The West Martello Tower at Higgs Beach is home to the Garden Club of Key West. The Bonneville in the foreground is my motorcycle, lest you forget.
The garden club used to be a quiet corner doing it's own thing and offering tropical plants for sale once a year at a well attended sale. Nowadays they seem to be casting around in public for support.
I dropped a fiver in the donation box and went for a walk. The library in the tower felt like a brick lined reading room at an old English club. My old man was a member of the Athenaeum in London and it felt rather like this, in a very broad sense.
I should have liked to take a seat and read a book, one of those pre-kindle bundles of pulp, but as usual I had no time to linger. 
Naturally I have no clue what this stuff is though it looked lovely. An orchid perhaps?
I have only previously been here for the plant sale, just to get a chance to look around. This place is utterly lovely, and it's not nearly as crowded as Sloppy Joe's Bar.
Beach alert! 
Higgs Beach outside and quiet wending paths inside.
Beach view: 
Flower view:
This is one of the minor pleasures of small island living, everything close by, creating variety side-by-side.
Beach and Art. 
Shady seating inside: 
And as small as this place is, it packs a lot inside it's brick walls.
The Martello Towers were built to support Fort Zachary up the coast. The artillerymen at the fort used this Martello for target practice and it is now much more tumbled down than the East Martello out by the airport.From a previous essay:
http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/02/east-Martello-art.html
And from a previous essay on this martello, this was how I saw West Martello by night: http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/01/ghostly-west-martello.html
This year Sculpture Key West was split into three locations, an idea that didn't do much for me, but I guess everyone wants a piece of the successful show, so one share of the exhibits was on display here:
Xeriscaping is the new waterless gardening style though this display was rather uninspiring. 
The garden club member who took my donation was proud of the fact that Key West Citizen columnist Mandy Miles got married here and a fine location it would be. 
Art or whimsy. 
This is a fine place to loiter even though you do so at risk of arrest after hours. 
With lots of parking. 
I must come back to spend more time here.
The garden club used to be a quiet corner doing it's own thing and offering tropical plants for sale once a year at a well attended sale. Nowadays they seem to be casting around in public for support.I dropped a fiver in the donation box and went for a walk. The library in the tower felt like a brick lined reading room at an old English club. My old man was a member of the Athenaeum in London and it felt rather like this, in a very broad sense.
I should have liked to take a seat and read a book, one of those pre-kindle bundles of pulp, but as usual I had no time to linger. 
Naturally I have no clue what this stuff is though it looked lovely. An orchid perhaps?
I have only previously been here for the plant sale, just to get a chance to look around. This place is utterly lovely, and it's not nearly as crowded as Sloppy Joe's Bar.Beach alert! Higgs Beach outside and quiet wending paths inside.Beach view: Flower view:
This is one of the minor pleasures of small island living, everything close by, creating variety side-by-side.
Beach and Art. 
Shady seating inside: 
And as small as this place is, it packs a lot inside it's brick walls.
The Martello Towers were built to support Fort Zachary up the coast. The artillerymen at the fort used this Martello for target practice and it is now much more tumbled down than the East Martello out by the airport.From a previous essay:http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/02/east-Martello-art.html
And from a previous essay on this martello, this was how I saw West Martello by night: http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/01/ghostly-west-martello.htmlThis year Sculpture Key West was split into three locations, an idea that didn't do much for me, but I guess everyone wants a piece of the successful show, so one share of the exhibits was on display here:
Xeriscaping is the new waterless gardening style though this display was rather uninspiring. 
The garden club member who took my donation was proud of the fact that Key West Citizen columnist Mandy Miles got married here and a fine location it would be. 
Art or whimsy. 
This is a fine place to loiter even though you do so at risk of arrest after hours. 
With lots of parking. 
I must come back to spend more time here.
16 comments:
what doe this mean?
"Art or whimsy."
Whimsical might be playful
Art might be less so. The chicken motif never goes away and I wonder how to interpet it.
I guess that makes it Art if it is being interpreted. But if the interpretation leads to it being viewed as a lighthearted commentary on contemporary fowl life in Key West it might be Whimsy. Or not.
You interpreted the sculpture as a chicken? Hmmm, I'd love to show you some ink spots.
Dear Sir:
Everyone should have a Martello tower or two to use as a gentleman's club, or a garden, or something. However, I would have interpreted that stupid sculpture as a dinosaur/automobile sort of thing, as if the "artist" saw one as dependent on something extinct, which will make it extinct someday too. Get it?
Leslie's work is finally being sold in shops around West Chester. Two pieces were sold last month for a couple of hundred dollars.
Fondest regards,
Jac • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
"...I would have interpreted that stupid sculpture..."
Oh professor, how brilliant, how articulate!
Dear Anonymous:
Come out, come out, whomever you are. Next to the Pieta, "stupid" seemed like the most appropriate description for this work. Though" juvenile, overly simplistic, and minimalist (with regard to effort)" all work well. Like opinions, not all art is worth collecting. In fact, some is not worth taking it out of the box.
How many hours did you put into it? Bet it took longer to fill out the government grant for funding.
Fondest regards,
"The Professor"
If I called it a dog what would Cheyenne have said the next time I went to cuddle her? Nothing too polite i dare say- not even as polite as anonymous here is struggling to be.
riepe- someone is taking you seriously as an art critic at last. congrats to mz marsh perhaps soon she will keep you ina style to which you might become accustomed!
Dear Professor,
You are sooo right once again in your comments about this piece and about art in general.
But your are so wrong in your assumption that I am the artist. And wrong again about the "hours put into it" v "filling out the government grant for funding".
You saw it in a picture that someone else took and posted on the internet and that was of course enough for you to determine the piece was "stupid". Maybe you also write for an art journal?
Btw the artist is very respected and has several of his stupid pieces in museums and private collections here and in Europe.
The art is in a public place to be viewed and judged. riepe likes to provoke, anonymous has taken the bait. sigh.
Dear Anonymous:
My work has been cited in some of the most prestigious journals, newspapers, and radio stations in the countty. So much for that.
Do you know of an art journal that would hire me? If so, I'll pay you a bounty.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Conchscooter, yes the art is in a public place to be viewed. My point exactly.
And Jack took the bait.
Jack, I see you are very proud that your work has been "cited". You could also be proud if you were big enough to say, "Gee maybe I judged this without having any real information to make the judgement, maybe i misspoke".
Naw, that art is stupid and you're not that kind of man.
Dear Anonymous:
That my work is cited anyplace is a constant source of amazement to me. (And that was my point.) I too am an artist, one who paints with words on a daily basis. Some of my "paintings" are purely commercial, like bathroom walls. Others are pure humor, and take hours to mold. But regardless of the application, a certan percentage of what I produce is pure shit, which I generally toss out before it hits the mainstream. Even then, I am not always successful.
I judged the art in question by it's appeal to me. No other information was necessary. I wouldn't care if the piece was crafted from durilium recycled from the Hindenberg wreck by Saint Francis, and cited on page 72 of the King James Bible. I am that kind of man. I did not misspeak. I have been known to apologize when I misspeak.
What you could have said was, "Dear Mr. Riepe," or as I prefer, "Dear Exalted Sir, You need to place a qualifier, such as 'in my opinion,' before making a rash generalization about a piece of artwork. I rather liked that piece, and found considerable significance in its symbolism."
That's what you should have said.
My reply would have been, "Dear Voice of Ignominious Anonymity, I beg your pardon, you are correct."
But instead it is "You can kiss my fat Irish ass," because I am also that kind of man. And that's not bait. It's an invitation.
If you get the chance, you should really see the Matisse exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago this month. I have to be in Chicago for business, and wouldn't miss it. I hope to see you there.
Fondest regards,
Your pal,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Mr Exalted Toad,
"I judged the art in question by it's appeal to me. No other information was necessary."
Your not getting it, and you wont if you continue to maintain your combative stance. You see, judging sculpture from a picture is like judging your written work by touching the page. I'm sure you agree that dosent quite work even for you. Or by judging a perfume by looking at the ad in a magazine(without a scratch and sniff mind you). What you have done more or less, is judged the book by looking at the proverbial cover.
You suggest I should have said, 'You need to place a qualifier, such as 'in my opinion.' To that I say you have no valid opinion, read the above.
Btw, i have seen a Mattise exhibit, up close, close enough to touch, 3 dimensional. Not really my cup of tea.
Oh, and thank you for that lovely invitation to "kiss your fat Irish ass". I can now certainly agree with you when you say, "...a certan(sic) percentage of what I produce is pure shit, which I generally toss out before it hits the mainstream. Even then, I am not always successful."
Pity.
Dear Anonymous:
Hold the kiss... You wrote:
"You see, judging sculpture from a picture is like judging your written work by touching the page. I'm sure you agree that dosen't quite work even for you. Or by judging a perfume by looking at the ad in a magazine (without a scratch and sniff mind you). What you have done more or less, is judged the book by looking at the proverbial cover."
You re absolutely correct in this regard, and it is a point that I hadn't considered. So I went back to look at the photograph again, and the work in question does have a two-dimensional coloring-book effect, that might not be the case if one was viewing the artwork in person.
Now it is unlikely that this artwork would appeal to me in any setting, but in truth that says more about my taste than the artist's depth of expression. Of course, others saw it as a chicken. I generally do not like primitive-style art of a cartoon nature unless it is being used to make a humorous statement about something.
Several years ago, I attended an exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum and saw, among the artworks, a brown-labelled can marked, "Merda d'Artista." Dating back to 1961, the artist Piero Manzoni offered as art 90 tins of his own excrement. Technically, this could be described as "shit."
Now my own writing, that I deem shit, is material that lacks conviction, style, timing, or humor. (Everybody has a bad creative day every now and again.) In many cases, telling someone to kiss my ass, does in fact have all these elements.
I have to tell you that when I initially described this chicken/dinosaur work as "stupid," I wasn't even thinking of it per se.
What I was thinking of was an incident that occurred in art appreciation class in the third grade of parochial school. There was a kid in my class who had a tendency to call "a spade" by it's first name, whenever he came across one. The picture under discussion was Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh. My friend wrote, "The tree in the foreground is very tall, and stupid-looking." This kid was executed by Sister Cordis about 30 seconds after the ink dried.
This chicken/dinosaur sclupture made me think of that.
That's what was on my mind. It made me laugh then, and it made me laugh again today, when I thought about it. But you are quite right to point out that I made a generalization about an artwork, that while it may have been my opinion, there was undoubtedly a more gracious way to express it.
Lots of prestigious people bought Manzoni's cans. Tha does not lend credibility to the conents. I write hard to get quoted in places... And while I m always amazed when I get picked up, I am never offended when someone describes my stuff as "shit."
My mother thinks I write like shit. So you are in good company. Now please don't feel compelled to kiss my fat Irish ass, unless it is all you can think about.
But I have a bone to pick with you... You wrote a few hundred words driping with conviction and with a reasonable point. Why not put you name to it? (I was going to have a little fun with this today, but you're depriving me of it. I hope you're happy now.)
Fondest regards,
Jack
I very much liked your treatise today.
And I apologize for depriving you of having some fun. That is a terrible thing to deprive someone of. Your story of Sister Cordite or Sister Cordis also made me laugh, so thanks for at least supplying some fun for me and yes, thank you, i am very happy.
Leave it to the Guggenheim to have such a tasteless show or at least one that tastes bad. I am wondering if these cans were ever accidentally opened, or discarded, or ended up donated to a soup kitchen or some such thing? And talk about time put into a project. 90 cans. it must've taken him forever.
Such gross, awful thoughts. but after Googleing and Wikiing Manzoni (some worthy stories there) I was very impressed with his work and I now cansider myself a fan. I think I would prefer to have one of his hard boiled eggs however.
After looking back at the Key West piece myself, I wonder if we could agree on the word, "silly"?
its not really one of his best.
I have a new ambition. I want to be the one to kiss riepe's fat irish ass. I can say that because i expect everyone else has long sinc emoved on. I just keep finding this charming repartee (not silly, never more will it be silly) clogging my e-mail inbox.
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