I am an Artoholic!

MY NAME IS CHARLES SAATCHI

AND I AM AN ARTOHOLIC

One of the first things I will do when I arrive in London is to go to the Saatchi Gallery. 

The Saatchi Gallery inside the Duke of Yorks HQ, on King´s Road is one of the largest Contemporary art spaces in the world with 70,000 square foot. Until then, I will have to be satisfied by the owners book. In "My name is Charles Saatchi and I am an artoholic" Charles Saatchi has posted questions he has been asked but never wanted to answer before now. With this he hopes that he has given the media what it wants and to please just leave him alone...!

It's a raw, funny, informative and provocative picture of an Art Collector that comes clear after finishing the book. Charles Saatchi, so called the "Super-collector" also managed to snag and collect the fabulous Cooking Goddess Nigella Lawson.

A perfect gift for someone who is usually too busy to read, but love art? It is a quick read and at times quite entertaining.

I will give you some hints here:

" There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artists dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. There´s a squad of conservators out there to look after anything an artist decides is art."

"Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all."

"...once you have bought something that doesn´t fit in your home, and has to be stored in an art depot, you're officially an art collector"

I nearly have to yell at him for this one:

What´s Nigella's cooking really like?

"I´m sure it´s fantastic, but a bit wasted on me. I like toast with Dairylea, followed by Weetabix for supper. It drives her to distraction, frankly, particularly as she gets the blame for my new fat look. But the children love her cooking, and our friends seem to look forward to it."

& This is where I am:

"The more you like art, the more art you like...

the rest is his journey:

....So I find it easy to buy lots of it, and seeing art as an investment would take away all the fun"

With Love 

Kristin

Where the Wild Roses Grow!

NICK CAVE

I am writing about Nick Cave the Artist on my ArtEco blog and I came to remember this Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song. One of my all time favorites, I just had to share it with you:)!!

"Where The Wild Roses Grow"

(feat. Kylie Minogue)

They call me The Wild Rose

But my name was Elisa Day

Why they call me it I do not know

For my name was Elisa Day 

From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one

She stared in my eyes and smiled

For her lips were the colour of the roses

That grew down the river, all bloody and wild 

When he knocked on my door and entered the room

My trembling subsided in his sure embrace

He would be my first man, and with a careful hand

He wiped at the tears that ran down my face 

[Chorus]

On the second day I brought her a flower

She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen

I said, "Do you know where the wild roses grow

So sweet and scarlet and free?" 

On the second day he came with a single red rose

Said: "Will you give me your loss and your sorrow"

I nodded my head, as I lay on the bed

He said, "If I show you the roses, will you follow?" 

[Chorus]

On the third day he took me to the river

He showed me the roses and we kissed

And the last thing I heard was a muttered word

As he knelt (stood smiling) above me with a rock in his fist 

On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow

And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief

And I kissed her goodbye, said, "All beauty must die"

And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth 

[Chorus] 

With Love

Kristin

The Secret Lives of People in Love

Simon Van Booy

An intricate small book filled with short unusual Love stories.

The stories snakes itself around wonderfully sculpted sentences. You can find a new meaning or a new direction in every single sentence or segment.

My favorite short story was "Snow Falls and then Disappears" a story of having a choice of leaving or having already been left.

Some highlights bellow:

"There is a small tear in the couch I never noticed until now; a piece of leather hangs off like a tongue. It is a small rip but has ruined the whole couch and thrown the apartment into disarray. The ashtray is empty and tempts me to smoke again. My lungs ar hollow and long for the return of weight."

"Would you like to wash her face?" The nurse asked.  He turned to his sleeping wife and imagined swishing a wet cloth through the tiny canyons and then across the plains of her cheeks. He felt awkward and his hands turned to wood"

"My grandmother may know that Isabella is not really part of the family, but only I know her real name and her history (which is bleak). No, I would never say anything because everyone in the family (including her) is in love with another."

"He thinks how strange life is with its frayed edges and second chances; and though by morning he will have forgotten that he ever though it, Gerard feels as though he is being followed, that there are voices he can´t hear, that the footsteps of snow on the windown are just that, and like Lucy´s conception - life is a string of guided and subtle explosions."

With that I wish you a day of wonderful small explosions.

With Love 

Kristin

Wedding Poem

I was Running

Running as fast as I could

In the wrong 

direction

When a hand reached out

on a roof in front of a 

Swimming Pool

In New York City

It was a dead end

A good dead end

My heart skipped a beat

Before it ended up on a Tribeca

balcony with wine,

music, Laughter

and the feeling 

of this is so right

This is so right

2 weeks

and my belongings

became your belongings

4 months 

and my body became 

your body

and one more

little man

and then another 

little man

An apartment

turned into a house

A house at the Beach

and then

here we are

Together

Us Two

Us Four

and all of You

to Celebrate

Us Two

In Love

A short life of trouble

Marcia Tucker

"A short life of trouble,

forty years in the new york art world"

(edited by Lisa Lou)

I lived myself into the life of Marcia Tucker like I could meet her tomorrow. Maybe suddenly she would be standing in front of me at an opening in Manhattan, I thought. Then I would not hesitate to tell her how inspiring I thought her book was and how much I actually cried while reading it.

Then I realized Marcia Tucker is not here anymore.... I will never be able to meet her.

Architects:

Seijma & Ryue Nishizawa

SANAA 

Marcia Tucker you could say culminated in the building of the New Museum on Bowery.

After having been fired as an secretary at the MoMA really young with these words:

"why aren't these sharpened" Lieberman asked (after she would not come back to work on a Saturday)

"Because you are not doing it the right way. You stick them up your ass and turn hard, that's what does it"

Broke, daring and not compromising. She went on to assist a portrait painter, and gradually by meeting the right people and throwing herself with passion into the Art World, it lead her to an incredible carrier at the Whitney.

How i wished I could have seen some of the exhibits that she curated. She brought forward artists like Bruce Nauman and Richard Tuttle in the 70's. As a strong feminist Woman of the time, she managed to arrange solo exhibits for Ree Morton, Gladys Nilsson, Nancy Graves, Jane Kaufmann, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell. Thinking this was nearly 40 years ago, it is quite amazing, since still there are still few and far between the female solo shows.

When her exhibitions became to progressive for The Whitney, they fired her. 

But, here comes my favorite part, instead of letting that bring her down. She put the little money she had left about $1,200 and began her adventures with "The New Museum". Building a new Museum from the bottom up.

Although she resigned her position as the Director of the New Museum in 1998 and died in 2006.

There would have never been a "New Museum" as we know it without her daring enthusiasm to start it and bring it forward.

The New Museum is still a progressive place where they give new Artists Solo shows. Like Urs Fischer and Rivane Neuenschwander.

Dear Marcia Tucker! 

I wish I had met you! 

You are one of those that tells us: 

"Yes, You can do it too!"

  

I Hid My Love!

John Clare 

1793 - 1864

Ah those first summers of love:)

I  HID MY LOVE

I hid my love when young till I

Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;

I hid my love to my despite

Till I could not bear to look at light:

I dare not gaze upon her face

But left her memory in each place;

Where'er I saw a wild flower lie

I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,

Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;

The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,

The bee kissed and went singing by,

A sunbeam found a passage here,

A gold chain round her neck so fair;

As secret as the wild bee's song

She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town

Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;

The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,

The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;

And even silence found a tongue,

To haunt me all the summer long;

The riddle nature could not prove 

Was nothing else but secret love.

Unknown Bird

W.S. Merwin

Will be the America´s 17th Poet Laureate

Unknown Bird 

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

Love thou art high!

Emily Dickinson

(1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson was such a fantastic romantic.... would this work as a wedding poem?

LOVE THOU ART HIGH

Love - thou art high -

I cannot climb thee -

But, were it Two -

Who knows but we -

Taking turns - at the Chimborazo -

Ducal  - at last  - stand up by thee -

Love - thou art deep -

I cannot cross thee -

But, were there Two 

Instead of One -

Rower, and yacht - some sovereign summer -

Who knows - but we´d reach the Sun?

Love - thou art Veiled -

A few - behold thee - 

Smile - and alter - and prattle - and die -

Bliss - were an Oddity - without thee -

Nicknamed by God -

Eternity -

I knew a Woman!

Theodore Roethke

(1908-1963)

I knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;

Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:

The shapes a bright container can contain!

Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,

Or English poets who grew up on Greek

(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,

She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;

She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;

I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;

She was the sickle; I poor I, the rake,

Coming behind her for her pretty sake

(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love like a gander, and adores a goose:

Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;

She played it quick, she played it light and loose;

My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;

Her several parts could keep a pure repose,

Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose

(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:

I'm martyr to a motion not my own;

What's freedom for? To know eternity.

I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.

But who count eternity in days?

These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:

(I measure time by how a body sways).

So I live and so I dream

So I live and so I dream

So I hear and so I think

Rich I am 

Imagine

Rich of Life

Imagine

with the Golden Light

and the waves flushing 

up the sand while I

Sink into my womb chair 

or my plateau bed

The golden light 

 imagine

that I am rich

Rich of life

Rich of gift

The one who can give

Give a dream of life

Golden with the sound of

the unknown

An ocean of secrets

to share

So I live and so I dream

So I hear and so I think

I will greet the sun again

Forough Farokhazad One of the most influential female poets from Iran. 1935-1967 I will greet the sun again

I am sending my greetings to the sun, To the tender river that filled my veins, To the raining clouds that carried my long dreams And to the sore aging of poplar trees in the yard: They escorted me in all visits of dried times. I am sending my greetings to the crowd of crows: They always brought me the fresh perfume of nights’ crops. And to my mother who stayed in the mirror, And looked like my aged face. My greetings to the earth, The earth that the thrill of repeating me, was cramming beneath its aroused inside, by green seeds. I will come, I will come, I will arrive. With my curls: the winged scent of the soil With my eyes: the bright insight of the night And I will bring all flowers I picked from the other side of the wall. I will come, I will come, I will arrive. And then the gates will be invaded by love, And there, I will greet everybody who loves. And, I know: There will be a girl, still standing in front of the gates, those soaked gates in the deluge of love… I will greet her again as well.

ah...

ah...

Drinking German beer

and trying to come up with 

the immortal poem at

5 p.m. in the afternoon.

but, ah, I´ve told the

students that the thing 

to do is not to try.

but when the women aren´t

around and the horses aren´t 

running

what else is there to do?

I´ve had a couple of 

sexual fantasies

had lunch out

mailed three letters

been to the grocery store.

nothing on tv.

the telephone is quiet.

I´ve run dental floss

between my teeth.

it won´t rain and I listen

to the early arrivals from the

8 hour day as they

drive in and park their cars

behind the apartment

next door.

I sit drinking German beer

and trying to come up with the

big one

and I´m not going to make it.

I´m just going to keep drinking

more and more German beer

and rolling smokes

and by 11 p.m.

I´ll be spread out

on the unmade bed

face up

asleep under the electric 

light

still waiting on the immortal

poem.

-Charles Bukowski

Ahahahahaha

Welcome home

ahahahahahah

Welcome home

Don´t run

just walk

silently 

up the stairs

and I will

welcome you home

Don´t stare 

don´t smile 

not yet

first I need to 

frighten you a little

Wait for my scream

then wait for my laughter

I can´t help but

play this game

Welcome home

ahahahahaha

I knew you would stay

I knew we could

 laugh ourselves

into the future

Welcome home

ahahahahahaha

- Kristin Hjellegjerde

Dalai Lama in New York!

Picture taken by Elton Melo

The Art of Happiness

A Handbook for Living

by

Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. M.D.

Elizabeth from the great and inspiring Elizabeth Avedon Blog put some gorgeous photos of the Dalai Lama taken by Richard Gere today. This made me inspired to write about "The Art of Happiness" that I read a while back. Dalai Lama will be in N.Y. City the next four days offering teachings and public talks at Radio City Music Hall.

Dalai Lama, the smiling, loving definitively deserving Nobel Prize winner is spreading his happiness, that he is known for in this book. Helping us learn to deal with our worries and to think of happiness as the purpose of life.

Here are some quotes from the book:

"The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness."

"If we utilize our favorable circumstances, such as our good health or wealth, in positive ways, in helping others, they can be contributory factors in achieving a happier life."

"The greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life."

- I am working hard on this one...being calm....

"We don´t need more money, we don´t need greater success or fame, we don´t need the perfect body or even the perfect mate - right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness."

"If you maintain a feeling of compassion, loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate much more easiliy with other people. And that feeling of warmth creates a kind of openness. You´ll find that all human beings are just like you, so you´ll be able to relate to them more easily."

"Everyday as soon as you get up, you can develop a sincere positive motivation, thinking, I will utilize this day in a more positive way. I should not waste this very day. And then, at night before bed, check what you´ve done, asking yourself, Did I utilize this day as i Planned?"

"The turning-toward happiness as a valid goal and the conscious decision to seek happiness in a systematic manner can profoundly change the rest of our lives."

"We need to actively cultivate the antidotes to hatred; patience and tolerance."

Please let me remember this one:

"If there is a solution to the problem, there is no need to worry. If there is no solution, there is no sense of worrying either"

"So if our definition of love is based on a genuine wish for someone´s happiness, then each of us does in fact love himself or herself - every one of us sincerely wishes for his or her own happiness."

As the book opens with.

Dedicated to the Reader:

MAY YOU FIND HAPPINESS.

Love Kristin