The Cyrus Cylinder, 2600 years of Middle Eastern History and Thomas Jefferson

Cyrus Cylinder , 6th century B.C. Clay, The British Museum

     Anyone familiar with my work knows how I enjoy Archaeological objects. especially those which include text. So I became curious when  I read a notice of a major exhibition from the British Museum planned to travel to five major US museums in 2013. The Cyrus Cylinder is a clay cylinder about 10 by 4 inches. But its importance in history far overshadows its small size.


    It is inscribed with 45 lines of cuneiform script. These words are a message from the new ruler and King of Babylonia, Cyrus the Great. He begins by trash talking the previous guy and then goes on to tell us how great he is. Do things ever change? But the significance of the text is that it seems to encourage freedom of worship and allowed deported people to return to their countries.

     Cyrus lead a successful multicultural and multi-faith society for about 30 years  His empire stretched form Asia Minor in the west to the Northwestern areas of India in the east. Which has me wondering, just how does one conquer all that land and keep a glowing reputation for 2600 years? 

     The practice of religious tolerance by Cyrus, and by projection,  this clay chunk, although it may not say it outright,  have made the Cyrus Cylinder famous. It is often referred to as the first bill of human rights.  The United Nations has a replica of the clay text. Thomas Jefferson read Cyrus and it is said that it influenced his input to the writing of the Constitution, and Cyrus is mentioned 23 times in the Old Testament. That is what holds the fascination for me, as Neil MacGregor says in his TED talk, our objects have lives beyond ours.
Click for tour dates
Click here For a TED talk

Juried into Audubon Artists Inc.Exhibition 2012

Archeology Fragment #14 Enso. 54 x 48" Kevan Lunney

Award!
Fragment #14 has been awarded the Marquis Who's Who References Award for Collage and Mixed Media. I will receive two publications worth $600.

Archeology Fragment #14, Enso has

 been selected for the annual Online exhibit at The Audubon Artists Inc website. Entered into the mixed media category, it joins 34 other works.

You can visit the page here

More about Audubon Artists, Inc. here.

Early Man Makes Tools as Precursor to Language, and application to art

A million years of producing stone tools may have established the neural pathways necessary for language. One and a half million years ago the Ascheulean hand ax was the I-Phone of its day. The mental skills required for its development like  learning the material qualities, and predicting the outcome of certain strikes upon its surface and more, provided the same complex, sequential thoughts towards an end that are necessary for language development.  As it turns out tool making and language are accomplished in the same area of the brain. ( Link to program What Makes Us Human, 10/10/12)

Richard Serra, Junction   

Richard Serra, the prominent sculptor of magnificent environments  made of gargantuan, rusted, steel plates, says in his  interview with Charlie Rose, that he creates his own tools. He was using a paint stick that had a wrapper that took considerable time to peel as he worked.  It took so much time and made him so frustrated that he  named the piece "Abstract Slavery". His solution was to take many paint sticks and melt them down into loaf pans to create a brick that he could draw with using both hands. Drawing is a practice that is very important to Serra to keep him loose and disciplined.




He says that the artists he finds most interesting make their own tools and procedures. siting (Jasper) Johns' stencils and Pollacks drips, Seurat's (Conte') Crayons. "You're not going to build art out of the art store. You have to invent your own tools and your own procedures."

When I heard these two things just weeks apart I thought about the comparison of ancient man developing tools to build language development  and contemporary artists creating tools which aid to creative language. So I believe that by developing your own tools and processes you are also developing your own art language. It is your own vocabulary. It is the realization of the definition of creativity, using things that exist to make things and ideas that did not previously exist.

Archeology experimentation. Wash test. The batting shreds!

I am often asked, what is the gold that you use on your work? How do you get it to stick? Where are the stitches in your work? Is that sewing? The answers to these questions are my own tools, my own art language. The tools, materials and processes used in my first  Archeology pieces took  three months  to develop.
 The creative process takes time and it requires experimentation. I make samples, keep notes, buy new products, and try old ones.
During the creative process, when I have an idea for something that I do not know how to make, I will record a note of the idea. I do not let it go. I may be stuck because I do not see the solution then, but in working it out one will come. Sometimes many new ideas come as a result of the exploration of this one original problem.

This is the meaning of thinking outside the box. When you get to a wall, choose not to see the wall. It reminds me of a story about a fly who is trying to fly outside but continually flies into the glass. Defeated he lands on the window sill, just in front of the open window. Do you sit there on the sill in front of the solution or do you try new ones?
I encourage you to develop your own tools, and at the same time develop your own art language.

Why Innovation Matters

What a nice surprise to open my Aug/Sept 2012 issue of American Craft magazine and see my work pictured there! Just click on the link above and you can read the article too!

Archeology Fragment #15 Enso Compassion 2011, 56 x 45"  

"Why Innovation Matters" is an interview by Monica Moses, editor in chief, with David Revere McFadden, one of the jurors of the Art Quilt Elements exhibition at the Wayne Art Center, and curator at the Museum of Art and design in NYC. This show was part of  Philadelphia's city wide event called Fiber Philly held bi-annually.

My work titled Archeology Fragment #15, Enso Compassion was juried into the show, and  received a Surface Design Award from the Surface Design Association. 

It joins two other award winners in the same article, Dianne Firth's Red Stones #2 which received the juror's choice award and Memories of Gombe by Mary Pal which received the Heartstrings Award. 
This piece was purchased at the show; three wonderful surprises!

A note from Toronto,

How cool is this? So nice to get feedback that someone is seeing my sketchbook.

Hello!

We just wanted to let you know that Theresa F. just viewed your sketchbook (#S433) at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, ON!

Your book has been viewed 3 times so far.

Sincerely,
The Brooklyn Art Library Librarian

The Sketchbook Project

Reflections, Shadows, and Atmosphere

Kevan Lunney speaking about Reflections 6 by Ginny Abrams 44 x 57"

Depicting what isn't there is the subject of several pieces from artists in Fiber Revolution.   In my recent gallery talk at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance in Narrowsburg, NY I pointed out that in Ginny Abrams work, Reflections 6 we see the reflection of the thing in the  water, not the thing itself. In Cindy Friedman's work, The Couple, we see  shadows of the subjects. The four panels can be arranged in numerous ways, each one giving a fresh meaning to the couple's journey together.

Cindy Friedman's, The Couple, each panel  20 x 15"

In Wen Redmond's piece , below right,  Shaking the Tree of Imagination, the image is integrated into layers of sheers and further fragmented by its division into 9 parts.
 Lisa Chipetine literally has our awareness forcefully trying to stare through  foggy  layers of complexity. Her work is titled Things That Make You Go OM. 

Please visit Fiber Revolution.com to see the work of
its 25 members, and visit the links above in blue to see clearer photos of the artists work.
These are all works in fabric, which are  layered and stitched, the true appreciation of which can only be understood in person.

Thought for the Day

Creation, and creativity, 
growth and  growing up, is a continual dance;
 moving between the innovative and frightening and 
coming home to the familiar and nourishing. 
Kevan