Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

 I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

 The wise musicians are those who play what they can master. 

Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong & Diahann Carroll, Paris, France, 1960

 Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.

Duke and Louis

 Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.

 
 Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

Duke, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus

John Muir (April 21, 1838 – Dec 24, 1914)

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

 

how to talk to yourself

Diana Ross, born March 26, 1944

Baby, baby, where did our love go?
Happy  birthday to Diana Ernestine Earle Ross

reassuring

beyond the mind

so that’s how it works

I am feeling reversible

Film & Forum with Dorothy Tanner at the Museum of Outdoor Arts

https://player.vimeo.com/video/205710966

Documentary produced by Cynthia Madden Leitner, MOA Executive Director & President
Film by Heather Longway Photography

Presented Saturday, February 25th at 1:00 pm
Introduction by Todd Siler
Dorothy Tanner and their light-based artwork, known as “Lumonics”, spanning over 40-years. Following the film, Dorothy Tanner joined MOA Executive Director & President, Cynthia Madden Leitner and Todd Siler, artist/educator, on stage for a forum discussion about her and her late husband’s artistic journey. A reception with light refreshments in the gallery followed.

Robert Irwin, born Sept 12, 1928

Robert Irwin in the studio working on an early line painting, 1962

To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perceptions. 


Whenever you look at light, basically it's just air. It has no tactileness to it. It's totally without density. 


If you wanted to watch me work, it would be totally boring. It would look like a Warhol film where nothing happens. I sit for 24 hours, then I scratch myself. 

If I hold up a red square for 30 seconds and take it away, you will see a perfect green square. It's how the eye works. So if you want to paint a really good red painting, you have to strategically place in some green, so the eye is brought back. 


The whole thrust of modern art, as far as I understand it, is expanding the role of the artist as a kind of esthetician, someone who actually spends his time, is trained in a way to deal with qualities. 

 Robert Irwin, Tergal voile, fluorescent bulbs, and framing materials (2015)

Installation view of Robert Irwin:
Scrim Veil-Black Rectangle-Natural Light, Whitney

 Robert Irwin (b. 1928), 115 fluorescent lights (2007)