JaZzArt en València

ROUND ABOUT SUNRISE

(While listening to the Overture of Die Zauberflöte by W. A. Mozart)

I like to whisper in a the doorway,
play with shadows at the bar,
turn the clocks back one long hour
drive a fancy blue sports car.

I’m an atom torn from silence,
causing ripples on a stream,
like a face half-torn from memory
that returns like a disease.

Like a key that fits no doorway,
like a word you cannot find,
like a letter left unopened
in the chambers of my mind.

Like a road that leads to nowhere,
yet you walk it all the same,
seeking answers in the lyrics,
while you mumble the refrain.

Like a circle drawn in water,
like a wheel that spins in sand,
like a heartbeat that remembers
what the soul cannot command.

Round and round the silence carries
every thought you’ve left behind,
and the turning never tarries
runs big circles round your mind.

NOTA BENE

This poem, “Round About Sunrise” is from my upcoming book Jazz Poetry (more about that later). It was written in the free jazz style where the verses flow with rhythm and a sort of string of consciousness attitude. However, each stanza was, in the original first draft, loosely created, allowing for the much needed “jazz” improvisations during the re-writing stages. The title is a play on the tile of Miles Davis’ Round About Midnight album of 1957. The song “Round About Midnight” was composed by Thelonious Munk probably between 1940 and 1941. Since then it has become a jazz standard. But the song was actually copyrighted in 1943 in C minor with the title «I Need You So«, and with lyrics byThelma Murray, a friend of Monk’s. And that is how my jazz poetry is, very similar to my jazz art drawings and paintings. They utilise the principles that guided and allowed for the creation of Jazz which are: Improvisation, the soloist as composer, and swing (rhythm).

* This image, «Let the Sun Shine In«, is available as a Fine Art Print from my gallery at Fine Art America

CHEERS

Although I deployed to my summer place more than a month ago, I haven’t taken my holiday yet, but I will very soon. When that time comes I will be sailing the Aegean Sea, looking for beautiful coves to swim, dive and snorkel. As well as enjoying fried fish and well-chilled verdejo wine, preferably from Rueda (Spain). I will then apologise to you, my readers, because on an authentic holiday one cannot continue working on the blog, or on paintings, or anything intellectually challenging. But for now, I’m still working on art, poetry, and everything else that you are used to seeing here at VALENCIARTIST.

I also acknowledge that I have repeated many articles, but at the same time, I am preparing new ones and simultaneously developing other projects that I have at hand, not to mention commissions. Besides, many of you were not familiar with them, and it was good to repeat them. It is always important for me to express that my main task here is to share and disseminate information about art, artists, music, and current affairs. It would be lovely if we could exchange ideas to keep the dialogue on art alive and spreading. That’s why I write short articles which quickly get to the point so that you can read them without much difficulty. And of course, I hope you like my poetry…

Well, the ethics of writers, painters, or court jesters, I am obliged to disclose that what I write…everything without exception…is a product of my imagination. It has nothing to do with me or with my personal reality. Everything is pure fiction, contrived, worked on and filled with the artistic way that one can develop ideas. One of my greatest references, Konstantin Stanislavski, said that raw emotion is not art, and that has become a kind of motto for me that I apply to life and most definitely to creation of my art.

Art is the catalyst for emotions, it manages to bring out the deepest ones that we have lost in there because we constantly repress them. But art can make you cry, laugh, think, become euphoric, horrified, can make you change the course of your life, and also, sometimes, make you angry as hell.

But please understand that everything…that I write… is a contrived and fictitious artistic creation. Art is not life. Art is not natural. Art is not spontaneous. Art is not created. Art is a manifestation of the will of the artist. So I beg you not to label me a conservative or a liberal or an idiot, because nobody knows what the true Francisco, who that artist is, what he really thinks and what he believes. And finally, I want to thank you for your attention and kindness, and ask you to continue visiting our page VALENCIARTIST. And please don’t forget to comment. I read them all and I appreciate them greatly. And you can agree or disagree, but do it in a civilised manner and with good, solid arguments. And any suggestions for future posts I will most gladly accept too.

And for those of you who are painters, writers, or artists of any genre, you can be the protagonist of FEATURES by VALENCIARTIST (in your preferred language), you just have to reply to this post with your email, and we will send you all the information.

CHEERS

ROUND ABOUT SUNRISE

(While listening to the Overture of Die Zauberflöte by W. A. Mozart)

I like to whisper in a the doorway,
play with shadows at the bar,
turn the clocks back one long hour
drive a fancy blue sports car.

I’m an atom torn from silence,
causing ripples on a stream,
like a face half-torn from memory
that returns like a disease.

Like a key that fits no doorway,
like a word you cannot find,
like a letter left unopened
in the chambers of my mind.

Like a road that leads to nowhere,
yet you walk it all the same,
seeking answers in the lyrics,
while you mumble the refrain.

Like a circle drawn in water,
like a wheel that spins in sand,
like a heartbeat that remembers
what the soul cannot command.

Round and round the silence carries
every thought you’ve left behind,
and the turning never tarries
runs big circles round your mind.

NOTA BENE

This poem, “Round About Sunrise” is from my upcoming book Jazz Poetry (more about that later). It was written in the free jazz style where the verses flow with rhythm and a sort of string of consciousness attitude. However, each stanza was, in the original first draft, loosely created, allowing for the much needed “jazz” improvisations during the re-writing stages. The title is a play on the tile of Miles Davis’ Round About Midnight album of 1957. The song “Round About Midnight” was composed by Thelonious Munk probably between 1940 and 1941. Since then it has become a jazz standard. But the song was actually copyrighted in 1943 in C minor with the title «I Need You So«, and with lyrics byThelma Murray, a friend of Monk’s. And that is how my jazz poetry is, very similar to my jazz art drawings and paintings. They utilise the principles that guided and allowed for the creation of Jazz which are: Improvisation, the soloist as composer, and swing (rhythm).

* This image, «Let the Sun Shine In«, is available as a Fine Art Print from my gallery at Fine Art America

CHEERS

“Some folk think that art is something magical or ethereal, but I tell you art is the result of work, and the talent to create it, from hard work.” (Francisco Bravo Cabrera)

Y creo que estamos rodeado de estos aduladores, adulan a los políticos corruptos, a los terroristas y a los mediocres…

There are things on earth that completely contradict the «official» history as recorded and supported by so-called «experts» (good grief experts!). It is well known that there are many other sites older than the pyramids of Giza, like Göbekli Tepe in what is now Türkiye. There are other sites discovered, and being discovered, with monuments, art and clear evidence of an advanced culture all over the world. But «experts» choose to deny their existence or say that what people are calling a structure or a temple is a natural formation. And how do they know this? Well, they are experts…

These «experts» say that they pyramid complex of Giza is approximately 2.600 years old. How the hell did they come to that conclusion when many others that have studied the complex, along with comparative studies of the region say that the pyramids could be three or four time older? Well, they are «experts» and they do not like to be contradicted.

The Texas rock wall, in the town of Rockwall, Texas, is another example of evidence of an advanced culture perhaps 10-15.000 years old that the so-called experts are saying that it is nothing more than a natural formation. The wall, found buried, is over 7 stories tall (21 metres) and as long as 20 miles (32,19 Km). Areas of the wall show what might have been windows and in some areas there were actual rooms found. But, because it does not fit into their narrative…which they refuse to change/amend…the geologists and other «experts» say that it is only a natural formation. Nothing to get hung about…

Well, we know that every time there is something strange seen, whether in the sea, the sky or the land, and we do not know what it is, some «expert» says that there is rational, logical and scientific explanation for it. In my mind those are key words that mean «we are the experts and we will lie to you» and that way they can continue with their «scientifically» accepted theories without letting the «facts» get in the way. The strange cloud we saw coming into the shores of Portugal early in July comes to mind. Although it looked to all as something «otherworldly» the experts quickly said that it was only a type of cumulous cloud that rolls on itself and looks strange. Hmm…

And of course we have the Art experts deciding what is authentic and what is fake. They tell us that a painting someone found in a rubbish bin in Weehawken (NJ) is really a lost masterpiece. And that a painting, such as the «Salvator Mundi» was really painted by Leonardo, because it looks like something he would have painted. Well, there were many artists in Leo’s day that painted just as good and very similarly. Leonardo was one of many, not an exception. Of course, except to the experts.

So I’ve no use for such «experts», neither in art or in science. The real scientists, the ones that have the knowledge, the academic titles and the track record, are men and women with open minds, as all investigators should be. They do not go around making assertions on things that they do not understand. And what they do work on are things for the benefit of our health care and life in general. For me to believe an «expert» he has to show me how he got to the level of supposed expertise. Otherwise, to me, he is just one more charlatan out there selling snake oil…

* The image is of a portion of the Texas rock wall

Now it is your turn, tell me what you think…

CHEERS

He was considered the greatest portrait painter of his generation… He was born in Florence to US parents and was raised in Paris… Sargent was a skilled painter whose technique was impeccable, especially while drawing with the brush… His portraits are all very classical and that caused critics to view him as being superficial. However, his studio paintings showed that his style drew closer to Impressionism… Singer Sargent was born in 1856 and died in London 69 years later. He spent most of his life in Europe and in his later years he dedicated his work to murals and to painting outside, away from his studio. He was a very private man who remained single all his life, surrounding himself with family and with many artists friends, as well as others, like Henry James.

+++

CHEERS

Experts are not sages, they are functionaries. They sit on panels, write in journals no one reads, and speak in tongues of jargon to preserve their own mystique. They are gatekeepers of knowledge, not its liberators. And that is being quite generous because in truth I do not believe that «experts» (with the exception of those in the medical field) have any truth or any knowledge. They are full of hot air, inflated, ego-centric, narcissistic little balloon heads.

The expert thrives on authority, not truth. Their credentials are their armour, their institutions their fortress, their arrogance their weapon. When challenged, they don’t debate — they dismiss. “Unqualified,” they say, as if wisdom required a certificate. And that is not even saying that their points of view are tainted with the tunnel vision they possess.

But history is littered with the corpses of expert consensus. The experts once told us the earth was flat, (that could still be right), that bleeding the sick would heal them, that heavier-than-air flight was impossible, that cigarettes were harmless. Again and again, the experts were wrong — and again and again, they wrapped their failures in the cloak of respectability. Art «experts» rave about the greatness of the ones they like and dismiss the ones they don’t as not being relevant or important. I remember being taught that Joan Miró was important and that Yoko Ono was a genius…

Here are the masterpieces of Joan Miró:

And here is the genius of Yoko Ono:

Why do I despise «experts»? Because experts are not seekers of truth. An expert is a careerist. He bows to the funding body, the political regime, the corporate sponsor. He does not ask dangerous questions, because dangerous questions cut off grants, silence invitations, kill reputations. Better to preach what is safe, what flatters power, what maintains the illusion of control. That is why in the art world they taught me that one of the greatest references was Andy Warhol. And yes, I know he is an institution to many, but, really?

This is one of Warhol’s great movies:

If you were able to watch 8 hours of the Empire State Building and find redeeming art in that then you should continue to follow the experts, they love people like you…

But I tell you…and I know you know it is true…the true discoveries, the revolutions, the leaps forward, they do not come from «experts». These great advances to humanity, science, art, and the society as a whole, do not come from the experts. This comes from the outsiders, the heretics, the tinkerers, the obsessives who refuse to genuflect before the altar of authority. Progress has always been made by those too stubborn, too naïve, or too free to care about what the experts decreed.

So, dear diary, I will…figuratively…knock. with a perfect scissors kick, the crown of the big head of the nearest expert and feel good. The crown was false anyways. Let us remember that knowledge is a gift that God has spread all over the universe (and the multiverse), as is wisdom. And truth? Truth is a concept that can be moulded to one’s beliefs and belongs to no guild. Let us stop worshipping experts, and start demanding honesty, humility, and courage. And start doing.

The world does not need more experts.
The world needs more thinkers.

CHEERS