Dick Ramsey, Abstract Expressionist Painter.

This guy is kinda cool. (He has hired me to make his blog, see: " I Am Dick Ramsey")

"Homestead" was made especially for the San Francisco Cinematheque, in honor of the physicality of the film surface. On the right are forms related to sprocket holes; the left side has line forms representing a soundtrack. The materials are those of construction: concrete, plaster, paint, nails, and chicken wire, and there is a sculpted form of a reclining woman or mountain range--the land that is mastered by the strong. (30" x 30" on stretched canvas) - Dick Ramsey, 2013

Dick Ramsey starting an Action Painting

Detail of the Finished Action Painting

Artist Statement

Dick Ramsey

I harness the muscularity of materials. The support, canvas, and paint have to be tamed into orderly containment of chaos. I transgress boundaries by molding my canvasses into deeper realms than simple two-dimensional art can reach. Whether by shaping the wet canvas into a body landscape of womanly guile, or using the dynamic structure of thrown, dripped, or wrangled paint streams, I intrepidly pioneer past the surface, continually inverting the alternative universe to sing my song.

Dick Ramsey 

2013

The Finished Painting

Detail from Another Painting in Progress 

 A drawing of one of Dick's students

Study for "Land/Fill," in progress 2013

Study for "Red Star," 2013

"Spot," in progress painting by Dick Ramsey

I like this guy's videos; this one is on repressive tolerance.


 I wish he would be Morton Veritas's son!


This one is about clothing and gender.

Trick photography with free iPhone app: a designer's table setting placed in an arched context to add regional "flavor."

Nova Avon is on a Marketing Tour in Europe. Her interior designer client named Della Dantowski has included a table setting designed by Brenée. See http://nova-notes.blogspot.com/2010/01/two-new-characters.html

Nova Avon is at the Southern France Division of the Rising Sun Institute of Spiritual Cooking.
See /http://risingsuninstitute.blogspot.com/

10 Characters in this Project

Can Marketing Be Punk? Brave New 2.0

I noticed a book called "Punk Marketing" in the library. I try to inform myself about marketing since that is Nova Avon's profession; usually my eyes glaze over after reading one sentence, unless the book is in a "Twitter" format with bits of information not much longer than a text message, and broken up into boxes and other visual compartments. I thought a book called "Punk Marketing" might be easier to focus on.

But isn't the term an oxymoron? Isn't punk all about anarchy and non-consumerism?

Language, language! Punk marketing; Google a silly word for one of the most powerful organisms on the planet; the Cloud is a mass of concrete and wires and is only like a cloud in its actual weight (clouds way tons and tons--they're made of water); Yahoo--a "yahoo" used to be an unsophisticated yokel; Facebook is another massively powerful entity whose name still brings to my mind the image of the little yearbook from my junior high school.

Facebook, the Town Square

Facebook fascinates me. It reminds me of being in school, or a small village where you know or recognize almost everyone.You overhear conversations or notice goings-on with the people around you, whether you are close to them or not. You see their flyers on the bulletin boards, announcements in the local paper.

Yeah yeah yeah privacy, surveillance, and all that. Just remember not to publish your sensitive info just like you'd shred documents with your social security, birthdate, and account numbers on them. Hell, my identity was stolen off tax forms that went missing from the US mail.

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Where are you right now? On the internet or in your skin or both?

Can Marketing Help Homeless Teens?

One March morning on the train to work I chatted with a man who, it turns out, is the manager a San Francisco facility that helps homeless teens. He told me that at last count there were over 5,600 homeless youth on our streets, and the number is growing. He pointed out the disparity between the money spent on the upcoming Americas Cup Yacht race and that spent on helping the homeless. It is the type of issue that my character Morton Veritas would take up, but he lives in Reno, not San Francisco. So I have to figure a way to do it here. I think Morton has a friend here who will do it. He will have an MBA and/or law degree, and use social media marketing strategies to spread the word.

Statistics are a good tool to efficiently convey information to people; with all the information inundating us these days, items have to pop out and into the consciousness of the reader. Information has to elbow its way in front of Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Elizabeth Taylor (RIP), and the same footage of the Japanese tsunami over and over and over again. Yes, the earthquake and devastation in Japan is important, but in general, attention needs to focus here at home a little bit more. Like the pressure of the earth's tectonic plates quietly building under our ground, things are happening under the crust of our media.

Take the Americas Cup Yacht race, for example. I don't read much news, but the last thing I saw was the fellow running the event smiling gleefully in a photo accompanying an article in the SF Examiner about how some businesses along the pier will have to close for [a year or more?]. I couldn't help but wonder how that helps the economy. It seems like you couldn't get more blatant or make it any clearer where the priorities lay, even if you built a giant sculpture of a king with a golden money sign standing upon a platform held up by us lowly commoners.

Can we use the 5th Estate to topple the ruling cla$$ takeover? We are so sheep-led, it's too easy! We bail out banks without an argument while railing against public workers for having retirement plans.

Meet Quince Morgan

I had a request from my friend and ex-therapist to create a man for her. She described physical characteristics, personality traits, and other aspects that she would like; I proposed a few ideas, too. Below are some preliminary pictures of him; I am having trouble getting him to look masculine. (I think perhaps I get better results from making a video clip of me acting, and then pulling stills from it.)

This sequence goes in reverse order to show the process of taking and then altering the photos to form the character.

This is a funny thing my printer did. I will draw over it to masculinize the image.

Links to Quince's photos on Facebook--public--no need to sign up for Facebook:

Quince's summer road trip to Southwest United States

Meet Jerzey Becker

Facebook screen grab of Jerzey Becker, poetry analyst, friend of Morton Veritas, boyfriend of 3rd wave feminist Shelley Gray. Lots of processing and rephotography is needed to change the age, texture, and gender of the character.

He looks a lot like Morton Veritas, which may be ok, for they are friends. As Donna Reese says, longtime friends begin to resemble one another. She also made me laugh by writing that he has worked as Poetry Analyst for Bechtel Corp. (I actually worked there in 1984 as a Cost Engineer..)

Original screen grab of stills from iPhone video of Jerzey Becker. I got in character mentally by feeling like the person I imagine him to be, and trying to be masculine, feeling what it is to be masculine, and adjusting my body so that my neck looks thicker--unfortunately this creates the double chin (which is ok for moslof Folsom but not for this guy). I used black masking tape to make the hair, eyebrows, mustache, and what was supposed to be a cleft in the chin (but looks like a second-chin duster), Adam's apple, and chest hair.

What I looked like one minute after the above (still wearing black masking tape sideburns)
The weird eyes are from me staring into the iPhone screen as I take the picture.

Introducing Morton Veritas

Morton Veritas is a writer and activist. I created him as a mouthpiece for a lot of social and political concerns I have. He will post links to information, books, etc., dealing with issues like big pharmaceutical power, human rights, and other social justice matters.

Morton was born in Dayton, Ohio and now lives in Reno, Nevada with his beloved, Kandy. He is a neighbor of Burn Richards and they sometimes visit at the nearby diner. Morton chooses to live in Reno at this time because it is the right combination of atmosphere, nature, particular/particulate culture, urban/rural, quiet/active. He lives at the edge of town, near a really nice park. He finds it conducive to writing. He is working on a novel about the timeless psychology of social interaction in American society.

For financial support he has published several mystery novels series under the pen name Dexter Michelin. Inspired by mystery series I see in the library, based on cooking, scrapbooking, tea, cats, dogs, fashion, and even yoga, with punny names, they are based on various themes. For example, his car series features a mechanic named Jason Hammer, who solves murder mysteries in such titles as Brake Failure, Jumpy Start, Axel Break, and Dead Battery. In his tree mysteries, (co-written by Kandy Livingston) arborist Judy Bentley finds out who dunnit in Out On a Limb, The Crotch of Doom, Roots of Evil, Autumn Leaves, Weeping Willow, and Cherry Blossom Special.

Morton really disdains this work, but needs the income.

He begins a series of mysteries based on a male nurse character, and while doing research begins to discover the reach of the pharmaceutical industry, and how entwined it is in our daily lives. He learns of how many health problems are caused by pharmaceuticals (liver damage caused by a pill taken for foot fungus, brain damage caused by drugs for mental illness, etc) and how the rights of people with mental illness are abused. He cannot go into depth on this topic in his mystery books because his publisher would never allow it: it wouldn't sell. So Morton assumes another pen name, "Terence Hatchett," and writes a science fiction thriller, in the vein of Brave New World and 1984, that goes into great detail on the subject.

* * * *

I took the photo to the right in color, converted to black and white, then increased the contrast. That made my hair turn black and all the whiskers, Adam's apple shading, etc. meld somehow to look real (to me). The mouth/teeth thing is what really gets me and makes me crack up so much because he looks so real. I didn't do anything cosmetic to my teeth but somehow the pose in the first picture, plus the manipulation of contrast created this heavy smoker look. In fact, I accidentally took the picture--it's from my built in computer camera and I was looking at the bottom of the screen, trying to navigate or something, so I wasn't even in character--the others are stills from video shot of me acting as Morton Veritas.

When I was getting into character, I couldn't find my makeup. So I wet my hair with water and used cocoa powder to create the eyebrows, furrow between eyebrows, mustache, stubble, and Adam's apple.

Morton and his beloved Kandy.
Kandy Livingston is another story altogether.

A screen grab of video footage showing me getting out of costume and character.

What Morton and I carry in our pocket 

(from Mao II by Don DeLillo):

What people are saying bout Morton (actually, my friends' comments when I e-mail them the picture, or they "friend" Morton on Facebook):

"I think everyone knows a Morton! Its a little scary--like the guy you dread leaving messages on your answering machine...he reminds me of an acquaintance of {my husband's]...poor soul."

"Actually, the upper part of the face (forehead to mid of nose, i.e. what I could see before scrolling down) looks a whole lot like [a friend] after 20 years of heroin abuse. What is Morton up to? Is he a detective? a poet? How was he born?"

"(but i'm a little frightened of Morton...does he have bad breath?"

Burn Richards

Click here to watch the video!

Meet Burn Richards. I was thinking of naming him Richard Burns, but I read two Western novels about a cowboy named Burn English, and I loved that character so much that I wanted to give a character his name. (And there are some similarities between the two characters). Then I realized that he could be my character Vel's husband because her last name is Richards. Vel and Burn have a daughter named Joanne. She is played by John Steiner(we made a super8 film of her in 1992 during the Oakland hills fire, called "Evil Sky").

Burn Richards is an independent salesman of office supplies. He hires Nova Avon to do marketing because he sees her ad in a local printed news letter called Pacific News. She comes to his apartment in Colma or Pacifica. His apartment is a throwback to the Perry Mason (or older) days --it is a studio with the bed in the background. Richard looks like a guy from the 50s or 60s with his hair slicked to the side and wearing a suit. Nova wants to set him up on Twitter and Facebook. He is resistant. He is not at all up to date with technology. The only modern thing he has is a senior citizen cellphone that just makes and receives calls--his deceased wife Vel had insisted on him having it out of concern for his safety on business trips. In this scene he gets overwhelmed and tries to sell Nova a nice portable file organizer--which she refuses because she keeps everything in her laptop, Blackberry phone, and digital clutch. He is in a state of slight disorientation and his identity is fractured or disrupted because of his grief and shock at losing his wife five years ago. The scene resolves with them having tea and Nova being compassionate. He decides to attend the free computer classes at SF Public Library.

Burn Richards is played by Andy Burns.

An additional essay:

Burn and Technology
...background thoughts for what happens in the scene with Nova.
Burn found himself thinking of a bird flying on a diagonal, from lower right to upper left, and how the presence of that bird added an important dimension or texture to the scene behind it. He wondered why he would think of it at this very moment, when the situation he was in was not at all related to birds, landscapes or nature. It had happened to him before, when he was entangled in technology-related pressures. He would never understand that it was his psyche's way of countering the ideological disorientation that the modern digital society caused him. It really was so far out of his realm of indoctrination that it was truly impossible for him to adjust. It wasn't that he had a mental block toward the idea of it all, like so many people of his generation who, once they made a little effort, could easily master the basics of e-mail, cellphones, and text messaging. His problem was in the fundamental physical interface between people and machines that required the digital intermediary idea. He was a person who depended on the messages and textures of person-to-person communication: the eyes, face, body postures, and all of the accompanying motions. He tolerated telephones because he could feel the grain of the other person's voice; he appreciated handwritten letters because he liked that the words were traces of the sender's hand movement. He had been OK with messages created on typewriters because he thought of fingers tapping on keys and handling the sheet of paper, rolling it out of the machine...but he never received them anymore. Faxes were OK-to-neutral for him; he liked when parts were written by hand, even if only on the cover sheets, and at least they were handled by a person as they were scanned into or came out of the machines. He put up with answering machines, voice mail, and his simple cell phone only because he had to in order to do his job. Now there was more and more pressure to use e-mail, and he hated it. He had to get a computer and use the e-mail account that his company assigned to him, and he was required to check it daily. Each time he sat in front of the screen, he felt dizzily disturbed. He felt that the type in e-mail messages was too similar to all of the other graphics on the pages, and the first time he opened his e-mail he could not even understand where the body of the e-mail message was. His daughter Joanne had to help him several times before he got the hang of it. At age 43, she had not grown up with this technology the way kids were doing nowadays. She was good natured with him about it even if she did giggle to herself about some of the goof ups he did. This Nova Avon reminded him of his daughter.

Helen Seen

A Guitar and Drum Artist, Helen Seen is a friend of Sandy's.

Nova's Cousin Sarah and hubby

Sarah is Nova Avon's cousin who lives in Reno with her husband Don.








Sarah is a dental hygienist and Don is an insurance adjuster.


They're doing pretty well financially, so Sarah came to San Francisco to meet Nova over the Christmas Holidays. Don stayed home, which is just as well, because it gave Nova and Sarah some quality time together -- you know, girl talk.

Plus, Don got to sit around in his underwear in the condo, smoke cigars indoors (although Sarah smelled it when she got home and had to spray everything with Febreze to get the smell out), and scratch himself in peace.


Actor: John Steiner

Who Is Mindy Farris?

Mindy Farris is a former Pet Art Therapist who now makes cement garden pastries for a living.
See her in action by clicking here.

When Mindy was a Pet Art Therapist (click here). And here.

How is she connected to Nova Avon? Through Suzie Baker, of course. Mindy became acquainted with Suzie's Rising Sun Institute of Spiritual Cooking through her friend Alejandro, who is currently a Chef Practitioner there.

Two New Characters: Brett and Sandy Renee

Nova's deceased brother Brett has just appeared on Nova's blog. His girlfriend Sandy Renee O'Malley/Davis is in the works. Sandy Renee has found Nova through Twitter, and has shared photos she took of Bret less than two weeks before he died. In the photos he is drawing fashion designs, a surprise to Nova. It is an interest that Bret hid from family and most friends because of all the harassment he knew he would receive, in addition to the hard time he was constantly given for his appearance and lifestyle. Sandy will share much information about Brett with Nova that will reveal a previously unknown creative side. Nova gains an appreciation for Sandy, who she previously disapproved of because she is 10 years older than Brett.



Sandy (pictured below) is also interested in fashion design, and will form a design "studio" (at her kitchen table) that she calls "Brenee"-- a combination of "Brett" and "Renee." Her hope is to share Brett's creativity with the world while pursuing her career in fashion design. She will have three lines: designs by Brett, her own designs, and designs that combine elements of the two. Sandy has begun to go by her middle name, Renee. She uses various last surnames, including O'Malley, Davis, and O'Malley/Davis.

New Video about Suzie Baker and Nova Avon

Happy New Year.
Here is a new video in 3 parts about a treatment given to Nova Avon by Suzie Baker to curb Nova's excessive alcohol consumption: it's called "Egg Nova On" and is in three parts http://www.youtube.com/user/TheNovaAv

Following Nova

As has happened with at least three of my characters, I have just seen a real-life version of Nova Avon.

I was in the library and noticed her in my peripheral vision. What first caught my eye was her walk and posture. The general sense of her physical self literally embodied the character I have in mind for Nova Avon. Her height, build, hair style and color, clothing--it was her. There she was, browsing in the library like Nova does. In her Saturday clothes--fashionably tight jeans and shirt with a scarf, fashion boots with a heel high enough to make one walk a certain way...and a large shoulder bag, of course.

She even looks like the sort of person I imagine Nova to be--studious, feminine, focused, serious but not rigid...

I wonder what her story was. Too bad I couldn't follow her...

A New Trick!

I am having a great time hyper-linking terms in Nova's blog! Everything from practical information to Buckethead! To see what I mean, click on the highlighted words and phrases in the following post (and future ones!!!) to see where they lead: http://thenovaavon.blogspot.com/2009/11/dia-de-los-muertos-day-of-dead-harvest.html

To the extent that I have time and energy, I try to link to information that has solid references, or is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I don't simply send everything to wikipedia because not all of that information is confirmed.

The Nova Avon Twitter Novel Social Media Project

Me (center) with photos of two of the Nova Avon characters. Left and center, Nova Avon. Right, Moslof Folsom.

Links to this project (please read below for information and explanation):
Nova Avon:

• Twitter/no signup required: http://twitter.com/NovaAv
• Blog http://TheNovaAvon.blogspot.com/
• Videos on YouTube (just click): http://www.youtube.com/TheNovaAv
• Facebook - you can see a little, but signup required for full viewing: http://www.facebook.com/people/Nova-Avon/100000152305154?ref=search
  

Moslof Folsom (The Palindrome Guy, another character in the project):

• Twitter/no signup: http://twitter.com/moslof
• Facebook (signup required for full viewing): http://www.facebook.com/people/Moslof-Folsom/100000305277131?ref=search

The Rising Sun Institute of Spiritual Cooking (Founded by Suzie Baker, author of Haiku Cooking)

• Blog: http://risingsuninstitute.blogspot.com/
• Facebook: coming soon
  

The Nova Avon Twitter Novel is the story of events in the life of a fictional character named Nova Avon. It is an internet project that I am building using social media (interactive websites that people use to communicate with one another, usually about their everyday lives). The main thread (or frame) of the project is on Twitter. Facebook, Youtube, and Blogspot are also used. The project is based in writing, and also includes photographs, videos, collage and other graphic art.

It is an interesting experiment because of the real-time factor. I conceived it as a serial piece that mimics how people use social media. So it's best if the readers regularly follow it online, although it is possible to drop in, click around and become familiar with all of the characters and media. It is a form of performance art. If the audience is a mass media one, then it's like a TV soap opera, because of its serial nature.

The project started out as a novel on Twitter, the web site on which people can post short messages, like a bulletin board or mini-blog. Quoting the Twitter website, it is a "... real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices." This means it can be accessed from computers, cellphones, and other ways.

The entries on Twitter are only 140 characters, the maximum length of most text messages. That is about the length of two short sentences. Generally people post comments about daily activities or interests, often mundane. I use that format to briefly outline events in the life of Nova Avon (and other characters involved in her story). Here are a few examples of entries from the project that indicate she has lost her job. She begins to include references to alcohol in her entries, and makes typos sometimes, hinting that her job loss may be stressful:

"Haven't tweeted lately bcause got laid off from job. But already have 2 interviews so it's ok. Been jogging, cooking , reading, wine tas[ting]"

"Starting to like beer, too. Found a great one, Asahi. Had it with pulled prok sandwich for lunch today."

"Bus driver just said the day after rain is like life: things always look better after a stormy time. I'm more in a drought than a storm."

She begins spending time in the library, and writes about things she discovers there, like a haiku cookbook by a (fictitious) author named Suzie Baker. She posts some of the cooking haikus:

"Frying egg haiku from Suzie Baker's 'Haiku Cooking': Oil is fine-ly hot / When dropped liquid egg turns white, / Cover to cook top"

"Great pancake recipe frm 'Haiku Cooking' by Suzie Baker: Flour, rising powder / Dry,Wet stir not much then pour / On hot iron film"

This project is enjoyable to me because I can build it bit by bit, sending Twitter and blog entries by text message from my cellphone. I love making up the cooking haikus while waiting for buses and trains. I like to read fiction, and like creating it, but am not inclined to write much of it in traditional literary form. The internet is a great medium to use for this project because I can use various writing formats and voices, and mix writing, photography, video, and graphic arts. It has a performative aspect connected to my (now 20-year) practice of creating alter-egos, but goes much deeper than the films and videos I have made. It also provides a place for photography, which I have been doing more of lately. The first image representations of the characters in this project began as still photos; in the past I have always created my characters first in film/video, and later made photographs of them.

It is interesting to develop my characters through writing and photographs. The truth is, I don't really know the general makeup of people who use social media, or who would be interested in following a fictional story that unfolds in real time. Here we have the whole question or issue of story. Generally when a work of fiction is created, it is expected to have a prominent story arc. But the story arc of everyday life--now portrayed in social media--is very flat. Having coffee in Starbucks is not a momentous event in someone's life, nor is making shopping or cooking chicken fajitas. But those are the things that most people write about--and follow--in social media. So it remains to be seen who will be interested in following the slowly unfolding story of Nova Avon in her new San Francisco life.