two NYC events

It’s a very busy time here at Art and Words. If you live in the area, I have two events coming up:

1. Sunday, October 20th at 3pm:
Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra concert

St. Ann’s Church
157 Montague Street (corner of Clinton)
Brooklyn, NY 11201

ENESCU – Roumanian Rhapsody #1 in A
BRAHMS (Orch. Schoenberg) – Piano Quartet #1 in g minor, Op. 25

Suggested admission is $15 or pay what you wish. After the concert, there is a free reception for the audience. To learn more or for directions, visit www.brooklynsymphonyorchestra.org.

Some of you might know that I play cello in the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, a community-based orchestra. Founded in 1973, the orchestra, a mix of talented amateur, semi-professional, and sheer joy of the experience. The music for this program is filled with lively, gypsy-inspired melodies — it should be a lot of fun!

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2. Wednesday, October 24th at 7 pm:
Goddess Inspiration Oracle signing

East West Living
(formerly East West Books)
78 Fifth Avenue @ 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212-243-5994

Since it’s been such a busy fall, I have not planned an “official” publication party for the GIO. So this will be the next best thing!

Hope to see some of you at one or both of these events.

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2008 goddess calendar survey results!

Yes, the survey results are in! I will be producing a 2008 Goddess Calendar — thanks to all who took a moment to share their opinions!

The feedback was split almost exactly 50/50 between the 8.5 x 11″ regular edition and the 17 x 11″ deluxe edition of the calendar. Fortunately, since there were so much interest, I’ll be able to offer both versions for purchase.

A few other people suggested a Goddess Datebook. Though I did produce a black and white one a few years ago, I think most people prefer full color datebooks. Unfortunately, production costs would be too high to make a full color datebook financially feasible at this stage. If I can figure out a way to print a datebook more cheaply without sacrificing quality, this is definitely something that will be revisited in the future — maybe next year.

The calendars will go on sale a week from now. If you’d like to be notified when they’re available, please send an e-mail to e-comment at artandwords dot com.

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book deadline update

I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do these days. That’s because I’m smack dab in the middle of the New Book about queens and it feels like just about every one of my brain cells is currently occupied.

Here’s the latest stats:

manuscript deadline: January 2008

word count: about 27,000 words down, probably another 25,000 to go.

queen count: 22 bios written, another 28 to go. On the plus side, I’ve tackled the more complex stories first, such as Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette and Jane Grey — my version of riding a bike up a steep hill, so I can coast down the other side.

So I’m about where I envisioned I’d be in my handy-dandy schedule that I created for this book. The most intense process for this book has been all the research. I haven’t read this much in years! I’d say I’m averaging about 1000 pages a week, maybe more. Right now, I’m reading about Josephine, Napoleon’s empress.

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On the goddess calendar front, thanks to all for your responses! I now have enough information to make an informed decision. I’ll be making an announcement regarding the calendar probably later this week.

(If you haven’t taken the survey yet, I’d still love to hear from you — knowledge is power and all that.)

Technorati Tags: queens, books by kris waldherr, book deadlines

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survey: should I publish a goddess calendar?

Right now, I’m mulling over whether I should publish a goddess calendar for 2008 — and am inviting you to help me decide! I’ve posted a short three question survey here.

The calendar would feature 12 goddesses, with short descriptions of their divine attributes. It would be printed on full color coated stock and have spiral binding. Here’s what the calendar would look like:

For me to go forth and create this calendar, I’d need a minimum of 100 definite sales to make a print run feasible.

I hope you will take a moment to take the survey.

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the naked truth

Remember this? I posted it on a recent blog entry here.

The quote is by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, the eighteenth century German poet-philosopher. Here’s a rough translation of what it says:

“You can not please all with your actions and your art.
Do it right for the few. To please many is bad.”

And here’s the painting it is extracted from. It’s Gustav Klimt’s Nuda Veritas, or the “Naked Truth”.

I seem to remember first encountering Nuda Veritas at the Vienna Secession exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art when I was in art school. Like most Klimt paintings, a four color reproduction can’t really capture its physical beauty — the three dimensionality of the frame, with its hammered metal, the shimmering golds, and the translucent, shimmering coloration of the main figure, with that matter-of-fact serpent twisting around her feet. The painting felt both sacred and profane to me. On one hand, there was something so pure and vulnerable in her glowing intensity. Yet she bears a slightly dangerous edge, in that manner that fin de siecle women bear.

I even pasted a postcard of it on my journal, that’s how much I loved this painting.

And what of its text? At the time, it spoke to my condition (as a Quaker would say). I mean, what better advice for a young artist to have than to be reminded that not everyone is going to like your work. Yet we shouldn’t let that get in the way of doing our best, to try to meet our highest aspirations — “do it right for the few,” in Schiller’s words. It’s part of life: even when we try our hardest, we can’t please everyone. Nor should we want to — though it’s hard to let go of wanting to do so. The desire to be loved and approved is built into our very bones, I think, as is the desire to do good. And for artists it’s especially so. No one wants to feel that they’re working in a bubble, where no one “gets” your work.

Even then, though, I had a hard time with the last sentence of this edict. Is it bad to please many? And why would not pleasing people be a sign of artistic integrity, of quality?

Yeah, there’s crappy artists who have great success — think Thomas Kinkaid (no offense to any fans of the Painter of Light tm). But there are also artists who manage to both please people and make wonderful art. I think of Tim Burton, who combines the best of commercial success with his unique brand of gothic quirk (though some of his films are clearly more successful than others). Or Audrey Niffennigger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, a stunningly original and affecting piece of writing. Even Gustav Klimt — it’s ironic that he produced a painting bearing this quote, yet was one of the most financially successful artists of his era.

I suspect that these examples started out seeking to please themselves, to express their own unique aesthetics. But the power of their art spoke to the masses — to their conditions, if you will. I don’t think their ability to please many lessens the value of their art, or makes them any less successful as artists. It may lead to overexposure. But that’s a different issue.

Yet so often people — Schiller included — equate popular success with losing integrity. And that, even in a painting as stunning as this, invites artists to believe that suffering is something to strive for, that pain is good.

I don’t think it is. And that’s my naked truth.

Technorati Tags: gustav klimt, nuda veritas, schiller, artistic success, artistic integrity

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