Spring blooming
“People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.”
― Elizabeth Goudge
“Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?”
― Plato
“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
"To live fully, creatively, self-validated by doing good and exercising acts of kindness seems the best course."
Even cavepeople had paintings on their walls.
Visual art is inherent to the human species.
The conceptualization of its existential travail has defined these peculiar bipeds as decidedly different from all other planetary life forms, all the more so in the ways people have developed to make the art.
#Metallica is an influential American heavy metal band based in San Francisco for most of its career that helped develop the subgenre speed metal.
It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich.
My poster - when the band played warm-up for W.A.S.P.
Awesome
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality."
― Albert Einstein
"There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do."
― William Shakespeare
"The Joker Is Wild" - a self-portrait
April 1st is a personal Festival Day I am known to celebrate.
I am a kind of joke, but the question is: which kind?
I keep everyone guessing.
Matt Foley: Some researchers report that over 90% of modern humans suffer from aesthetic disability.
This occurs when art is not treated as serious subject matter during early education, overexposure to crap made merely to make money, and a distinct lack over overall engagement with art and culture.
"documented gang member with multiple theft and burglary convictions to his name" was an incident that happened about a block away from my home.
The old woman died not long after, as a result.
Art, as a warning notice.
To baddies, for the door.
(I'm an Addy Gold Medal award-winning graphic artist.)
I live in a bad place, where cops are more likely to arrest someone for reporting crimes than arrest criminals.
The city likes to abuse the elderly in myriad ways, a lack of proper protection is foremost.
"Convicted felon, 35, charged with raping 100-YEAR-OLD woman as she slept during home invasion"
The week began with a high temperature of 22°F and winds up to 65mph.
The week is forecast to end today with a temp in the mid-90s and winds up to 40mph.
The frigid cold killed the blooms on most of my flowering trees, which has left me bereft.
Though, to celebrate Spring, a work in brilliant color.
Matt Foley ― I live to be an antithesis.
The world is full of human slop and certified losers.
Example: Teen girls seen laughing in back of police car after alleged attempt to murder classmate - planning to slit the victim’s throat and drink his blood.
"I don’t feel guilty for my actions," one said.
"Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it."
― Flannery O'Connor
“Ideally a painter (and, generally, an #artist) should not become conscious of his insights."
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Arkansas City, today, has a population of 12,000.
The Wichita town there had a population of 20,000.
A heated battle took place in 1601 between a force of 1500 Wichita fighters and Spanish Conquistadors, led by Juan de Oñate.
The #Wichita Indians defeated the Spaniards, who never returned to Kansas.
Dramatic movements of unfolding layers,
framing creative impulses
well on their way to becoming
visual cubicles
of conceptual cogitation.
When seduced by calculus,
the captivating behavior of particles
may tend toward the breathless,
as in a state of quantum randomness.
a little #Poetry In Motion
Perhaps, over 100,000 years ago, North America really was a cradle of civilization.
Successive Ice Ages and the associated glaciation ground all traces of those early cultures into gravel or covered the cave entrances hidden from later eyes, until now.
Matt Foley (Foleo) - "Dance of the Leopard Men"
"The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder."
― Oliver Burkeman: author and journalist
frenetic productivity by a guru of alchemy
“Black and white pictures create a surreal magic!”
― Avijeet Das: poet
“When the prophet, a complacent fat man,
Arrived at the mountain-top
He cried: 'Woe to my knowledge!
I intended to see good white lands
And bad black lands-
But the scene is grey.'"
― Stephen Crane: poet
Case of Mental Origami
I've always been an instigator.
Poetry readings and live music in conjunction with art exhibits, I started that - long ago.
Now, commonplace.
The Phantom Art Gallery concept used by major cities, an idea which has helped thousands of artists across the world: that was also mine.
I am true influence.
An original Influencer
When I first started doing social-networking, this was my banner - now, almost two decades ago.
In 1996, I used something similar on my early website, when that sort of thing was new.
These days it is commonplace for museums and galleries to post pics of people looking at art.
Art
"Although aesthetic experiences are frequent in modern life, there is as of yet no scientifically comprehensive theory that explains what psychologically constitutes such experiences (but) are particularly interesting because of...the possibility to provide self-rewarding cognitive operations."
Today: Criminal justice teacher charged with felony theft; Bill targets emotional, sometimes dangerous interactions between people and artificial intelligence; Man critically injured after unattended cooking leads to apartment fire.
People are idiots.
I'm playing my harmonica, while paint is drying.
Communicating with aliens, AI systems, other earth-bound life forms, all just a matter of display and access, seems a reasonable reason to make the art I do.
Who dictates that only humans are the ones privy and privileged to aesthetic exposure and experiences of my #art?
No discriminating is better.
Matt Foley: "When the creative human is subjected to oppressive times, barbaric customs and the whims of tyrants, escape by any means arises as a method of self preservation. Art works well as a method to assuage the grieving soul and troubled mind; to mend the roiling, broken, and shattered heart."
Indeed.
“Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The #artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
― Wassily Kandinsky: painter and Art theorist
#colors
Indeed
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ”
― Oscar Wilde: poet and playwright
“Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.”
― Khalil Gibran: artist, poet, and writer
“We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”
― Henry James
Madness may be considered the porridge of food for thought. Malnourished? Not at all. Never junk food. The world has plenty already.
Creating in art for art’s sake while spiriting a viewer away from humdrum realities of the everyday tediums is a fulfilling endeavor.
Art is an existential exploration of the essence of what it means to be a conceptually capable being.
Imagination, creativity, interpretation.
Ars longa. Vita brevis.
Think of it as a big party. A New Years Eve party!
All the cool are there: Picasso, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Kandinsky, Leger.
It was rumored among the assembled party warriors that Banksy had been there.
In disguise. Of course.
Dali sent his regrets.
His aardvark had the sniffles.
#MattFoley #BeHappy
Maybe
“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.”
― John Updike
“Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.”
― Albert Camus
The majesty of imagination is thought to only be relegated to humans.
Perhaps that is so.
Even if not so, human imagination is a fascinating manifestation worthy of considerable contemplation.
Too often, that can be blunted by the pursuit of other fleeting rewards; fame, money, and assorted trifles.