This is not finished, but the idea is (see blog post about Bush and his theory about Sun Rising and optimism ).

to do 4 portraits at Sunset, maybe it is a form of resistance, not quite sure, but perhaps just to balance things, keep the energy at the right level…at least try.

I am also working on 3 oil paintings 72 x 60 inches about dusk…more later.

Art, light, and painting as a metaphor…for Georges Bush.

Most of you don’t remember this, I know, because I keep asking :
the transcript you can read below is from the third debate between Kerry and Bush. At the very end of the last debate a few days before the elections, after Kerry had said goodbye and a God bless America, Bush took the mic and before addressing a strong God bless YOU , he told a little story narrating his views on art and precisely the role of light in painting…

Of course if you are extremely paranoid, which I am, you might find it odd, and find the vocabulary very close to old good conspiracy theories, whether from Science Fiction novels or cheap or not cheap esoteric stuff.

You might then find it more odd to see that this story has been repeated many times , at least 3 times in different speeches over the last 5 years. Of course if you feel more grounded than me , you will put it on the account of something else.

Tom Lea “And There He Was”,
1970, Oil on Canvas, 34″ x 48″

TRANSCRIPT:

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: In the Oval Office, there’s a painting by a friend of Laura and mine named — by Tom Lea. And it’s a West Texas painting, a painting of a mountain scene.

And he said this about it.

He said, “Sara and I live on the east side of the mountain. It’s the sunrise side, not the sunset side. It’s the side to see the day that is coming, not to see the day that is gone.”

I love the optimism in that painting, because that’s how I feel about America. And we’ve been through a lot together during the last 3 3/4 years. We’ve come through a recession, a stock market decline, an attack on our country.

And yet, because of the hard work of the American people and good policies, this economy is growing. Over the next four years, we’ll make sure the economy continues to grow.

For full transcript, go to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_1013.html

Tom Lea, Rio Grande
1954, oil on canvas. (3)

Rio Grande is the painting hanging In the Oval Office at the White House.

As Tom Leas gallery states” Tom Lea’s words and paintings were reintroduced to the public through the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush who frequently quoted Lea in his run for the Presidency.”

Tom Lea, Labrador.

more similar quotes (1) can be found :

And I thought Bush’s closing line was familiar… He used it in his 2000 acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. Did he attribute the quote to Lea tonight?

My friend, the artist Tom Lea of El Paso, Texas, captured the way I feel about our great land, a land I love. He and his wife, he said, “Live on the east side of the mountain. It’s the sunrise side, not the sunset side. It is the side to see the day that is coming, not to see the day that has gone.”
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/republican/transcripts/bush.html“

“Texas painter Tom Lea was a war artist in the South Pacific in WWII, with the Marines at Peleliu. For a different kind of Lea’s work, go here:
http://www.milhist.net/global/2000yard.html
http://www.milhist.net/images/2000YardStare.jpg“

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4915

2000 acceptance speech, at the Republican convention:

“My friend, the artist Tom Lea of El Paso, Texas, captured the way I feel about our great land, a land I love.
He and his wife, he said, ‘’Live on the east side of the mountain. It’s the sunrise side, not the sunset side.
It is the side to see the day that is coming, not to see the day that has gone.'’

Americans live on the sunrise side of the mountain, the night is passing, and we’re ready for the day to come.

Sources:
http://www.2000gop.com/convention/speech/speechbush.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/conv/118.htm

(1) Thanks to Francois Aleta for URLs and quotes research.
(2)
(3)Image from
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews4-4-1.asp

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews4-4-1.asp

Text written for preview of The King and The Mocking Bird, (directed by Paul Grimault and written by Jacques Prevert) to be screened at the Grand Illusion for the Childish Film Festival, Curated by Debby Girdwood.

If Gilles Deleuze sees in philosophy the guarantee of less stupidity in the world, he also defines the artist as a liberator of life: liberator of the shameful human condition, liberator of life imprisoned by humans.
The King and The Bird is a master piece of the two French artists, Paul Grimault and Jacques Prevert.
The King and The Bird liberates life.
The King and The Bird is a perfect example of “art” for children and adults that has probably changed destinies giving the power back to the inner voice which cries for freedom, the voice that we tend to forget as we grow up.
The King and The Bird is not a tale that will give you more illusions.
The King and The Bird is a masterpiece of resistance not only by its content but by its process of production that became a 30 years war. In the late 40’, Grimault and Prevert get together to work on what was supposed to be the first French full-length animated feature. They worked for 5 years under LES GEMAUX who ran out of money and released an unauthorized version.
In 1952 suing for the rights of the film under the name “La bergere et le ramoneur “(the shepherdess and the chimneysweeper), Grimault creates his own Paul Grimault Films and continues working on the project with Prevert who wrote for the feature until his death in 1977.
In 1979 the film was finished and Grimault received the Louis Delluc prize. On its premiere Grimault sat next to an empty chair honoring so his friend Prevert who never saw the feature ended.

What makes The King and The Bird more than a tale is the strange visionary of a future (which could be our present times) where the city reminding us of the 1926 Fritz Lang, Metropolis, looks more like Paris today and familiar scenes now to be seen on the river Seine with the recent building of the Ministry of Finance and the police boat-motorcycles which did not exist in the times of Prevert and Grimault. Strangely enough, French children who have seen the Bird and The King when it was released, grew up seeing Paris look more and more like The King’s city .If you wanted to believe in the images AMELIE gave you of the French capital, you need to wake up from day-dream and see THE KING AND THE BIRD. If some will be reminded of the WTO, others might have reminiscence of the first Christians hiding from the Romans. The bat-winged police might remind us of the funny twins of Kantor’s plays and a clear reference-joke is made by representing Jean Renoir’s theater in “La regle du jeu” (1939).
The simplicity of the images and the weight of silence and precision of the soundtrack will remind us of other French genius Tati, same generation questioning modernity and mass-production by the use of humor, and gentleness, letting compassion meet judgment. If other French philosopher Foucault always questionned how we can escape power and authority, Grimault’s and Prevert’s answer is not anarchy nor a bloody revolution: the answer is poetry and art as the liberator .
Remember, only the bird and the king are true and the king is destroyed by the king’s own image,who himself is destroyed by his own fantasy.

In The King and The Bird you will see
The king, tyrannical, and ridiculous.
The very beautiful shepherdess.
The sweet dark-skinned chimneysweeper.
The bird, the one who can speak all the languages.
The blind man who SEES the good from the bad.

Please, do not tell children the world is beautiful because it is not.

The King and The Bird leaves us with an imprint on the eye: the destruction of a bird’s cage, the same way than Jacques Prevert left us with a poem on our mind telling us to always paint the cage of the bird open so that he can fly away.

The King and The Bird is not anti-American, not anti-French. Unlike Winged migration wanting to show shootings of birds only in north America, The King and The Bird is a universal poem against abuse of power, against vanity and above all, against stupidity and that is why it shall never be a propaganda film unless it becomes propaganda for freedom. Showing this feature to children is also making sure that at least once in their childhood they will have been told that some day there will be no oppression on this planet and no more cage and that love and freedom does and WILL rule the world.

For you it will probably be as well a good way of freeing the bird in you.

Francois Aleta / Vanessa Briggs.