THIS IS WHAT I WAS REALLY TRYING TO DO WITH THE EDS. MAKE IT REALLY ARTSY FARTSY. SISSY LIKE. I'M TRYING TO REALLY SHOW A SOFTER SIDE TO MY TORTURED SOUL. SOME MAY SAY MY FEMININE SIDE. WE NEED TO TAKE BACK THE FUTURE.

To Tim Gray: You say: Maybe the best action to take would be to stop watching rubbish and make our own stuff. Me: Yes indeed, and I even would go as far as saying that these two actions are complementary. You know the old saying: “Rubbish in, rubbish out!” ;-)

Again an interesting article, yes animation has been destroyed as an art form by the entertainment industry in America. It takes no risks and its agenda remains conservative and right wing in nature. And this format pulls in the crowds, perhaps the viewer has always been passive it is just the artists who demand engagement. The danger we all face as artists and animators is that popular culture now swamps our everyday lives to the point that all other messages are rendered invisible. But has the entertain industry in america ever been a beckon for artistic values. I would say no, the true works of art remain while the rubbish fades rather rapidly from view. Perhaps it is the 500 TV channels we can now pick from and the multi-screen cinemas that help to drown this alternative message. Maybe the best action to take would be to stop watching rubbish and make our own stuff.

To Dale Mc Farlane You say: “your statment about "drawing without knowing" hit me as ...EXACTLY what ...I am doing! but i do not "draw" and am not "DRAWING" anything when i make cartoon characters! “ Me: Dale, interesting stuff you’ve got there, and not all that far from the work of many other artists. Sure, you are not “drawing” those stones, but you are definitely “drawing them out.” Just as Duchamp did with his “objets trouvés” (“ready-made”), you are noticing them, bringing them out of the “undifferentiated.” That alone is a big chunk of what constitutes a work of art, but in my book, if it is a good beginning, it is only a beginning. You: i'm "teaching" my new concept..person-by person,and knowing ..full-well that i don"t stand a CHANCE...against the "big toon goons" who are willing to crush anything ...NEW, so they can continue their cash machine,with animation like you are "blasting"! good luck, Me: Dale, you are not as alone as you may think you are, many people are (and have been) doing work that is probing the mystery that life is, the mystery that we are to ourselves, work that is therefore not controlled by a commercial agenda. In a previous reply, I mentioned “Sensitive Chaos” by Theodor Schwenk. Go look it up, you will see how well he shows how water and air create flowing shapes (just like they created those shapes you/we see in rocks and clouds and trees and more). So of course is “our” work “created,” and so are we.. Now, we can “go with the flow” or work against it, but at all times, willy-nilly, “it” is that which “it” is making itself to be, through us (as us?). Don't stop there, you haven't reached "rock bottom" yet! ;-)

jean d.,your writings about animation trash, done by the american "toon-goons", big five , and their ability to monopolize the animation concepts are profoundly..."RIGHT-ON!" your statment about "drawing without knowing" hit me as ...EXACTLY what ...I am doing! but i do not "draw" and am not "DRAWING" anything when i make cartoon characters! even with all this new-found reflection on what ..YOU-jean consider deserving -art which should be recognized, and awarded the film festival top honors, instead of all the american redundant simplistics-out there, seems to be a futile attempt at changing the worlds idea fo what animation needs to be? i actually discovered a NEW way to create cartoon characters,similar to what (you-jean) are talking about, yet until now you have NEVER heard-seen my new concept! and you may never see my new concept...because ov the very items you are complaning -writing about;which i see as the commercial-profit motive, verses the art-for-art"s sake. my basic point is; with all the art history and conceptual expertise you posses-jean and that is considerable, you...still have not seen "it-all" when it comes to art concepts! the REASON you -also will never see "IT-ALL" is right here in the good-ol U S A!ti involves companies like ENRON and their executive who can only see the "quikie" style of making money...from animation - they want a sure-thing,instant results-like our fast-food industry,which is in every country in the world. i admire your willingness to attack such a subject, but you have only revealed the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes big business and their..INVASION of animation-cartoons. i'm "teaching" my new concept..person-by person,and knowing ..full-well that i don"t stand a CHANCE...against the "big toon goons" who are willing to crush anything ...NEW, so they can continue their cash machine,with animation like you are "blasting"! good luck, dawk www.stoneclones.com

To John Penner: You say: i agree with your comment that 'there is something universal in our particular interest and experience' -- BUT that's the problem of the artist as an individual isn't it? to transcend what is merely personal, and dwell-in and express this universally humane experience. that is what all the greatest artists do Me: John, not trying to pick on what you are saying here, far from it, but I do not agree with you on this simple thing: there is to me nothing that is “merely personal,” just as there is nothing that is “merely subjective.” Either there is transcendence in immanence (the universal in the particular), and seeing it, we therefore act accordingly, or there isn’t, and may god help us then! The lack of perception of and belief in transcendence in immanence is the root cause of “life is a bitch and then you die!” Trying to pick and choose and say that “some particulars are more universal than others” is to start the whole damn rat race all over again, it is introducing in the act of artistic creation (if not in life in general) an obligation to pick and choose which is utterly at odds with that act, an act that is after all an form of surrendering, a suspension of judgement and of disbelief. This is why I also have an ax to grind with most art schools and their approach to “teaching art” (how dare we even say that?) and to teaching drawing in particular (this will likely be at the heart of the forthcoming part #3). While we ought to learn, by practise, how to surrender to that which wants to realize itself through us, we most often learn how to snuff it out and instead impose our will on the putative work of art, killing it. You also say: but not all artists have striven or attained to that level yet, and then as you say... 'it is only the quality of the form of the work'. who is to be the determinant of 'what is good?'. Me: I’m with you here too, so I may be preaching to the converted, but here goes anyway: it is utterly useless to involve our idea(s) of the others’ response to our work when making the work. We already have a mind that is like a beehive, almost completely crowded by noisy chatter, adding our idea of the others’ chatter to that noise is really asking, and often getting, serious problems. I feel we need to do what we sense is needed, “doing the best we can while following our intuition” (“a path with a heart” as Castañeda’s Don Juan would have said), and if that is not good enough by societal standards, who cares? We can't do better than out best! ("You want to paint the perfect painting? That's easy! Make yourself perfect and 'just' paint naturally!") If we find/create the very best we can and offer/share it with others, then, “the rest isn’t our business” (as T.S. Eliot said so very well). Face it, the artist’s world has been invaded by the merchant’s values, most of the things we do now are either under the control of commerce, or had to be wrestled from its agenda (even that seems to become harder and harder to do). The real bottom-line is the one that finds/gives meaning to our life, especially at the moment of our death. You: i believe there is an inherent common-life of BEING which guides our intuitions towards 'becoming the most what humanity can be'. when there is movement towards this, i think people can feel it if they have developed a senstivitity for it. when someone helps another person out, has done something right, put themselves on the line for something right, people respect that; and if its not genuine, people sense that too. but that's just me. i've met other people that share it too, including you. and i think it is only in the striving that we attain. Me: Yes again, you obviously have been in waters I swim in often. You: currently, what gets funded is determined by marketing. i think, funding should be determined by peer-review of other artists. that determines what gets funding and gets made available to the public for them to choose from for listening. if you fund a common-pool for artists, from which percentages get allocated through peer-review and MERIT instead of Marketing. Me: You may have something there, but personally, I am much too much of a lone-wolf to even want to consider entering a system like that. I find that my efforts may be more “useful” if they are turned towards myself in the sense of “working on my self” (whatever that means). Gurdjieff’s “Conscious work and intentional suffering” have gained meaning for me over the years, and none of what that implies can be applied, in my understanding, to “working on others.” Too many of us right now are too busy working on too many of us (if that makes any sense). You: the only way i know of starting a movement towards such a world, is through SOCIAL THREEFOLDING: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/Steiner-Social.html otherwise, everything will tend towards 'the lowest price is the law', and if all decisions are made based only on this Lowest-Tier of *Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs* -- then the non-material needs of humans above this will become progressively sucked-out and shrivelled up in culture as a whole. Me: Steiner’s ideas were great, but as long as they are applied from the top down, they’ll just become yet another structure against which we will be right in rebelling. One of my favorite books (goes back a long way for me) is by someone who was close to Steiner, Theodor Schwenk. His “Sensitive Chaos” is a gentle way of helping us "see" that there is much more to the world than we (think) we understand, and I have found it to be very conducive to trusting a certain “other” in me when it is time to really get drawing (beyond all the tricks and recipes I could not help learn, tricks and recipes I need to drop the use of if my work is to ever get started). I do believe that we are in the midst of a huge struggle between Having and Being, and that for now the pendulum is on the side of Having. Very dangerous!

dear jean -- in response to Message #11: when i say 'the problem is how to keep the individual artistic initiative from becoming wrapped up in their own world without being relevant to the public which they serve...' -- then i agree with your comment that 'there is something universal in our particular interest and experience' -- BUT that's the probelm of the artist as an individual isn't it? to transcend what is merely personal, and dwell-in and express this universally humane experience. that is what all the greatest artists do; and when they accomplish it, then i would certainly not give 'too little value' to those accomplishments at all! but not all artists have striven or attained to that level yet, and then as you say... 'it is only the quality of the form of the work'. who is to be the determinant of 'what is good?'. i believe there is an inherent common-life of BEING which guides our intuitions towards 'becoming the most what humanity can be'. when there is movement towards this, i think people can feel it if they have developed a senstivitity for it. when someone helps another person out, has done something right, put themselves on the line for something right, people respect that; and if its not genuine, people sense that too. but that's just me. i've met other people that share it too, including you. and i think it is only in the striving that we attain. currently, what gets funded is determined by marketing. i think, funding should be determined by peer-review of other artists. that determines what gets funding and gets made available to the public for them to choose from for listening. if you fund a common-pool for artists, from which percentages get allocated through peer-review and MERIT instead of Marketing. the only way i know of starting a movement towards such a world, is through SOCIAL THREEFOLDING: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/Steiner-Social.html otherwise, everything will tend towards 'the lowest price is the law', and if all decisions are made based only on this Lowest-Tier of *Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs* -- then the non-material needs of humans above this will become progressively sucked-out and shrivelled up in culture as a whole. surgite! john penner.

To Chris Lanier You say: I'd say again, you have many good points, but have somewhat undermined yourself by painting with too broad a brush (not neccessarily fatal on a canvas, but in rhetoric, it's a kind of sin). Are you trying to out-Godard Godard? His brand of anti-Americanism is the sort that makes me ashamed to be an anti-American. Me: You should be ashamed of being ashamed of being an anti-American! This is tongue-in-cheek as well, but there is some truth to the expression that, replying to “My country, right or wrong” says: “My country, when right, kept right. When wrong, made right!” My approach is indeed broad, and this for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I am not a writer. One very interesting thing worth noting: the comments made publicly her are less than half of all the comments I have received. Most of the supportive comments are from Europe, almost all the negative ones are from North America! I find that fascinating. You: while I'd agree that the big "culture industry" in America is a generally detrimental influence in world culture, America has also produced some of the most vibrant culture the world has seen. Me: I totally agree with you here, most of my heroes in painting are American, with the exception of my favorite artist being Alberto Giacometti. You: Your choice of "Amelie" as an exemplar of non-hollywood film-making has already been greeted with a certain amount of puzzlement (I haven't seen it yet, so I can't offer my own opinion, but it was widely criticized in the US as being too treacly and sentimental, afflicted with a need to be adored. Me: I ain't backing down on this one, something in that movie is moving me so very deeply, and not just sentimentally (though I was a sucker for “An American in Paris” and even “West Side Story” thought this latter one did not fare a well for me in time as the former did). Amélie seems tot talk to me in such a strange way, the first time I saw it was as if I had already seen it, but not in any cliché predictable way, more as if the mind of the director and mine were on a similar “plane.” As I said earlier, only “8 1/2” managed to do that to me in the world of movies so far. You: But it should also be pointed out that the reason it lost the Oscar for best foreign film (and does anyone thinks the Oscars get anything right more than 5% of the time anyway?), is because the Croatian film "No Man's Land" won -- again, I haven't seen this film yet (though I intend to), but its win over "Amelie" was a surprise, as it's considered a far less "audience-pleasing" film -- it's a black comedy that delves into the absurdity of the Balkan conflict, and by most accounts it's very tough-minded, sharp, and uncompromising -- that is to say, the opposite of what gets pegged as "Hollywood fare." Me: I am not sure I agree with this here, it seems to me that the darkness of “No Man’s Land” fits better in the American Weltanschauung then the light of Amélie. I have only seen excerpts from “No Man’s Land” so far so I can’t say much more about it either. You: That said, it's surprising how violently some people have reacted to what you've said Me: I was rather surprised too! Me: In parting, I'll say you also have to acquaint yourself with some Japanese animation (and here again, you come off somewhat high-handed, while at the same time you admit you know very little on the subject!). There, especially in the work of Studio Ghibli, I think you'll find plenty of narrative animation that's quite open to those touches of "poetry." Me: Given a chance, I sure will do that, outside of the Ottawa festivals, there is very little else I have access to in my area (could be a hell of a lot worse!).. You: There's more to say -- I think you're quite right that much animation follows the idea of a literary "story" to its detriment, giving up its more natural storytelling domain, that of the visual (the logic of the text as opposed to the logic of the eye). Me: Exactly! And you have a key to my “position” here, not being an animator (in the story-telling-character-animation sense) nor a film maker (in any sense), my approach to this is, above all, focused on the visual! Not to rub it in, but visually, most work of animation is pathetic! You: Anyway, looking forward to seeing you develop your argument -- hopefully with some better-chosen examples next time... Me: Next time should be very mellow and even boring, it will be all about drawing, without knowing! You: Thanks for taking the time to reply to so many comments, too -- AWN should pay you double for the articles they publish, since you usually end up writing just as much on the "comments" board. Me: Heather, do you copy that?

To Corey Bean You say: I say put you dukes up! Show us what you've got! Me: Corey, on my three web sites alone I’ve got in excess of 350 MB of material available for public viewing (there’s even more stuff than that, put not made available yet), clips and still images and more. On top of that, there’s what is available in the AWN Showcase, and on several other sites, including museums’. It’s perfectly all right to not like what I am showing, but don’t act as if I did not have anything to show! I always put my work where my mouth is, even if at times, I have to remove my foot first!

I used to complain a lot about the state of animation, music, movies, blah... Then one day my brother said something to me: "Instead of complaining, why don't you just create something better?" He's got a point. I say put you dukes up! Show us what you've got! There's way too much whining going on and not enough animating. And on that note: I don't think painters should speak so loud on animation; indeed it's all the "outsiders" (say the moneymen...) who are causing a lot of animations current problems. I also think that using a non-animated film as your main example is a little off base. And-! Go to France, turn on the television, and tell me what kind of cartoons you see... well? All I can say is I'm tired of everyone trying to talk hardcore. Put up a animated film that moves me and then talk. I'm not defending the sad state of animation (and not just in America...) I'm just saying that I'd rather watch good films than complain (or listen to someone complain) about bad ones.