Tag Archives: Christopher Agostino’s Transformations

Dinocritters and Dragons: Sculptures by John Fink — Exhibit

Our Dinocritter

We are the proud owners of a Dinocritter made by John Fink. Here he is, staring at us from his shelf with a quizzical look, as if he wonders how he got into our world. Also apt is John’s alternate name for his ceramic creations, “Far-Fetched Dragons”, for they often find themselves in larger, playful constructions—so playful that I found myself laughing out loud at his exhibit in Gallery West at Suffolk Community College, Brentwood. Maybe our critter got here “Through the Portal” with the help of the Scientist Critter operating the bizarro device. Maybe he came as a little egg on the “Maternity Express”, guarded by a fiercely grimacing dragon. It is the expressions and individual identities he gives to each of these critters that makes a room full of them so fun to explore—a gallery full of John Fink’s playful sculptures is a really fun exhibit. Article on the exhibit.

Maternity Express

Maternity Express - detail

The joy John brings to the creative process is also why I keep returning to take his classes over the years. From John’s article Creative Thinking: “…creative strength is found through ‘weakness,’ not by being egotistically confident in your abilities, but to come innocently to work as would a child. To accept vulnerability as strength, rather than a weakness.” An important understand for any artist, and particularly appropriate for those of us who play with clay.   Continue reading →

Derrick Little — Shield Your Heart — Body Paintings for Deva

"Candle" by Derrick Little

If you are a facepainter and you never got a chance to meet Deva, you have really missed something special. Deva Prem was one of the first people to befriend me at the FABAIC convention when I felt like a stranger in a strange land, introducing herself to me as “Glitterbug” from New York (her facepainting name), and making me feel like I belonged. I can’t imagine a more supportive and enthusiastic  person about this art that we do. Our community lost a loving, shining star with the passing of Deva, one year ago this month. Her very good friend Derrick Little often organized efforts to help her deal with the financial burden of her treatments for breast cancer.

"Angel" by Derrick Little

Derrick is a remarkable artist and one of the most successful bodypainters working in New York, and in homage to his friend he has created a series of bodypaintings titled “Shield Your Heart”—and I can not imagine a more fitting tribute to beautiful Deva than this beautiful art created by her friend. His series of 12  paintings is available for purchase as postcards for just $20, with 50% of all sales going to support You Can Thrive. Please go to: http://www.shieldyourheart.org

from Derrick’s site:

“This project is as “grassroots” as it gets. I am not an organization, a non-profit, nor a corporation. I am an artist who has created and self-funded the art presented here and now I offer it as a gift to raise awareness and money for YOU CAN THRIVE, an organization that helps individuals with breast cancer to access holistic care.

My name is Derrick Little. I am a visual artist and body painter. I started this “Shield Your Heart” postcard project with photographer Liz Liguori in October 2010 when my dear friend, Deva Prem, was in treatments for her breast cancer. This project became a method for me to cope with Deva’s death from Breast Cancer on March 22, 2011. For this campaign, I created a body of work that celebrates both the inherent sexuality of the breast/chest and the fact that the breast/chest serves as a physical “shield” over every person’s heart. I’ve painted 12 traditional symbols of strength on 6 male chests and 6 women’s breasts as metaphoric “shields”.  As we approach the one-year anniversary of Deva’s death, I proudly present this body of art in the form of 12 POSTCARDS, available for PURCHASE via DONATION. (With proceeds from every set sold directly benefiting You Can Thrive). I dedicate this art to Deva Prem and every person who has ever been affected by any form of cancer.”

"Knot" by Derrick Little

Derrick has made a remarkable career as a bodypainter in New York, not an easy thing to do. Check out his work: www.BodyArtbyDerrick.com

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Old School Style Magical Realism and Quantum Mechanics

by Christopher Agostino

This week I visited a couple of English classes in our local High School to tell some very old folktales. The students are studying the genre of Magical Realism in literature and film. They’d read authors such as Gabriél Garcia Márquez and seen films like Pan’s Labyrinth. I went a little more old school on them to tell a 1000 year old Japanese Demon tale  to get their attention (having just seen the Storytelling in Japanese Art exhibit I had to tell a demon tale). We discussed the universal belief of ancient human cultures in a spirit world and what we today would call magic, and how, from a storyteller’s perspective, modern authors include such elements in fiction to tap in to this ancestral understanding that the world is more than what it appears to be, using magic (or science fiction, for that matter) as a vehicle to open up the reader to new perceptions about their own lives.

It is an old device. When Homer wrote the Illiad and the Odyssey (the oldest examples of Western literature) he was already writing about a time that was mythic from his perspective, and using mythological stories as conceptual archetypes in the way a modern Magical Realist might. As a young actor I was in a version of The Odyssey that might be termed “Realist Magicalism” because it reframed the myth as psychodrama, making it the inner psychological journey of Odysseus from adolescence (reckless hero) to maturity (responsible husband) a la Joseph Campbell’s interpretations of hero tales via Freudian (or perhaps more accurately Jungian?) psychology. Continue reading →