Hemoglobin

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Reprint: Hemoglobin

Roughly eight billion years ago a star exploded, casting into space the iron its engine produced, continuing the seeding of the cosmos with one of the basic ingredients required for life.

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe (from Latin: ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element (by mass) forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth’s outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth’s crust. Iron’s very common presence in rocky planets like Earth is due to its abundant production as a result of fusion in high-mass stars, where the production of nickel-56 (which decays to the most common isotope of iron) is the last nuclear fusion reaction that is exothermic. This causes radioactive nickel to become the last element to be produced before collapse of a supernova leads to the explosive events that scatter this precursorradionuclide of iron abundantly into space.

Iron is the essential element in hemoglobin, the protein that transports oxygen to burn nutrients that power life in vertebrates.

Hemoglobin (pron.:/hiːməˈɡloʊbɪn/; also spelledhaemoglobin and abbreviated Hb or Hgb) is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates[1] (with the exception of the fish family Channichthyidae[2]) as well as the tissues of some invertebrates. Hemoglobin in the blood carries oxygen from the respiratory organs (lungs or gills) to the rest of the body (i.e. the tissues) where it releases the oxygen to burn nutrients to provide energy to power the functions of the organism, and collects the resultant carbon dioxide to bring it back to the respiratory organs to be dispensed from the organism.

Vertebrates are a form of life on Earth that began 525 million years ago, and here we see a photograph of two vertebrates:  A dirty blonde primate nursing her infant daughter, absorbing the 4 million year old view of the Sierra mountains, while sitting on a 1,200 year old volcano.

This moment of rest and observation lasted about twenty minutes.

 

Triggers

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Farm Irrigators
On my morning run there’s a spot that smells of a cotton field, triggering an intense memory of harvesting cotton on the King Ranch my summer years in high school. Other major associations that have hit me lately: Moth balls and a visit to Wichita Falls in Kindergarten; Plowed weeds and a stint cleaning rotten grain from a massive silo (hell on earth); Pesticides and getting bitched out by a crop duster for running over his hose (which he ran across the road) used to mix his chemicals; brake fluid and the failure of a hydraulic fitting while attaching a disk plow. And, I can’t walk by a flower shop without remembering all the time I spent in my parent’s own flower shop, mostly playing in the fridge room. What a great smell.

Outside

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[NOTICE:  I’m writing this in bed with a fever.  I claim no responsibility for what I write.]

I’m interested in artists who hand me their work on the street, who scare people, whose work is confusing and contradictory, and especially those who redefine our notions of art.  Art works, in and of themselves, are objects, but, for me, it’s my response to those works that makes them art.
Charging the Glandelinian Overlords

Jolene Charging To Battle the Glandelinian Overlords

The photo above reminded me of a conversation which took place about 15 years ago between myself and my friend Jerry.  I’d just met him (we’re still good friends, but don’t talk as much as we should) .  He loved to show me that my definitions, at that time, of social limits, cool, and status quo were all absurd.  He was right, too.  I had no idea what I was talking about.  I still don’t, and that’s what he taught me.  I’m always wrong as there’s always someone out there redefining normal and pushing the limits of what is acceptable.  Plus, Jerry was one of those people.  He’s not happy unless he’s redefining reality.  I find this fascinating and laudable.  The conversation started when I noticed he was carrying around some prints that didn’t quite make sense to me.  They were drawings of little girls with penises in some kind of fantasy world.  Having just met him, I was afraid to ask (which is a weird concept to me now as I’m a totally different person, today I’d just tear into a conversation with just about anyone).

After a week or so, he was still carrying them around.  I asked.  He explained they were the work of Henry Darger.  He also explained how Darger was a misunderstood artist who was institutionalized early in life and people generally misinterpreted his art as a form of pedophilia.  Turns out, Darger was autistic, abused as a child, and his art was an expression of his desire to protect children.  He was harmless.  He was also, quite possibly, one of the greatest artists who’s work is classified as outsider art.

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], “raw art” or “rough art”), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outsides of the established art scene such as insane-asylum inmates and children.[1][2]

While Dubuffet’s term is quite specific, the English term “outsider art” is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

Darger grew on me over those 15 years.  I studied him whenever I saw something that reminded me of his work.  I find I keep going back to it for some reason.

Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. (/ˈdɑrdʒər/; ca. April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois.[1] He has become famous for his posthumously-discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story.[2] Darger’s work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.

I like that he created his work in total solitude.  I don’t know why I find that appealing.  I like that he unknowingly challenged the definition of art.  This led me to ask the question:  What is art?

“Someone dumped a pile of elephant shit in a museum and called it art.  I must live in art.  I’m surrounded by shit all day.”  — Stephanie Sicore when questioned about the work of Damien Hirst.

I remember when Hirst, Saatchi, and the Young British Artists made a stir back in the ’90s.  What I didn’t notice was the Stuckists who responded to Saatchi, conceptual art, and Duchamp.  They published several manifestos about the definition of art.  To me their argument boils down to:  Art is only painting with the product displayed in non-museum settings, without all the ego.  I don’t think art can be restricted to such a narrow definition.  To do so would be to make a subjective value judgement of the response one has to any work presented as art.  While I do not appreciate the work of Hirst (if you can call it his work because he usually isn’t the one actually doing the work), I believe I have no right to say something is or isn’t art.

Who am I to define what is normal, acceptable, or appropriate for another’s response in observation?  Who am I to question the value placed on response by another?   These are things I simply cannot control.  I’d rather relish the diversity and permit my own value response by taking the time to observe whenever I can.