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Abstract art—more than meets the eye
March 2, 2011
My interest in acrylic goes way back to my old airline days, a mere couple of decades then after the introduction of this new medium. But painting impressionistic abstract was a more recent foray for me. I would paint not so much a scene, as an idea. Surmounting the caution, engaging the energy—all are catalyst for the creative transformation, a journey of mind. Once dared the audacious strokes and intensity on the canvas, overcoming restraints, life begins to evolve. In my recent painting, Dawn Break,* my intent was not for a bucolic scenery of painterly flora, but the more edgy essence of overpowering angst—the vigor of shining light tearing away the cold dark of night, the straining outgrowth of new leaf heralding a symbolic renewal. A vision of promise, the searing birth of a new day.
* “Dawn Break” (© Ed Passi, 2011) was a commissioned art painting and now hangs on a wall of a Southern California medical clinic.
Art Casualties of 9/11
February 20, 2011
Along with the tragic loss of lives in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack was also the sad loss of timeless works of art. This included the James Rosati’s Ideogram stainless steel sculpture, the World Trade Center Tapestry by Joan Miró, Auguste Rodin’s 300 sculptures and drawings of the Cantor Fitzgerald collection, 40,000 negatives of Jacques Lowe photographs documenting John Kennedy’s presidency, among others. It is once more a grim reminder of the destructiveness of wars and turmoils that had marked the fragile history of civilization. Creative toil and lifetime endeavor die as well.
Evancho: Music to the Soul
August 10, 2010
With memories of my father cascading back three years after losing him, watching 10-year old Jackie Evancho’s spellbinding rendition of the haunting melody of the 1918 soprano aria, O Mio Babbino Caro (Oh My Dear Father) literally moved me to tears. Ironically, it’s a story of tension between father and child behind the aria. But beyond just the person’s singing—it’s the singing and the person that expressed the music here. Jackie’s raw innocence and movingly expressive delivery are a stark departure from the usual show business routine that is the stuff of popular culture performers. She touches the soul with a presence that connects in a most captivating way. In the landscape of contemporary media and entertainment that pummels us relentlessly with egocentric sensationalism and hallow ostentation, we are blessed with a gift of a talent that restores substance to spirit. The voice, phrasing, and dynamics seamlessly fused into a superbly nuanced performance. Puccini’s music never sounded more deeply uplifting.
Cuture Shock of New Media
August 5, 2010
The creative arts in multifaceted forms are ingrained in the language of persuasion which drives modern society—in commerce, politics, entertainment, even science and education. It’s in every imagery, color, texture, and design of our man-made environment—an inherent persuasive social force. But the creative arts also suffer profound transformation over time, and it’s never been more fused with the accelerated advances in technology than we’re seeing today. When these two worlds collide, the shock jolts art perception and culture exponentially. Suddenly, the media is a vicarious abstract. The tactile experience is shattered. We are catapulted to a visualized realm. The language is transformed as is the experience. Yet the creative arts shine through intact. Though the medium may have morphed into different form and substance—for better or for worse—the artist still wields the conceptualizing, statement-making, imagining brush that brands the defining stroke of genius in the image creation. What really changed was our expanded options of which light to shine with on the image we’re viewing, or creating—a culture-rending leap.
Greeting card art—lost for words
August 1, 2010
Receiving a meaningful greeting card nowadays is well worth treasuring. It may well be the lost art of a vanishing rare gem. Time was when eager anticipation met with hope that a valued token of friendship would find its way into your mailbox, your own name personally handwritten by the sender who took the time to count you in among those special enough to share his thoughts with even just for that one time of the year. The experience is no more—demeaned, to put it kindly. All too often, after a year of absence, all you’d hear from someone is in a formalized gesture of a card—personable enough if you’re lucky—that may not even have your name in it. The once heartwarming tradition has been reduced to a cheap version of a booksigning ritual, only worse—the keepsake is as diminished as the magic. Businesses may put an extra effort in “personalizing” their greeting cards—theirs is a unique challenge to come across as “warm” and “caring” to their customers. Sometimes, just making their list is enough to elicit good rapport. It’s how they communicate the message that too often unmasks an overriding scheme. You don’t send a “Happy Holiday” card to a friend and then note, “you still got time for our wide selection of gifts!” or a “Get Well” card and then add, “don’t forget your donation to help others also sick!” It misses by a wide mark the spirit of the act and makes you wonder about the sensibilities of the source. It still stirs up that warm feeling opening truly personal cards kept over the years—like revisiting a long-lost friend. The words reach out—fine threads that bind our community of kinship. When all’s said and delivered, that really is what it’s about.
Travel in time
at 500 ft above sea level
March 27, 2010
Even Leonardo Da Vinci would have found it exhilarating soaring up above on man-made wings he once envisioned. I watched with fascination as a kid those flying machines roar across the tropic skies of the old country, and being able to see the view this time from the seat of one such aircraft was my closest to reliving history. Some 17,000 of the warbird legend, AT-6 dotted the dark skies of both theaters of World War II, helping win history’s bloodiest conflict. A training workhorse for fighter pilots worldwide, it was also adapted as dive bomber and for reconnaissance, among various other missions. The Americans loved it as the Texan or SNJ4, the British labeled it the Harvard, and Australians, the Wirraway. Long after the war, the South African military even used it during their early guerilla wars and against Mozambique incursions. Today, generations later, the scattered ghost fleet still flies in various capacities in remote corners of the world. And being able to finally be onboard one still aloft was an experience—Rob, you’re right, I can still sniff that unique sort of oil/gas/tin perfume smell from ye olde radial engine, still hear those quaint round aircraft dials speak to me—sweet analog moments!
Lessons Teaching
Had Taught Me
March 12, 2010
Teaching is in itself an education and an art. Anybody who tells you he had already learned everything is lying. That is the first lesson teaching teaches the teacher. Having knowledge is one thing, imparting it is another—lesson two. You don’t adopt a creative skill, you nurture it—the hardest lesson of all. It’s also the toughest challenge for any teacher—and student. The only effective starting point in learning is a mindset one can work with. Leave that wanting and it’s already a daunting handicap to struggle with. It’s also the most valuable lesson I had come to terms with as a teacher—and as a learner. Teaching, as someone once wisely counseled, is learning twice. It’s a paradox in transformation. Indeed when you heed a good teacher or mentor—you change the world.
Birthday musings
March 10, 2010
I’ve pondered which of what we count today as truth would be reconsidered over time as part mystery, mythology, symbolism, or even just plain misconstrued art. Yet even if I’d known I would live this long, I would’ve still rushed my life through all the changes. Mistakes are more the stepping stones than the stumbling blocks. I find more regrets in things I didn’t do soon enough than in those I did too soon. Birthdays are bite-sized lifetimes—chunks of our formalized compartmentalization of time, as we cross through what Einstein dubbed the fourth dimension. I have two birthdays—one when I came into this world and the other when I came into my own. Not only was our world different in our past—we also saw it differently then. And the past grows on us over every birthday—makes the present a gift, the future a promise. Over the years, birthdays have become the window of time from where I could relish a refreshing view of life’s great adventure.
Days of Friendship
January 3, 2010
Friendship, once nurtured and ingrained, is like a timeless work of art. It had taken me half a century and more than seven thousand miles to face up to the startling fact that friendship does incredibly break through the barriers of time and space. My reunion halfway across the planet with friends and schoolmates which links went as far back as distant childhood was straight from fiction, and it hit me how friendship, too often the underrated factor, so much impacted our life in a more far-reaching way than openly acknowledged. It was indeed fitting in 1935, when the US Congress officially proclaimed the first Sunday of August as the National Friendship Day. The noble idea of honoring the beautiful relationship of friendship had caught on since, with popular following in other countries, including India, among many others. The tradition of dedicating a day to friends was a grand celebration and rightly so. Friendship is like second family, to some folks the family. Undeniably, even the best of lives is made yet fuller with friendship, and wanting without.
Kaffeeklatsch
January 1, 2010
You have just visited the newly evolved microblog from my now streamlined site. It’s in a free-form kaffeeklatsch (coffee chat) format on just about any impromptu human-interest subject under the sun, with bits of micro-anecdotes thrown in occasionally. This is the page that will be updated periodically, like a virtual café for connecting with and expanding friendships and community. You are still welcome to join in our real-life kaffeeklatsch on certain weekend mornings, a refreshing break from the busy world out there. Way of cultivating new ideas as well as revisiting life-changing moments.
~Ed