www.kenboe.com

The manual laborer of pedaled wheels
pulls around the symbol of his relationship with time
as it hisses, quickly losing form.


A circle of patches to be balanced against the odds,
stuffed with compressed air against long stretches of road
like a rubber band that becomes a black cobra
swallowed by its own tail, then dies, becomes limp;
and so the bike surgeon tries his best,
but gives up on it,
gives it up to the innertube tree.
He swirls it up into the air, briefly
the shape gasps, as though wigling against memory,
and then it slides defeated into the monument.


Its an art form how to toss them up there,
like putting make-up on dead wind,
like fly fishing for black birds
and then the line breaks.


The bulbous tree like a venus fly catcher
never gives up the old carnies;
buds burgeon green, then to orange and yellow,
wreathing the pliant exoskeletons beyond season.
The street is her long digestive track, the wind her juices,
but they stay put like fossils in an inverted cave


across the street from the plasma donation center.
The tired men wait there, with cheap house painting
jobs splattered across their 2nd hand pants and sleaves,
with 3rd read newspapers in their hands, and counting
in their minds their bills, groceries, beer, and cigarettes
from the 25 dollars they will receive for strapping
their arms to the donation machine.
The tubes blow back and forth, the needle in the vein,
the blood platelets go into one containment
while the plasma is filtered into another,
and then the blood cells are returned
if it all goes as planned.

I recently had the opportunity to pick the mind of Chet Zar— native Californian artist—known for his work with the band Tool, movies such as Sin City, and surrealist portraits. For November I have also interviewed Idaho sculptor Samuel Stimpert.
Click here for the Underground Art Union INTERVIEWS

Check out myspace page: MYSPACE.COM/KENBOE

GALLERY 414 - FINAL FRIDAY CLOSING RECEPTION
Please Note: This Show has ended, some works still available.
click here to see some KENBOE ART

Overview: The “man-made” object is subject to the violence of being thrown out, exposing it to the elements and entropy of nature. The object is divested of its functional meaning, entering a state of abstraction, until it exists no longer. My art works harvest these types of abstraction midway, also including The Scribble painting with Manipulated Whips(Action Printing), and other techniques which brew design from chaos and order. Why I do this has its roots in my learning on the function of art itself: The Theory Of Synchronic Alchemy.

The intention is to create an ambiguous but wide ranging vocabulary of imagery which may become synchronic at an unconscious level with the creative thinking process of those who are in the presence of the work. For this, I prescribe “sticky” images, rather than hyper-clean “digital” imagery, especially in today’s commercial environment. My work is very experimental, and by exhibiting them one is communicating the basic idea of experimentation to those present, for instance.

My main theory of Synchronic Alchemy is that while at a gallery or museum one may spend a few moments staring at an art work, but most of the time art work and other objects around us are only viewed peripherally. Yet, peripheral viewing is a powerful process not well known. The subconscious mind is “seeing” and processing peripherally gathered information in numerous ways. If there is someone in a crowd you knew years ago, your subconscious mind will inform your conscious mind to notice them. Other signifiers are to recognize danger, food or water sources, lost items, sexual orientations, tool making needs, and the intellectual and communication tools of Analogy and Metaphor. A synchronous intellectual harmony exists in a gathering of two or more naturally when they share an art-rich and/or nature rich environment in which they discuss ideas together: The place of the discussion is the most immediate language shared. It is where our bodies are. It is an instantaneous and experiential well of shapes, forms, and variable symbolism to derive tropes from for communication and concept making.

Cognitive Science has demonstrated that language is foundationally metaphorical, and experientially embodied. For instance, the earthly experience of gravity informs the metaphorical basis of “up” meaning positive, and “down” meaning negative. Hell is falling down, heaven is ascendant, on and on, but let’s not get bogged down in examples.

What I discovered in 1992 hiking in the Berkeley Hills was that surrounding imagery informs creative discussion with someone else you are with. While involved in a very intellectual and creative discussion, I noticed that I was using metaphors and analogies from the natural environment around us to bridge the concepts between us. Roots, branches, and an old bottle became creative tools in our discussion. But I had not noticed that I even saw these images, until I looked over and realized the synchronic processing that had just occurred. This moment convinced me more than ever to continue with my pursuits as an artist, and to hone a path for further learning to develop these ideas for my art work. My goal has been to create art which provides a rich synchronic vocabulary for those around it, enabling the creativity of those who press on together in changing the world in their own ways, with pleasure. I hope to create the ultimate art for the creative class to display in their offices, conference rooms, studios and living rooms. Raw art is like vitamins to a digitally sterilized work place. In fact, I believe that class rooms should be filled with art if educators are serious about having real discussions.

I am interested in doing artwork designed for specific teams of people to display where they work (this can involve a gentle but experimental interviewing technique with participants, and/or research into the archetypes most suited to their creative needs.) I am also interested in working with a clinical researcher for a more empirical study on peripheral sensory information collection/processing, and the pharmaka† of art (†Greek for both painting and remedy.) For an appointment with the artist, e-mail to kenboe@gmail.com to see works from the current exhibition, to commission work, or to participate in similar projects and collaborations.
© 11/24/2006

Caesar’s Things



“Render therefore unto C the things which be C
And unto G the things which be G.” Luke 20:22



These pieces of subjected time
in the rendering of history
lay around before me
as I walk the dogs of strangers.



I find these things, see them, what others
ignore as litter, obsolete truths;
I assign the variable meanings
of an untenable Universe,
the of nothing as the of something.



A thing that is a wall,
and a thing of scattered stones.
I enbrace the idea with vigilance
and with vigilance declare its heracy
as I walk the dogs of strangers.



A thing to be born,
and a thing to die,
a thing to plant,
and a thing to pluck,
a thing to kill,
a thing to heal,
to break down, to build up: An old can



that weeps and worries full of what I did;
A faded bottle that laughs under my stare,
and the shattered shards of my mourning
against a sun dancing upon them.



And the dog walks me to the south,
and the dog walks me to the north,
the path whirls about continuously
returning again according to the circuits;
The lifting of her leg, the marking of things.



And all these things run into the sea;
yet, the sea is not full; and from
where all things come from, they return
like the names which children give things
like the names which parents give children.



“I made great works; I built me houses;
I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens
and orchards, and I planted trees of all fruits…
And whatever my eyes desires, I keep not from them.”
Ecclesiastes



A thing to get,
and a thing to lose;
a thing to keep,
and a thing to cast away;
a thing to turn into something else,
a thing to sew unto silence, like words
cast into the garden of the heard.



A thing to love,
and a thing to fear;
a thing of war,
and a thing of art.
I gather up the vexation of ideas
and put them into miscellaneous bags.



I came along the path a fierce white wolf
and my dog pushed me aside, over an embankment,
and where there is one wolf, there are others,
and swiftly we ran along the shore of the lake,
our legs leaping over many uncovered things,
just as the wolves may have watched us for weeks



And then one day made themselves apparent,
perhaps wondering, why had we ignored them?

Caesar’s Things first appeared in Satyagraha 911

The last group show at Gallery 414 in Wichita, Kansas concerned itself with metamorphosis. I offered up to myself and the other artists an essay-bibliography-poem by Norman O. Brown titled Daphne, or Metamorphosis. This wonderful meandering image-ontology of myth and imagination offers a sapling from which we may grow or revive artworks to put in this show, even without much time to do so. But we artists cannot rest on our laurels, and any excuse to produce must be induced as much as possible, and that is what I aim to do here with these shows. Metamorphosis is a constant in art, and symbol making in general, and some of our cultural roots in trying to understand this transformation of meaning and image go back to the ancient Greeks, and the story of Apollo and Daphne. Brown’s writing is a modern way of approaching that without telling the artist exactly what they should do, and for the artist to do what they do, without telling the audience exactly what they should think or perceive from a piece.

Here is a sample of Brown’s writing, as allowed online from the publisher:click for METAMORPHOSIS

MIXED MEDIA MIXED MESSAGE
Group Show for Final Friday – March 30th, 6PM to 11PM:
414 S. Commerce Street in the Wichita Kansas Art District.

Though the artwork in this show is defined by each artist individually, there is much that I would like to say about this bastard term “mixed media”. Artists and curators use it repeatedly on the little tags that state the artists name, medium, price, etc. We use it to describe medium because we’re too lazy, embarrassed, or unsure to write out an eclectic list of materials used in an experimental artwork that we think the public is too lazy, ignorant, and uninterested to read in the first place, which may often be true, or it certainly will be.

The problem I have with this kind of exclusion is that the information about medium informs our literacy of texture when viewing artworks, which informs our appreciation of artwork, and our ability to “read” imagery in general. For those of us who are interested in learning about the mediums behind mixed-media, it is our chance to become more involved, educated, and interested. I believe humans have a great capacity for this kind of literacy which I call “textural literacy”. There is a texture to how different kinds of paints and materials lay down, pop out, dry, shine, crackle, ooze, sag, puff, glitter, etc..etc… which is how the “trained eye”, though hands on experience, recognizes media. And if “the medium is the message”, then there are many subtle messages coming through an artwork which is mixed-media. (And do not let the message about whether or not an artist’s choice of materials is “professional” sway you, for these pretensions were rendered obsolete by the Da Da movement in the 1920’s.)

As mixed-media artists we need to contribute to our collective learning of this subtle message-making through materials-used because the poetry of this kind of literacy can only be handled intuitively. No one has really written out the vocabulary of texture, or how to pair it with content, its just something that our brains are capable of. The more we can inform each other and the public of the results of our experimentation’s, the more we can advance as artists, and the more mixed-media art can advance as part of our cultural dialogue, and the more our culture can advance by engaging it.

Just to give an example of mixed-media-mixed-message-making, consider a heart painted in tar, ground dead leaves, and oil paint. Compare that to the same heart painted with acrylic paint. Compare that to one painted by an airbrush, as with medical illustration. Compare that to one cut out of construction paper, or to one that is printed on a gift card. Go look at the heart made of core 10 steel at the Lawrence Art Center. These are all different messages weaving through the same supposed content because of the media used to make them. We recognize them differently through their texture(which like the word text, comes from the latin word textus, which means to weave.)

ARTIST WEBSITES:
Lee Shiney

Chris Frank

Paul McKee

Kent Williams

Kenneth Boe

© 2007 Kenneth Petersen Boe

click here for THE WEEDING