Inner ☽❍☾ Bohemienne turned 12 today!

Landscape painter

Ben Bulben, County Sligo, Ireland

“And a neglected Looking-Glass

And the Child cared nothing about the Looking-Glass”

By artist Eleanor Vere Boyle, c.1868. Watercolor for 'The Story without an End' by author Sarah Austin

Beautiful pyrography brooches by Gill Rippingale

Ófærufoss waterfall in Eldgjá chasm, Iceland

Oliver Sacks, July 9, 1933 - August 30, 2015 ~ Physician, best-selling author, and professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine.  The world will  be a lesser place without him.  Adieu...

June 26, 2015 : Equality

“...all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law, that all people should be treated equally regardless of who they are or who they love...marriage equality is about our civil rights, and our firm belief that every citizen should be treated equally under the law.” ~ President Barack Obama

I wish my brother had lived to see this day...

Keeping Quiet

by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,

let's not speak in any language;

let's stop for one second,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment

without rush, without engines;

we would all be together

in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea

would not harm whales

and the man gathering salt

would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,

wars with gas, wars with fire,

victories with no survivors,

would put on clean clothes

and walk about with their brothers

in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused

with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about;

I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded

about keeping our lives moving,

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence

might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us

as when everything seems dead

and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve

and you keep quiet and I will go.

Desert valley near Vermillion Cliffs, Arizona. 

*Photo by Aya O. 

Beware The Rise of the Pseudo-Intellectual

“ We live in an age in which ideas, important ideas, are worn like articles of fashion — and for precisely the same reason articles of fashion are worn, which is to make the wearer look better and to feel à la mode.

We must be careful to make a distinction between the intellectual and the person of intellectual achievement. The two are very, very different animals. There are people of intellectual achievement who increase the sum of human knowledge, the powers of human insight, and analysis. And then there are the intellectuals.

An intellectual is a person knowledgeable in one field who speaks out only in others. Starting in the early twentieth century, for the first time an ordinary storyteller, a novelist, a short story writer, a poet, a playwright, in certain cases a composer, an artist, or even an opera singer could achieve a tremendous eminence by becoming morally indignant about some public issue. It required no intellectual effort whatsoever. Suddenly he was elevated to a plane from which he could look down upon ordinary people.

Conversely – this fascinates me – conversely, if you are merely a brilliant scholar, merely someone who has added immeasurably to the sum of human knowledge and the powers of human insight, that does not qualify you for the eminence of being an intellectual. “

~ author Tom Wolfe, excerpt from commencement address to Boston University, c.2000

Artist Bruce Riley creates ethereal abstract art works, organic forms made from layer after layer of dripped paint and poured resin.  Each piece can be penetrated by light from multiple angles, casting shadows deep into the artwork. Riley works using a number of experimental techniques, frequently incorporating mistakes and unexpected occurrences into the thick paintings that appear almost sculptural in nature.

“...Riley plans his paintings, but along the way he wrangles the accidents and mistakes that are inevitable. In the studio he focuses on flow, allowing immediate observation to guide a painting's progress. He keeps everything fresh within his daily routine by working on multiple works which inform and feed on each other. He cannot say what it is that tips a painting in one direction or the other. It's just apparent to him when something is done. The process is a living thing that's of the moment.... They are process-driven, relying on chance as much as intent. And chemical interactions within the paint are always welcome. Riley paints for himself, but if the viewers were to forget themselves while looking at these pieces, they would be as close as one can get to an understandable meaning."

~ Aron Packer

Exploded View ~ artist Bruce Riley, c.2014; mixed media, resin & paint on panel, 48″ x 80″ (view large)

Detail 1

Detail 9

Detail 11

Detail 16

Nothing (detail 14) ~ artist Bruce Riley; mixed media, resin & paint on panel, 70″ x 24″ 

*See the entire painting and more detail shots: Nothing Flickr photoset, by Bruce Riley