I have noticed in my wanderings through life that we humans tend to avoid talking about the subject of death. It sometimes surprises me that people rarely allow time to talk about something that will happen to us all. But a moment later, I’m hiding away from the subject myself and finding things to say about the weather or some new trend or what the neighbor is doing. The subject of death carries such a deep and well-tended taboo, and it draws my attention. Those who have experienced it know that to survive the death of a close one brings confusion and a hollow metallic shock. As a survivor, no matter how hard I try, it is impossible to keep down the tears, be they physical or not.

But then I wonder: when it is my turn to die, what will I think? Will it be dark and scary? – a place into which I will try to postpone entry for as long as possible? When it’s my turn, will I know that it is the end and will part of me feel drawn to crossing over? Hard to say and impossible to know, until I get there.

The mystery of the after-life takes on an aura of acceptance and peace if we see death as a gentle passing into a different dimension. Death is a return of our molecules to the earth, a closing of the physical loop of our planet. It is worth taking a closer look at this elusive non-state of existence, almost hypnotic by nature.

Arizona artist Kathy Taylor at SALT Gallery has developed an intriguing bridge between the living and the dead with her artistic process Ashes to Art. Ashes to Art works like this: a family member or loved one of a person who has died asks Kathy to create a painting for them using some of the ashes of the deceased to mix into the paint. Scary and morbid you say? Not so much as a creative and compassionate way in which to dedicate time and space to a lost loved one, almost like a monument to someone who made their mark in the world. The encounters Kathy has had with this type of client and the creative energy she has found in the process have been part of an astounding journey, which she does not regret.

The paintings Kathy has on display at SALT Gallery do not contain ashes, but they do bring us closer to an understanding of the other world, the place beyond: nature’s constant decay, demise and rebirth. Her images of horses and ancient shamans with a forgotten past float with a hum of time’s passing on cloudy and pale multi-textural backgrounds. Red Trilogy is a masterpiece of this imagery, although there is nothing pale about this background: the three horses are engulfed in a passionate red and we feel the movement of the muscles rippling off the surface. We are not quite certain if the horses are three, or if it is only one, in different stages of movement; different levels of its life. Like the horse, we humans are strong and at peace. We should smile upon life and refrain from putting things off until tomorrow, as we are all constantly drifting towards the next mysterious stage of the unknown we call death.

A film with that name simply has to deal with a marriage. Most especially if it’s from the 1970s and stars Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield. This drama concerns the most fragile relationship we could imagine, a sharp edge of lost youth and icy pain tinging the whole narrative from the very beginning. It’s an Edward Albee play and it won a Pulitzer, so the writing is effective, the relationship mechanisms are intricate and run deep, the characters introduced into to the realm of the sad couple are perfectly cast, and alcohol has a strong presence. I found myself fascinated by how the delivery and contents of the conversations made me cringe uncomfortably.

Let’s compare it to John Cleese, but let’s skip the humor

I suspect that A Delicate Balance would not quite be recommended by today’s media-happy cinema, it would simply be acknowledged as a masterpiece, albeit a depressing one. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the film:

“They say we dream to let the mind go raving mad.”

“There’s nothing here but rust and bones.”

“Such silent sad disgusting love…”

The following dialogue snippet plays the control and submission game well:

Agnes (Hepburn): You are NOT young now, and you do NOT live at home.

Tobias (Scofield): Where do I live?

Hepburn: In the deep dark place…

So, there is quite a bit of malice and strange ticks that come from years of not speaking about what needs attention, and instead dealing with only the perceived pleasant, which eventually becomes unpleasant and slowly rots. In the end, some marriages end up this way- if you decide to rent this movie, be warned that some of the tactics of subliminal knife-throwing are dangerously poignant and we can recognize them, if not in ourselves, but in the couple next door, or that guy that we know, or the newlyweds bickering in the grocery store.

Love is attainable- be assured. There is effort to life, however, and we can only get better if we continue to strive towards enlightenment, and it starts at home and with our close ones.

Lee Remick, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield

This film came out in 1973, which is my favorite time of cinema, perhaps because that decade was my first, and I know that I was influenced by all types of signs of the times at the time- music, literature, cinema, news, clothing. There was a stoic way of looking psychotherapy in the eye and not being afraid of getting a little depressed or depressing, embracing the dull and dysfunctional, if you will: like the storyline of the Ice Storm, or Bergman’s Cries and Whispers. (As I understand, even Bergman declined to direct the movie version of A Delicate Balance- perhaps he was in a bad marriage himself?) Hollywood of the 1970s was more about truth than the bottom line, making it an excellent time for Albee and his keen sense of the psycho-drama.

Watch it: A Delicate Balance. It will leave you dumbfounded and with a metallic taste in your mouth, as if something unwanted but ever-present entered your soul to remind you about the perils of lost youth and unspoken love.

New Englanders, New Yorkers, Northeast-types: SALT Gallery artist Jordan Eagles will display a new body of work at REAL Artways in Hartford, CT beginning June 21. Eagles, who lives in New York, employs an abstract painting style in which he uses slaughterhouse blood, thereby producing a severely different form of art than the crisp pop-art playfulness of the pieces on display at SALT. The current body of paintings are large and in charge, cutting to the deep core of our existence as living beings, both with the choice of medium and the rich red expressive yet somehow unreal subject matter; the color palette Eagles maintains is furiously soothing.

See samples of his fabulously satiric computer-generated work here and the blood paintings here .

Details are as follows: ANIMAL-SPIRIT-MACHINE; June 21-July 15th at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT 06106; p: 860.232.1006; f: 860.233.6691; e: info@realartways.org or visit their online presence (REAL Artways is a personal favorite in New England- with a superb film schedule and far-out unique musical performances.)

On June 1, 2007, 5-8 pm, SALT Gallery artist Tomas Lanner will display a new body of work on linen and board at Cafe Aristocrat in the Caravelle Arcade, Christiansted, St. Croix. This is the first in a line of physical exhibitions of the online SALT Gallery artists. Lanner describes his work as “an unfolding projection of objects and scenarios from the subliminal”, with inspiration gleaned from cubism, Jean DuBuffet, Paul Klee, and Squeak Carnwath, to name a few.

For those familiar with Christiansted on the island of St. Croix, you may be aware of the wildly popular Cafe Aristocrat, an inside/outside cafe & gallery combo that has proven to be the previously missing social link for Christiansted’s caffeine & conversation starved business district. Please pay a visit to the gallery either on reception night or in the month following. Call Cafe Aristocrat at +1-340-719-1011 or +1-340-773-2233 for hours of operation.

Previous samples of Lanner’s work can be found here.

For samples of work by Squeak Carnwath, go here.

Photographer Michael Meseke, new to the SALT Gallery group of artists, follows the calling of photography with contemplative respect. Michael realizes there is great talent out there and competition is stiff. Everyone and their cousin can rightfully call themselves a photographer. Historically speaking, it is the artform that has experienced the greatest advances in technological accesibility to the general public. This of course through the advent of the digital camera and the market’s constant chase for the ultimate camera-phone. I can understand anyone’s concern for too much competition, but in the case of Meseke, he has an edge with his work as it transcends the conventional, it fetches us in reality and takes us away into confusion and strange fantasies.

No, this is not dangerous- see for yourself: click here

After ten years in Manhattan, Meseke recently moved to Brooklyn and has discovered not only new things about a different part of town, but a fascinating change in himself. The pieces on view at SALT Gallery comprise a new macro-cosmic journey for him, stopping to look, if you will, at the small world, to smell the micro-roses, to hear crisply and up close what the metal wants to tell you. This concept of the ‘little’ brings me back to the old man I once met on a rainy marsh in northern Sweden, who warned me to look out for the little people, as we shared a thermos of tea. “Don’t step too heavy- they who are small are in control”, he said, as we parted ways. (Surely that’s why large boats are often owned by small men!) Meseke felt his old skin swiftly pull from his soul as he left the cozy West Village studio- new daunting challenges and bright beacons appeared and he now finds himself invited to neighborhood dinner parties and taking long investigative walks.

It is worth noting that Michael Meseke was an actor when he first entered the challenge of New York in the mid-90s. Restaurant work was a given, to pay the bills, and the acting auditions were sometimes agonizing in competition and demeaning in artistic content. I think you get the picture. If you get a chance to see examples of Meseke’s staging in his figurative photography, you will see an eerie and flirtatious inspiration from a wide range of playwrights and directors. Godot and Jarmusch immediately come to mind, to name a few.

It is important to imagine Meseke’s photographs in large format- keep that in mind as you decorate your new condo, OK?