Lisa Kereszi: Video Dialogue Screening

As a permanent, non-rotating, contemporary art collection, we are always working to engage our audiences with artworks or artists that they may already be very familiar with. In July of 2015, Saniego Sanchez and Jenna Maurice created and launched the Video Dialogue Series, a monthly video screening. The Video Dialogue Series is a program that focuses on one artwork/artist in the Dikeou Collection and uses videos to explore tangential connections to expand the conversation around the selected artwork/artist. Each screening features one hour of video clips assembled from common and unconventional sources and thus serves as an unofficial video conversation about the artwork/artist. So far, Sanchez and Maurice have created six of these Video Dialogues focusing on artists Chris Johanson, Momoyo Torimitsu, Giasco Bertoli, Lisa Kereszi, Sarah Staton and most recently, Devon Dikeou. Looking to the artist’s inspiration, contemporaneous art movements, location, or their own dialogue about the work, the Video Dialogue Series is able to carry both a light-hearted and a serious approach to discussions surrounding the artwork in the collection. 

Each screening begins with specific information about the artist/artwork featured. This introduction can either be the artist statement, or a video clip documenting the artwork and a localized conversation about it. From there, the selected videos range from advertisements, to conversations about similar artists. As customary to such varied presentations, there is a handheld program provided for the potential eager audience member, or more importantly for reference if they want to re-watch a clip or the entire hour-long series. Not only does the Video Dialogue provide an alternative visual and audio guide to explore the artwork, but the food and drink provided at the screening corresponds with the theme to extend the dialogue and to engage a more sensory experience. 

Lisa Kereszi’s Video Dialogue Program

Lisa Kereszi’s Video Dialogue on November 4, 2015, addressed addictive substances. In her photo series at the collection, Kereszi frames various social situations in which her friends are engaged in party-like scenes smoking and drinking. But there is also a lingering sense of hostility, tension, and frustration in what seem to be happy party-goers enjoying themselves. The minimal separation of enjoyment and potential danger is especially clear in Kereszi’s photo entitled Jack With Jim Beam, where a revolver is foregrounded with a bottle of whiskey. Inspired by Kereszi’s photography, this Video Dialogue focused on the various ways society views addictive substances and how these views have changed dramatically over time. The food provided at the screening included candy cigarettes, alcoholic chocolate and sugar crystals (in the shape of crack rocks). Clips included cigarette and alcohol ads that promoted the use of these legalized, government endorsed addictive products but other clips warned against the addictive use of substances considered “drugs.” As the categorical line between drugs and legalized substances thins out, the audience is able to recognize the classist and racist use of deception and hypocrisy when it comes to what is considered socially acceptable addiction. The end of the screening included a little bonus cartoon titled “Life Smartphone” about a society-wide addictive behavior, as we are all glued to our cell phones. In the video, characters are only engaging with their cell phones, taking selfies and texting, all the while the world is crumbling around them and they have no idea. Here is a link to the preview of the screening so you can get a little sniff for yourself https://vimeo.com/145013121.

Sarah Staton’s Video Dialogue Program

Sarah Staton’s Video Dialogue on December 18, 2015, focused on the Young British Artist (YBA) movement, Sarah Staton’s Supastore and contemporary viewpoints on the work and ethics of the YBA’s collective actions and creations. Touching on the com-modified and material economy of the art world, through her Supastore, Staton created a parody of department stores in which the audience would navigate their way through a traveling store’s drawers to find portfolios, cigarettes, or even credit cards. The portfolio in the collection from the Supastore titled 10 Supastore Supastars, includes a print series of one work from ten different artists. Staton’s Supastore featured artists in a unique exhibition space and art market, challenging the gallery and its stagnancy. The Video Dialogue informed the audience about the multidimensional ways in which the YBAs engaged their practice into their daily life such as Tracy Emin’s 1995 work, “Curriculum Vitae.” The Video Dialogue also addressed the ways in which the movement was critiqued. In a clip entitled “The Art of the Critic: The New Brutalists” an art critic follows around potential art buyers and makes fun of the artwork seen in the studios, putting off the buyers and thus sabotaging the next great art movement. The clips in this screening varied in topic, but each seemed to point directly to the YBA movement as a form of shock art, showing how they are simultaneously oppositional and entrepreneurial. Eating fish n’ chips, Cadbury Flakes and Turkish Delights while washing it down with Ribena and Old English 40s, the audience seemed to enjoy the multifaceted ways in which the YBA movement worked its way into the contemporary American art world by first contextualizing spaces and artworks back in England while critiquing or disrupting the global art market in a beneficial way. The preview for Staton’s screening can be found here https://vimeo.com/144802406.

Devon Dikeou’s Video Dialogue Program

The most recent screening of the Video Dialogue Series at the collection, highlighted Artist, Editor and Curator, Devon Dikeou and focused on her piece titled Not Quite Mrs. de Menil’s Liquor Closet. Looking at the connections between cabinets of curiosities and birds flying into the windows at Mrs. de Menil’s house, the audience was informed about Devon’s interests, practice and relationships to her fellow contemporary artists. Information about how to properly taxidermy a bird, mix a cocktail, and advertisements for portable liquor cabinets guided the audience on a Bud Light flavored path to better understanding her practice and specific use of space and other’s artwork in this installation. The clips also historically contextualized the practice of collecting small, foreign objects into cabinets of curiosities, while relating them to Mrs. de Menil’s actual liquor closet and home in the clip “Menil House and Museum.” Clips in the Video Dialogue connected these two temporally disparate art collectors to their various objects and methods of display. Even more so, the Video Dialogue gave an illuminating glimpse into Devon Dikeou’s intermingling of art collecting with her own art practice. As these works were either gifts or trades, none purchased, the audience can better understand Devon’s own relationship with the artists whose work she collects. Bar food like White Castle burgers, truffle popcorn, mixed nuts and vending machine candy were provided to compliment all of the liquor and taxidermy talk on the screen. Devon Dikeou’s preview can be found here https://vimeo.com/145013478. 

Video Dialogue Screening at Material Art Fair

It is no secret that the world’s history is largely shaped by the perspective of men, and this naturally applies to our understanding of art as well. Women have always participated in the visual arts—whether that be creating, collecting, teaching, or theorizing—yet their contributions are relegated to the sidelines while their male counterparts have been heralded as the apogee of artistic greatness. The feminist movement of the 20th century gave women the power and mobility necessary to gain recognition and respect for their cultural achievements, and the footing to express themselves and their worldview creatively. Tracy Nakayama applies “the female gaze” toward a subject that generally ignores any possible enjoyment or consumption by women—pornography—and thus flips the script on what these images look like and who they are intended for. Her series of watercolors at Dikeou Collection convey a sense of sweetness and flirtatious ease during erogenous encounters that appeal to females sexual interests, but there’s a raw edge left intact that can seduce women and men alike. Nakayama is representative of a growing number of female artists with a direct approach to nudity and sex, and who seek to disprove the notion that this kind of carnal imagery cannot exist without misogynistic undertones.

Nakayama composes her paintings like a collage, incorporating poses, objects, and scenarios she finds from her large collection of vintage pornography from the 1960s through 1980s. As a cheeky twist, she uses the faces of people she knows on her figures as a personal albeit untraditional sign of affection. For example, the face of the woman in her large painting, Football, is that of her own mother, smiling gleefully as two mustachioed men in jerseys caress her body. The woman holds a football under her arm like the player on the Heisman Trophy, hinting that she’s the one who will come out on top in this game. Perhaps her mother owned a copy of The Joy of Sex that Tracy maybe discovered during her adolescence, and the illustrations by Chris Foss ignited some inspiration for her artistic pursuits. The combination of the vintage references and sepia color schemes makes Nakayama’s work strongly reminiscent of a time when the peak of feminist action was met with a new era of free love, spawning the Sexual Revolution which motivated female artists to depict sex and sexuality in ways women never had before.

The female nude is one of the most popular subjects in the history of art, a favorite of male artists in particular. Alice Neel presented a whole new perspective on this subject by removing the sexualized and idealized views cast upon the model. Her paintings revealed not only the bodies of her sitters in a more natural way but their psychological states as well. Neel was one of the first to paint pregnant nudes, and also did a self-portrait in the nude at 80 years old. She applied the same techniques to her male nudes, too, where they exuded the same vulnerability and true to life form. This focus on gender equality is prevalent in the work of English painter Sylvia Sleigh, who made gender-reversed versions of famous paintings like Ingre’s The Turkish Bath. Sleigh’s male nudes are more idealized than Neel’s, implementing the tactics of the male gaze onto male subjects and pointing out the problems of gender bias. Joan Semmel paints nude self-portraits from her own perspective so her face is invisible, which leaves the viewer to draw their own conclusions about how identity is constructed and recognized via the normally covered and private body.

Artists like Alice Neel, Sylvia Sleigh, and Joan Semmel were key figures in the progression of the female vision and sex-positive movement in the arts, while women like Betty Tompkins and Marilyn Minter push the envelope even further by depicting sexual acts and genitalia explicitly and unapologetically. Like Semmel, Tompkins and Minter remove the identity of their figures, as well as context, putting the viewer on the spot to make their own judgment calls about what the body parts themselves represent. When reduced to individual components like a machine, these bodies are performing exactly how they’re supposed to, yet art like this is still very challenging for even the most savvy art appreciators. If placed along a spectrum, Tracy Nakayama’s watercolor collages would sit comfortably between the avant-garde nudes of Neel, Sleigh, and Semmel and the pronounced emphasis on sexual parts and performance of Tompkins and Minter. As a respectful gesture toward our diverse audience at Dikeou Collection, Nakayama’s paintings are exhibited within a special enclosed gallery. The room is like a secret little love nest where Tracy’s works can be reveled privately or in the company of that special someone. When people exit the room and shut the door, the figures in the paintings can bask privately themselves in sensual bliss.

-Hayley Richardson

We are now officially in the throws of winter. It starts out as a joyous and enchanting time of year with glittering snow and hot cocoa but eventually slumps into long cold months of dirty slush puddles and expired eggnog. Let’s face it: winter sucks. Unless, of course, you’re fortunate enough to be able to travel or live some place warm and tropical and can avoid the wintertime blues. Lawrence Seward is one of those lucky individuals who was born and raised in Hawaii. He attended school at NYU, but has since moved back to the Aloha State and now teaches at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. His artwork at Dikeou Collection gives a glimpse of the island life from a local’s perspective, which, in reality, is not all rainbows and tiki drinks like we may expect.

Upon entrance into Seward’s room at the collection, the viewer is confronted with an oversized self-portrait of the artist made of foam, paint, and plaster. This work was made in 2001 but titled 1989 and is meant to depict himself from that period in time. His long hair and casual flannel are indicative not only of his laid-back personality but of the easy-going environment in which he lives. A little island scene with a golden sky and palm trees is hidden inside his mouth, complete with pearly grains of sand upon his tongue, as if he carries a taste of Hawaii with him wherever he goes. Sculptural self-portraits are not very common, especially in this size, but there is a tranquil quality to this work that does not make it self-aggrandizing. The sculpture faces a wall that is hung with twelve different drawings and watercolors by Seward that depict various Hawaiian themes like sunsets, surfing, luaus, and tiki paraphernalia, but a thoughtful analysis would lead one to see that these images portray a visitor’s paradise at the local’s expense.

Barbed wire, concrete walls covered in graffiti, and steel beams frame ocean waves and sandy beaches in several of these works. The largest depicts a surfer impaled by his board and left for dead on the beach which, as Seward says “evokes suicide, sacrifice, mishap, and the death of youth.” Other drawings show ukulele players and Hula dancers from the back as they entertain a crowd of tourists, and Summer No Fun is an unsettling look at the subliminal relationship between performer and viewer in the state of Hawaii.

With her head bowed and wrists crossed behind her back, a female dancer stands on an X as if she is a target for exploitation. The palm trees are transformed from serene elements of nature into props for light fixtures, turning Hawaii’s beauty into a stage for outsiders’ amusement.

Westerners first impeded upon the Hawaiian islands and its inhabitants in 1778 when British Captain James Cook and his crew inadvertently encountered them while trying to find a Northwest passage between Europe and Asia. The Hawaiians maintained rule of their territory only by forming alliances and assimilating with colonial powers, but the indigenous kingdom was completely overthrown in the late 19th century by the United States government. Like all other ways of life, native art and culture changed with the new hierarchy.

Prior to the European arrival, traditional Hawaiian art consisted primarily of woodcarving, feather work, rock and bark painting, and tattoos. These art traditions used techniques as well as iconography and patterns that had been in practice throughout the Polynesian islands for centuries, and commonly referenced their mythology and the natural environment. With the arrival of the Europeans, the Hawaiians were introduced to painting, ceramics, sculpture, and quilt-making. While the Hawaiian artists stayed true to their artistic and cultural heritage utilizing both their established and new art making tactics, there were still colonial undertones to their work that illustrated how this outside force radicalized their way of life. Lawrence Seward brings these undertones to the forefront of his work and shows how the influence is still prevalent today.

As Westernization continues to dominate the landscape, artists to this day keep the legacy of traditional Hawaiian art making alive. Rick Makanaaloha Kia‘imeaokekanaka San Nicolas is a master at Ka Hana No'eau I Ka Hulu, which means “art of the feather.” Rick painstakingly creates capes, helmets, and leis made out of feathers that once adorned Hawaiian tribal royalty. Dalani Tanahy makes beautiful kapa, which is handmade bark cloth that is painted with natural pigments and used for quilts, clothing, and decoration. Keone Nunes is one of the few tattoo artists in the world who still uses the Polynesian “tapping” technique, known as kakau, and makes his own tools and inks.

There is no way to turn back time and prevent the West’s overtake of Hawaii, but this part of history should not be ignored especially since the ramifications are still felt today. Artists like Rick, Dalani, and Keone help keep the past alive through the native art forms not just by practicing them but by sharing their skills and experiences with others in the hopes that the next generation will continue these aspects of their heritage. Seward does the same by displaying his insights through his art, and by educating students at the University of Hawaii. Having lived both on the island and on the mainland, he has a well-rounded view of how these two parts of the United States influence one another in the 21st century.

Lawrence Seward also has beautiful project in zingmagazine issue 20 where he collaborated with John T. Koga on collage illustrations inspired by the Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art in Honolulu, which is worth pursuing if you want to see more cross-cultural pollination to the nth degree in the USA’s youngest state.

—Hayley Richardson

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Two people yet synonymous as one. Their souls likely entwined on some astral plane, sharing the exact same birthdates under the sign of Gemini. Since they met in 1958, the pair created artworks all across the world that are nothing short of epic, and although Jeanne-Claude sadly passed away in 2009, Christo continues projects that they conceptualized together decades ago. On November 13, Christo gave a talk presented by the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art at the Holiday Event Center, and while Jeanne-Claude was not there, he carries so much of her spirit that her presence could be felt no matter where he goes. The 300-seat venue was filled to capacity with people eager to see and hear the art legend speak about his current projects, one of which has been in progress for the state of Colorado since the 1990s, as well as early works that have left deep imprints on the trajectory of contemporary art.

At 80 years old, Christo has more energy than people less than half his age. According to the Christo and Jeanne-Claude website, he works 14 hours a day. He is constantly traveling all over the world, managing multiple projects of incredible scale, engaging with contractors, city officials, professors, museum personnel, and the public on a daily basis, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. Right now he is focused on three upcoming installations: The Floating Piers on Lake Iseo in Italy, The Mastaba for Abu Dhabi, and Over the River in Colorado along the Arkansas River.

Christo, The Floating Piers (Project for Lake Iseo, Italy), collage 2014, 17 x 22" (43.2 x 55.9 cm), pencil, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz, map, fabric sample and tape, photo: André Grossmann, © 2014 Christo. Image courtesy of www.christojeanneclaude.net

Jeanne-Claude and Christo attempted floating piers projects twice but were unsuccessful, but in 2014 he decided to give it another shot. Although the idea of floating piers was initially thought up by the two of them, this is the first major project Christo has taken on solo. In the middle of Lake Iseo is the island of Monte Isola, which is home to 2,000 inhabitants, and the only way they have access to the mainland is by boat. With the completion of the piers, locals and visitors alike will be able to walk across the lake and experience the watery traversal in a new way for the first time. He alternated between topics quickly during his talk, spending a couple minutes talking about old work before switching to something new and back and forth, but his tone and pace would change whenever he talked about The Floating Piers. He spoke with gentleness. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have a long history of creating projects in Italy together, and many of their works shared a theme involving a connection between water and earth. Perhaps The Floating Piers is like a gift to his angel. It will open June 18 through July 3, 2016

Christo, The Mastaba of Abu Dhabi (Project for United Arab Emirates), scale model 1979, 32 ½ x 96 x 96" (82.5 x 244 x 244 cm), enamel paint, wood, paint, sand and cardboard, Photo: Wolfgang Volz, © 1979 Christo. Image courtesy of www.christojeanneclaude.net

The Mastaba was conceived nearly 40 years ago, and once finished, will be the largest sculpture in the world. It will also be the only permanent Christo and Jeanne-Claude installation. He showed amazing photographs of the duo crossing the towering sand dunes of Abu Dhabi, highlighting their sense of adventure and devotion to immersing themselves in the environments where their art will be displayed. The Mastaba will be made from 410,000 multi-colored barrels and will stand at nearly 500 feet. Constructing a sculpture such as this requires impeccable planning, so they consulted four different engineering professors to prepare plans and studies and decided that the professor from Hosei University in Tokyo had the best strategies for implementation. A date is not set for when this sculpture will be built, but Christo will travel to the region next year to continue its progress.

Christo, Over the River (Project for Arkansas River, State of Colorado), drawing 2010, 13 7/8 x 15 ¼" (35.2 x 38.7 cm), pencil, pastel, charcoal and wax crayon, photo: André Grossmann, © 2010 Christo. Image courtesy of www.christojeanneclaude.net

While the audience was captivated throughout the entire talk, it is safe to say that everyone was most eager to hear about the Over the River project. Christo and Jeanne-Claude considered numerous locations for this work, and decided on Colorado’s Arkansas River in 1996. Federal permission to pursue it was granted in 2011. Over the River has been met with much excitement, as well as protest from locals and environmentalists alike, and after a hiatus in 2012, the project is again moving forward. It is likely that Christo was able to do this talk because he was in Colorado to do some related field and/or administrative work. The river rests in a valley and will be shrouded with material that is opaque when seen from the top and transparent when viewed from the bottom, and will cover 5.9-mile spans in eight different locations. Locals feared that the installation would bring too much traffic and congestion to their quiet mountain community, and environmentalists were concerned about how the river’s ecosystem would be impacted. The installation will only be up for two weeks, the material will not cause any changes in temperature or lighting to the water and land below, and everything will be cleaned up and recycled efficiently. If anything a work like this brings public awareness to the environment, and encourages people to preserve it. Citizens of Colorado have been following the Over the River project for years, and will likely draw huge crowds once it is complete, but we still have another 2 or 3 years left to wait.

Christo during the Q&A session at Holiday Event Center

Christo dispelled a great amount of information during his talk, which left for a facile question-and-answer session with the audience. People wanted to know simple things, like his favorite color, if he had ever been injured during an installation, the craziest venue he ever worked at, and what advice he has for artists. A young boy asked about his childhood, and Christo gave credit to his parents for facilitating his interest in art by sending him to artist studios and classes at an early age (take note, moms and dads). He approached every person who had a question directly, microphone in hand, never once distancing himself from the crowd. His vigor and affable personality is contagious, and comes through in his (and Jeanne-Claude’s) art. Their art is personal and represents a very particular vision, but it is meant to be shared with the world. Aside from the upcoming Mastaba, all their work is temporary, which adds a sense of urgency for people to congregate and experience it together.

–Hayley Richardson

Monumental sized works like Momoyo Torimitsu’s Somehow I Don’t Feel Comfortable and Wade Guyton’s The Room Moved The Way Blocked have a bold presence at Dikeou Collection, but there are many small works that still make assertive statements. Chris Johanson’s Mountain/Fortress is one of these pieces. Made out of papier-mâché and wood, viewers must crouch down to the floor to read the text painted on the mountainside. “When you stand on top of the mountain it feels solid because it is solid. When you stand in the walled in fortress you can’t see.” This verbiage is meant to sound empowering and make the viewer feel big and inspired when they stand up after reading it, but the reality is that the words are utterly meaningless and only impress those who naively subscribe to flimsy shreds of wisdom without carrying any kind of resolve of their own. The words are also indicative of the eccentric social climate of Johanson’s childhood, when New Age movements and self-help culture rose to prominence in the late-1960s in the Bay Area of Northern California. This and other influences from growing up like comics, zines, graffiti, punk rock, and skateboarding provided a visual and cultural smorgasbord which Johanson synthesized into his own artistic style. He became synonymous with a group of artists who gained recognition in the early 1990s in San Francisco, known as the Mission School of artists. San Francisco is a very small city geographically speaking (less than 50 square miles), so to pinpoint a specific district as its emerging creative hub seems arbitrary, but the term really applies to the Northern California region as whole and has has done much to bolster the profile of many artists from the area.

Mountain/Fortress was created when Johanson’s career started to hit its stride and was exhibited in Chicago at Vendata (now Kavi Gupta Gallery) in 2001. A simultaneous exhibition at Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery, also in Chicago, featured a human-size fortress where people could step in and watch one of his videos. He created a human-scale version of the Mountain for the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles that same year. By creating similar works in two drastically different sizes he demonstrates how scale not only affects space but people’s relationship with the art and thus its inherent meaning and conceptual value. He achieves this through his use of materials, too. The small Mountain at Dikeou Collection is made out of paper and glue and is very fragile, whereas the bigger version of the Fortress exhibited at Sportsman is sturdy and can withstand a lot of physical impact.

Hammer Projects: Chris Johanson. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. May 1-July 29, 2001. Photo by Joshua White.

Whether small and delicate or large and durable, Johanson creates his art with everyday materials that are common and inexpensive, or things (usually wood) that he has found and repurposed, which is a shared trait amongst other artists from the Mission School. Alicia McCarthy’s aesthetic, for example, is closely aligned with Johanson’s, and she also uses found wood as surfaces for her paintings, which gives a sculptural quality to a traditionally two-dimensional medium. Thomas Campbell creates assemblages that are comprised of fabric, old office supplies, and preserved gourds. In an area currently ruled by billionaire techies, the folksy, scrappy, rough-hewn art by Bay Area creatives is like a breath of fresh air, providing an escape from the overpriced and hyper-digital landscape.

Even though the Mission School label primarily applies to artists who work in painting and sculpture, they still engage with and absorb inspiration from people working in other creative capacities. Johanson himself exhibits interdisciplinary tendencies, and describes himself as “an all-over-the map-artist.” He provided vocals on Phil Crumar’s album, “So Unique,” and plays in bands Tina Age 13, Sun Foot, and The Deep Throats. He also created the artwork for numerous music releases, and even produced a compilation CD for zingmagazine issue 21 with San Francisco musician Mike Donovan.

Screen shot from “Encinitas Realization”

In 1993 Johanson created the short film “Encinitas Realization” which follows a surfer (played by photographer and filmmaker Tobin Yelland) as he wanders the streets with his longboard and narrates a stream of personal mantras like, “I am the king of my destiny,” and, “I am focusing my mind powers toward my nowness.” The monologue in this video is similar to the text painted on Mountain/Fortress, which Johanson describes as, “issues that I think are very serious and more than humorous.” For Johanson, finding humor in life is what helps people adhere to and rationalize their inner philosophies and dialogue.

In addition to his work in music and film, Johanson serves as a community organizer who likes to bring together and provide platforms for those whose creative voices are often muffled by those with corporate sponsorship. For the past five years he has put on Portland’s Quiet Music Festival, which has the “tradition of showcasing rare, one-of-a-kind performances interpreting low volume, deep-sonic meditations.” In 2012 he co-curated San Francisco’s Streetopia: Anti-Gentrification Art Fair which lasted for five weeks and highlighted the city’s guerrilla spaces and actions with art shows, live performances, tours, and workshops.

Chris Johanson currently lives and works in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, but still stays true to his Mission School roots. With a consistent stream of major international exhibitions, he continues to show love and support for where he came from and is loyal to the laid-back, resourceful, and communal ethos of the Mission. New work by Johanson is currently being exhibited at Altman Siegel Gallery in the Richmond district of San Francisco through December 19. The show, called “Equations,” is demonstrative of his allegiance to simple materials, vibrant color, and contemporary existence. At Dikeou Collection, his Mountain/Fortress is like a small seed from which a major career has sprung, something the viewer can symbolically mimic they crouch down to view it and then stand up after absorbing its painted wisdom.

— Hayley Richardson