.m. and when Barrow got out of his car he saw his wife’s brother with a half-dozen other black men sitting on the steps.

Muhammad 2X nodded at the six Black Muslim brothers sitting with him and then nodded towards Barrow and shouted out: “C’mon Bobby a white man done shot and killed King and we gonna go and get some pay-back—you comin’?”

Barrow shook his head and walked up the steps, even as his brother-in-law derided him voraciously. He walked into his living room and heard the T.V. blaring even before he saw the newscaster stating that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just been pronounced dead, in Memphis—where he had been staying—with several other civil rights workers, on behalf of the black sanitation workers, who were not afforded the same equal treatment as their white counterparts were and were on strike for those equal rights. Bobby Barrow suddenly began crying and his wife ran over and embraced him. He gathered his wits and walked to his favorite living-room chair, where he collapsed. He was sitting there, with his head in his hands, when his 9-year-old son came over to the chair. When he saw his father had been crying tears formed in his eyes and began streaming down his cheeks. He looked at his father and inhaled deeply. “Daddy, daddy—Black Jesus is dead—Black Jesus is dead!”

Bobby Barrow put his arm around his son and kissed him on the cheek. “Yes son,” he rasped, forlornly, “I’m sorry but Black Jesus is dead.”

“But why Daddy … why …?”

For once B.J.’s father was out of answers and he could only shake his head disconsolately and mutter silently: “I don’t know B.J. —I just don’t know.”

EPILOGUE
HARD WORK

Work is an extension of personality. It is achievement. It is one of the ways in which a person defines himself, measures his worth, and his humanity.
—Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005). Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 14, 1974, abr., 1977

          Bobby Barrow would avoid the Vietnam War when he was awarded a family deferment, as being the only provider for his wife and three children. They moved to the Southeast quadrant where Bobby Barrow found out that a fellow worker, a man named Sean O’Coyle, an Irishman who was also a Muslim, lived, with his family, also. O’Coyle being a Muslim was something entirely new for Barrow and he questioned him endlessly on their breaks from the garage they were both working at. O’Coyle’s father was a mechanical engineer but O’Coyle wanted to open his own auto garage with money borrowed from his father. The thing that Barrow couldn’t comprehend about O’Coyle was that there were more Muslims than just the Black Muslims that Barrow had thought were the only practicing Muslims because he knew of no others. O’Coyle invited him to his mosque and Bobby attended, learning a lot of new positive information about the Muslim religion, and when Sean O’Coyle offered the 28-year-old Bobby Barrow a job at his new automotive garage at $2.50 an hour, exactly double what he had been getting paid at Earl Schieb’s Auto Repair and body-shop garage, he jumped at it.

O’Coyle lived in the Fort Dupont neighborhood and Barrow drove to the Fort Dupont Park with his 9-year-old son, B.J., and his two small girls every chance he got because his neighborhood although just a few miles away was in the heart of the ghetto and ruled by gangs, drugs and violence and Barrow was determined to move up to Fort Dupont, a middle-class neighborhood—with well-kept homes and almost no crime—and so Barrow worked 60 and 70-hour weeks, working himself up from mechanic’s helper all the way to general manager. It was when he had almost five-thousand dollars saved up that he was offered a partnership in O’Coyle’s Garage & Body Shop and he took it, putting all of his savings into the business.

Sean O’Coyle was a devout Muslim, as was his entire family, and little BJ. Barrow saw a completely different set of religious values and a different view when he was allowed to go to the local mosque with O’Coyle’s two sons, both in the same grade as B.J.
In 1972, and with a $3500 down payment from his life savings, the Barrows finally moved out of the ghetto and into a home that they bought from Sean O’Coyle himself, when O’Coyle bought a house in the tonier Eastern Market, an area with its own grocery-stores, as well as restaurants, sports facilities and movie theatres —and the best that the Southeast quadrant had to offer.

AFTERWORD
THE CIRCLE

Strong towers decay,
But a great name shall never pass away. —Park Benjamin, A Great Name.

Fate holds the strings, and men like children move
But as they’re led; success is from above.
—George Granville, Heroic Love. Act v, sc. 2.

This is the duty of the father, to accustom his son to act rightly rather of his own accord than from unnatural fear. —Terence, Adelphi, 1, 74. (Act I, sc. 1.)

 In 2011, the 70-year-old Bobby Barrow finally turned the reins—of his half of the hugely successful O’Coyle & Barrow Auto Repair business—over to his son B.J., who had already been running the place for three years but Barrow made it official in 2011, at his granddaughter’s  wedding. B.J.’s oldest daughter was marrying Sean ‘Trey’ O’Coyle III and the wedding was to be held in a local mosque on A Street. B.J. himself was a Muslim but he also was a Christian and observed all the rituals of both religions, seeing no contradictions, even if some others did. His wife of 26 years, Belinda O’Coyle Barrow was a devout Muslim but also attended church services with B.J. at a local Baptist church every Sunday and Bobby always attended Friday’s prayers at a local mosque.

The date for the wedding was August 29, 2011, which was the last day of Ramadan. All the Muslims in both families were fasting for the entire day and not eating anything until the sun went down. It was just after 7:00 p.m. and B.J. was in the car with his father headed for the wedding feast they would eat as soon as the sun went down when suddenly Bobby Barrow pulled his Mercedes off the road, making an extremely sharp left turn. B.J. turned pale but sat still when the car finally came to rest, its wheels resting up over the curb. “Geezuz, Joseph and Mary Dad, what … wha’ the hell is going on …”

Barrow opened the door to the car and got out.

“Dad, what the hell you doin’ …? This is a ghetto … this is dangerous, we’re in Congress Heights, man this place is the pits, we’re …”
“Get out of the car son,” Barrow said and B.J. reluctantly opened his door and got out. Almost immediately his cell-phone rang. “H’low, this is B.J., yeah honey, well, we’re, well right now we’re in Anacostia … ah, well we’re in Congress Heights right now and …”
B.J. held his cell-phone a few inches from his ear and you could hear the screaming from where Bobby Barrow stood and he walked over to B.J., where he took the phone and put it to his ear. “This is Bobby, yes, yes I know, we’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He handed the cell-phone to his son who took it back and slipped it back into his pocket.

“Dad … what …? We gotta get outta here.”

“Son … son, don’t you remember? We lived here?”

“We did not … we lived in …”

Barrow walked over to his son and guided him to two intersecting streets and nodded at them.

That used to be Nichols Avenue Southeast when we lived right up there.” He pointed to a vacant lot strewn with empty shopping carts, beer cans, wine bottles, needles and old garbage cans. That used to be Portland Avenue, right there. He pointed at the cross street.
B.J. shook his head and looked around nervously. A metro cross-town bus stopped a block away and several people got out. B.J. looked nervously towards them. “Dad, we better go.”

Bobby Barrow grabbed his son’s hand and walked him to the two cross streets. He nodded at them and smiled widely. “Son, we lived right over there for nearly four years. I know it’s gone now and the neighborhood is no place to be at night but son we lived right there and …”

“Dad, are you going crazy? So what we lived there?”

“Son, the Lord never wants you to forget where you come from.”

“I know that Dad, I ah-er …” B.J. saw three roughly dressed young men approaching them and he became highly agitated. “Dad, let’s get ….”

“Anything wrong?”

“Ah-er, no, ah, I mean what …?

The three men walked over to them and B.J. could see that two of them held metal lunch-boxes in their hands. One man had an undershirt on and his huge chest rose and fell like a barrel being constricted and expanded every few seconds. He nodded at B.J. and smiled shrewdly.

“Aw, well,” he said, “we seen your car there up on the curb, figured maybe you needed some help?”

“Yeah,” the man just next to him said, “we’re auto mechanics and if you need …”

“No, we’re all right,” Bobby Barrow said, smiling at the trio. “You’re all mechanics then?”

“Well, they are but I’m just a helper; mostly I paint and do body work right now but I’m learnin’ a lot and someday …” his voice trailed off.

“Where—if you don’t mind me askin’—ah, where do you all work?”

“Earl Schieb’s Auto and Body Repair it’s ’bout a mile and a half from here.”

Bobby Barrow smiled at his son and shook his head. “They’re still there?”

“Ah, yessir, they sure are.” the man replied.

Bobby Barrow stuck his hand out. “I’m Bobby Barrow,” he said and the three men nodded as they shook hands. “I’m Trace Perkins and this is Roland Webb and Abdul Muhammad.”

‘You know we used to live right up there, that vacant lot,” Bobby Barrow said.

“Man that’s been a vacant lot for a long time.”

“Yeah we moved in seventy-two,” Bobby replied.

“Well, if you guys’re all right I’d better be getting on, my wife—well—she’s a worrier.”

The three men turned to go but Bobby Barrow stopped them, as he reached into his pockets and began searching them.
“Say, you men here, here, I have, B.J. gimme your card.”

B.J. reached into his vest pocket and took out a gold-plated case. He slipped it open and took out three cards, handing them to his father, who then handed them—one by one—to the three men. “Call this number on Monday and we’ll see about giving you all a job.”

“A job?” the man who had identified himself as Trace Perkins said.

“Yup, a job—what’s your pay-rate at Earl Schieb?”

The men exchanged glances and Trace Perkins smiled. “Well, ah I’m making eight bucks an hour but then I’m not …”

“Twenty-five dollars an hour; we’ll pay you twenty-five bucks an hour and if you work hard enough we’ll give you a raise every year.”
The trio nodded and began to leave. “I’ll call you Mister … ah … Barrow, you can bet on it.”

“Good, good, you do that son.”

They walked away mumbling and even from ten yards away both Barrows could tell they didn’t believe Barrows’ story or the possibility of a decent-paying job awaiting them on Monday.

“Dad we’d better go. Why did …”

Barrow pointed to the sign and smiled. “Black Gee-zuz son … remember … and, as we both know you know all about Malcolm.“
B.J. smiled—Malcolm X was one of his heroes, because he had studied the Muslim Religion and then the Koran and Mohammad’s life and he saw and realized that Malcolm X had done more than any other American Muslim in an effort to bring peace and stability through his efforts to discover the truth. In 1964, Malcolm X completed his pilgrimage to Mecca, a hajj, and said that the trip allowed him to see Muslims of different races interacting as equals. He came to believe that Islam could be the means by which all racial problems could be overcome but almost as soon as he began speaking the truth: declaring himself a Sunni Muslim, breaking away from the Nation of Islam and speaking of reconciliation with all civil rights groups he was assassinated, exactly as Martin Luther King would be—three years later—and both men would leave this earth at the same age—39.

B.J. looked up at the two signs and again saw the intersection where they had once lived. They had lived just off Nichols Avenue, SE, slightly east of the Anacostia River, on Portland Avenue, which had been renamed Malcolm X Avenue and Nichols Avenue which had been renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue.

Bobby Barrow smiled at B.J. “You know how I’m always lookin’ for signs when I have to make a decision B.J.? Well—I just got two signs.” Both men laughed heartily and as Bobby opened the car-door, he smiled widely. “Let’s go eat son—Ramadan is officially over.”

By  Keith G. Laufenberg

Illustration by Joel Brown

-Guy Rotella

Illustration: Bryan Ramey

We love the harvest season, that period of late summer and fall when the crops have ripened, the bounty picked, and the bushels are brought to market to share.   The vibrancy and tenacity of the harvest is best showcased at local farmers markets.  It is at these community gatherings that we are reminded that the best food stems from an important connection: a mutual dependency between farmers and the natural world.  At the market, we receive the yield of their persistence and care. Our local farmers markets remind us that the best crops do not grow year round in concrete warehouses, but by the season, by the sun, rain and soil of native clime.

Farmers Markets in Your City

Boston, MA

Allston Village

Jackson Mann Community Center, 500 Cambridge Street

Saturday, 11:00 am to 3:00 pm,

May 12 to October 27.

Allston / Harvard

North Harvard Street And Western Ave. Parking Lot

Friday, 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm,

June 15 to October 26.

Cambridge: Central Square

Parking lot # 5 at Bishop Allen Drive &Norfolk Streets

Monday, Noon – 6:00 pm (Closes at 5:00 pm after Nov. 7),

May 21 to November 19.

Cambridge: Charles Square

Charles Hotel Courtyard at Harvard Square

Friday, Noon to 6:00 pm and  Sunday, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm,

May 25 to November 18.

Cambridge: Harvard University

Harvard University near Sanders  Theater, Corner of Oxford and Kirkland Streets

Tuesday, Noon – 6:00 pm,

June 19 to October 29.

Cambridge: Kendall Square

Kendall Square, 500 Kendall St.,

Thursday, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, June to September.

Brookline: Coolidge Corner

Coolidge Corner, Center Street West, Parking Lot, off Beacon Street,

Thursday, 1:30 pm – dusk,

June 14 to October 25.

Medford Square

One City Hall Mall, corner of Riverside Ave. and Clippership Drive, Medford Square

Thursday, 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm,

June 7 to October 18.

Somerville: Davis Square

Davis Square, Day & Herbert Sts. Lot,

Wednesday, Noon – 6:00 pm (Closes at 5:00 pm in November),

May 23 to November 21.

Somerville: Union Square

Union Square on the plaza

Saturday, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm,

June 2 to November 17.

Fenway

 Marshall’s Fenway Farm Stand

7 Days a Week, All Year

Malden

City Hall Plaza, 200 Pleasant St.

Tuesday, 3:00 pm – 6:30 pm

You can find a  full directory of Massachusetts area markets here, or visit: http://www.massfarmersmarkets.org/

New York City

Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Washington Park btw DeKalb & Willoughby, along the SE corner of Fort Greene Park

Saturdays, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Year-round

Union Square

North and west sides of Union Square Park

Open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday

8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m

Portland, ME

Deering Oaks Park

Saturday, 7:00 am-12:00 pm

April 28th through late November

Monument Square

Wednesdays, 7:00 am  - 2:00 pm,

April 28th through late November

Austin, TX

Barton Creek Farmer’s Market

 Barton Creek Square mall parking lot

Saturday, 9:00am to 1:00pm

The Austin Sustainable Food Center hosts four farmers markets throughout the week:

Downtown

4th and Guadalupe – Downtown

Saturday 9am – 1pm

Sunset Valley

3200 Jones Rd/Toney Burger Center

Saturday 9am – 1pm

The Triangle

46th and Lamar – The Triangle

Wednesday, 4pm – 8pm

East

51st and 183 – YMCA

Tuesday, 10am – 1pm

Portland, OR

Portland Farmers Market hosts 8 markets throughout the area:

Portland State University

Le Gris des Fleurs

A day in the seasonless house.

For each grey, a flower

the sweetness of a stone,

a semblance of color.

-Virginie Colline

Photograph: Ciro Totku

Trevor Lovell, the environmental program coordinator for Public Citizen’s Texas office, speaks on the power of “o-c-O-C” (pronounced “aukuh-aukuh”) to students at a White House Young Americans Tour townhall meeting at the University of Texas at Austin campus.  Lovell co-founded ReEnergize Texas, a student-run coalition established to promote and implement policies for climate change.  Lovell recognizes the importance of both large and small-scale organizational change.  He calls on students to implement programs like the Think Green Fund, a campus initiative to help fund local, sustainable environmental projects, like solar and wind power, through ‘green fees’. By recognizing the organizational power in our own communities, Lovell inspires us to celebrate the local victories as we work collectively toward global climate change.

The event was organized by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation on behalf of the White House and with support from the Millenium Momentum Foundation.   The event featured several young leaders inspiring and creating change in their communities.

Featured Artwork:  Fabio Sassi

I don’t know why I’m out here

On worn-down tires and pitted

Chrome, red and yellow sparks

Flying in little comets from

A dirty chain, wheels wobbling

Imperceptibly in slow

Revolutions of knobbed humming,

Shifters skipping from too much use—

Every time the taut tendon

Behind my knee openly

Rebels, left elbow stiff as a

Reed, sweat stinging my eyes,

(Wet angry bees), chain skipping

Off as a metal pedal scratches

Strawberry blood from my calf,

Strain, aggravation, effort.

The cars that pass, stupid and

Resentful at my small intrusion,

Yield the minimum allowance,

Grudgingly slow down and then

Try to regain lost momentum

And thimble of gas lost in

The oblique fracas, move by

In single-file metal herds—

(Don’t look them in the headlights!)

Cars trucks and vans intent

On accuracy and motion,

(Blink in the headlights, you lose),

Delicate balance, two wheels

Becoming grass-caked grindstones,

Leading into briar ditches

Full of chrome and rubber victims,

(Keep to the road, follow the line,

The strip between road and ditch,

Try to forget the indignant sounds

Of slowing-straining-surging engines

Behind, death lighting on wheels,

Mind only the round crumbs of asphalt

Passing beneath black tires in threads

Of white-grey meteorites, (follow them

Like breadcrumbs until the road stops).

-Tim Strange

Illustration by Joel Brown

Filed under: Issue One, Poetry ]]> http://theorris.com/2012/07/27/man-v-car/feed/ 0 Man V. Car theorris Man V. Car http://theorris.com/2012/07/27/call-for-submissions-competition/ http://theorris.com/2012/07/27/call-for-submissions-competition/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:41:55 +0000 The Orris https://theorris.wordpress.com/?p=1963 ]]>

In Issue Four of The Orris, we are getting competitive.  As we enter a  season of physical, political, and financial contests strength will be tested, alliances tried, victories won and lost.  We will watch as elite athletes square off at the Olympics; welcome the start of the football season; cheer on playoff teams in baseball. We will weigh the political debates of the upcoming American election, using our votes as a national scorecard.  As jobs appear and recede, as bank accounts shrink and swell, we will consider the gains and losses of capitalist competition. Does the old adage still hold true, is it really survival of the fittest?  Amidst this season of striving, The Orris asks you to think about what it means to compete in today’s world.

The Orris is seeking critical and creative work on the theme of “Competition” for our next issue.    Essays, fiction, poetry, artwork, photography, music, film, and other digital mediums are welcomed.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

The Olympics

Sports

Elections

Capitalism

Adaptation, Evolution, and Survival of the Fittest

Cooperation and Collaboration

Awards & Contests

Global Resources

To submit a pitch or a finished work, or for general inquiries, contact theorrisjournal@gmail.com.   Submission deadline: October 15, 2012.

As always, we also have an open call for submissions for critical and creative work.

Image Credit:  Albert Meyer, “Olympic Games 1896, Athens: Champion in the discus, Robert Garrett” [Public Domain]