Leon Golub was my remarkable graduate school advisor: Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University. Leon named humanity can transit into animal Lord of the Flies of inhumanity.
The scale of his ‘Mercenaries’ series are theater, gladiator arenas, landscape geographies, back drops.
Layers, thick layers of paint upon paint.
Layers of paint ground out with by his hand held grinder.
The finished canvases are held up by brass grommets.
VISCERAL HORROR.
An actual encounter witnessing his paintings versus looking at an online image – incomparable
The viewer experiences an overwhelming sensory assault.
The viewer can smell the rabid, violent fumes of a bounded tribal ‘group’.
The viewer is ‘frozen’ – fight/flight and the naming of humanity’s shadow side capable of cruelty, evil of another human
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I will not watch the video tapes of the violence of Tyre Nichols’ torture.
Choice.
I did not watch the video tapes of George Floyd’s murder.
Choice.
Listening, reading of their tortured death – BOTH men calling out to his Mother
evoked the NAMING of humanity’s brutality in Leon Golub’s art.
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The savage mentality
of
the FIVE Memphis police officers
belonging to the ELITE community driven
SCORPION
(Street Crimes Operation to RESTORE Peace In Our Neighborhoods)
Some say it is because the shadows of the moon resemble a rabbit.
Others say it is because of the rabbit’s pure characteristics.
The Rabbit’s kindness may make them seem soft and weak.
In truth,
the Rabbit’s quiet personality hides their confidence and strength.
They are steadily moving towards their goal,
no matter what negativity the others give them.
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‘It’s the Year of the Rabbit and we should all be focusing on rest, introspection and working smarter not harder.
The Lunar New Year, celebrated primarily by Chinese diasporas and other East Asian cultures as well as the Vietnamese, will begin on Sunday, kicking off 15 days of festivities and customs. While the preceding Year of the Tiger was seen as a powerful period of action, and, at times, impulse, the rabbit sign is expected to usher in a softer period focused on self-reflection, Jonathan H. X. Lee, an Asian and Asian American studies professor at San Francisco State University.’
I lived in Manhattan’s Little Italy for SIX years – adjacent to Chinatown!
The LUNAR NEW YEAR parades were EXHILARATING!
THEN and NOW, I celebrate the LUNAR NEW YEAR!
Leo / Christa / I will be celebrating my 29 December on THIS day!
Red-colored clothing is worn throughout the Lunar New Year as it symbolizes prosperity and is thought to ward off evil spirits. Interestingly, people are clad in everything red from head to toe as the new year begins.
Fiery red, in particular, promotes movement, vitality, passion and love.
Because many slaves knew the secret meanings of songs, they could be used to signal many things. Harriet Tubman used the song “Wade in the Water”to tell escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water to make sure the dogs slave catchers used couldn’t sniff out their trail. People walking through water did not leave a scent trail that dogs could follow. Read the words of “Wade in the Water”:
Chorus
Wade in the Water, wade in the water children. Wade in the Water. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Who are those children all dressed in Red? God’s gonna trouble the water. Must be the ones that Moses led. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
Who are those children all dressed in White? God’s gonna trouble the water. Must be the ones of the Israelites. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
Who are those children all dressed in Blue? God’s gonna trouble the water. Must be the ones that made it through. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Nature’s beautiful offering and gift – not forced – an amazing grace of natural living love.
Let it BE y/our LIFE…
Catherine L. Johnson
2023
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Silver ‘Pablo’ Caran d’Ache drawing pencil on archival heavyweight paper
the silver lead is iridescent
skeins of luminous bright silver lines over lines over lines
drawn as a continuous ‘breath’ upon a theater of deep navy midnight blue
the silver lines shine and spark in relation to the ambient light
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original drawing measures:
19″H x 12.5″W
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Aurorae are the most visible on northern and southern Polar Regions due to the form of the Earth’s magnetic field. In Finland, aurora borealis can be most often viewed in the northernmost Lapland, approximately on 200 nights a year, whereas in southern Finland the phenomenon is rare with about two dozen sightings annually. In 2000 and 2001, a very powerful aurora borealis storm occurred, when bright bands of aurora borealis were seen on the northern hemisphere all the way down to southern Europe. Most commonly, aurora borealis can be seen as steady arch but many kinds of forms can be seen from time to time.
Electric particles from the sun, such as protons and electrons, are carried by the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetic field that reaches as far as 100 000 km above the atmosphere. Due to the influence of the solar wind, this field, i.e. magnetosphere, stretches forming a tale of millions of kilometres on the night side of the Earth. Part of the electric particles drift to the Earth’s magnetic field to form the so-called Van Allen zone. Part of the particles are stored in the tale of the magnetic field and carried from there along force currents to the proximity of the poles of the Earth. These particles are pushed into the atmosphere of the Earth, colliding with the molecules of different matter 80 to 300 km above the ground and exciting the atoms. When the excitation is released, the extra energy is released as light. Depending on the variety of the excited atom, the released light can have different wavelengths that are visible to the eye in different colours.
Aurora borealis cannot be seen at all times. The best time of the day is during the magnetic midnight, which occurs approximately an hour before the actual midnight. The difference is caused by the 11º-difference between the North Pole on top of the axis of the Earth and the magnetic North Pole. According to observers, the aurora borealis is the most commonly seen during Equinoxes, but also on other bright winter nights viewing is possible.
#894 + RISE UP! STEP UP! WORDS UP! ACTIONS UP!+“We must accept FINITE disappointment but never lose INFINITE hope.” The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther KING Jr.+ RISE UP! STEP UP! WORDS UP! ACTIONS UP!
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Fragment from ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelo
REMARKABLE!
It was the spring of 1963. These leaders were planning the now famous March on Washington. The voting rights bill was being debated before Congress. The same with a food stamps bill for poor people. Participating in this live prime time television dialogue were James Farmer, James Forman, Whitney Young, Martin Luther King and Roy Wilkins. All powerful civil rights leaders representing the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Congress On Racial Equality (CORE), the SCCC, and the SCLC. Issues discussed include Lyndon Johnson and the southern Dixiecrats, the voting rights bill, the bus boycotts, the lunch counter sit ins, the effort to register voters in Mississippi, and more
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“I’m happy, tonight.
I’m not worried about anything.
I’m not fearing any man.”
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this sermon on the night of April 3, 1968, at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, as a storm raged outside. Titled “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” it was his last speech. Some people believe its final passage prophesized his death the next day.
The last day of my Mother’s life – she gave me that night:profound offerings of glory, unconditional love, anointment of naming WHO I am.She was dead the next morning.I found her – warm and blue eyes open in her bed with her dogs sleeping at the end of the bed.
(owner of W. 7th Street Barbers – on the left, and the amazing Mark next to Pete)
sheared my hair
at my request.
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My action,
a performance of choices
– how/why
our choices
become the story
of our lives.
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On
6 January 2023
after an unprecedented #
ROUNDS of VOTING 4 the SPEAKER,
the spineless
MAGA REPUBLICANS
+
the wannabe speaker,
Kevin McCarthy,
was made paralyzed by the
Qanon Taliban
faction
of the
Grand Old Party
– NOW party of 3 RINGS of CLOWNS:
like Dante’s inferno.
The concessions Kevin has made upon each failed round is a testament of _______.
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THE
CLOWN / MAGA/ QANON TALIBAN PARTY
DONORS
NEED TO BE NAMED + OUTED.
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As of this minute,
after the
#13 ROUND of VOTING
4 SPEAKER of the HOUSE
resulted in gobsmacking
ZIP!
💥💥💥💥💥💥
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UPDATE
7 January 2023
#15 ROUND:
Kevin McCarthy,
AFTER
selling his family, the family dog
and
succumbing to the concessions
demanded by the
MAGA QANON Taliban,
his gobsmacking groveling
finally awarded him
the party of clowns
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
SPEAKER of the HOUSE.
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a Washington Post reader’s
SPOT ON comment
in response to now
SPEAKER MAGA McCarthy:
“Hard to comprehend that a person that voted against certifying a free and fair election AFTER a violent insurrection was finally quelled was elected Speaker of the House. Watching him administer an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic to people who have already violated that oath was hard to watch.”
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Incompetent people don’t know they’re incompetent.
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6 January 2023
( image: @ my weekly PT TCO /Woodbury working with my collaborator and creative genius Lisa Richardson)
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I began 2 let my sheared hair
GROW
+
RISE UP 4
FREEDOM + DEMOCRACY
at the
MID-TERMS!
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Democrats commemorate
the 2nd anniversary
of the
6 January 2021
INSURRECTION
attack with tears and silence at US Capitol
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Hundreds of members of Congress gathered
to pay tribute to five police officers
whose deaths have been tied to the insurrection
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Senior Democrats led a large and poignant gathering on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington to commemorate the “solemn day” on the second anniversary of the deadly January 6 insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump.
Poem/libretto: Catherine L. Johnson, visual artist and writer
I wrote ‘TABULA RASA: CHANGE’ upon the election of President Barack Obama. I was a volunteer from the campaign’s early stages when his name recognition was a whisper – his name on pamphlets were placed on the the far edge of the DFL table at the Minnesota State Fair! What occurred was change, a change that was both blowing in the wind and an internal tsunami. America is shaped by our gentle breath and a roaring belief in: YES, WE CAN!
Transformations call out internal revolutions.
And, that process exposes raw nerve truths:
beautiful and ugly.
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In March 2011, ‘TABULA RASA: CHANGE’ was mobilized from a text into a recorded spoken word performance.
FRESHDRIEDBLOODIAMHUMAN Catherine L. Johnson 2013
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EXODUSIMFREEATLASTIAINTGOINGBACKIMFREE Catherine L. Johnson 2013
Pine Tree: naked GRACE I (detail) Catherine L. Johnson 2022
CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 