Orphan Works Bill: Is The Sky Really Falling?

April 29th, 2008 Daryle Dickens

The visual arts community is currently buzzing about the Orphan Works Bill that was brought before the House by Rep. Howard Berman [D-CA] and the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT]. If you have not heard you may be wondering what "Orphan Works" are. The U.S. Copyright office states that orphaned works are copyrighted works whose owners may be impossible to identify and locate.

Basically this law would allow use of those orphaned works if the owner can not be identified or found after certain search requirements are met. Researching this you will find polar opinions from the idea that without a copyright lawyer retained you will not have any protection to the notion that the bill will not even pass.

I lean toward the latter. It is not just an election year, it is a Presidential election year. A bill relating to the arts is not going to get enough attention to be addressed and voted on. I know that does not mean it will go away forever but it will take steam out of it. (This is not the first time it has been introduced.) But if by chance one day the bill does pass and become law it will be in the hands of the courts as to how much power the law gives those that choose to use works they deem orphaned.

Want to keep an eye on the bills? You can track the House bill here. And the Senate bill here.

To me the real question is why is Congress spending their time on this? I would imagine there are human orphans that could use this kind of attention.

That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong,

www.zaf622.com

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Art Palaver On The Road: Taos New Mexico

April 21st, 2008 Daryle Dickens

I am writing this post in the solarium of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos New Mexico. The solarium is a square glass walled room that sits atop this historic property. The stairs up to this room are steep, narrow, and have very little headroom. To get to the stairway we have to pass though the inn keeper’s office. And one more touch of quirkiness is the fact that the room does not lock, we were just given a key to the front door. And when we checked in the inn keeper told us the room is “magical.” It is probably the most unique room I have ever stayed in. And the history of the house that it sits atop just adds to its uniqueness.

Back in 1918 Mabel Dodge Luhan bought a 4 room adobe for $1500. She then set out renovating and expanding the structure in order to make room for house guests. Guests such as Georgia O’Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham and Carl Jung just to name a few.

Mabel wrote in a letter to friend that she wanted her home to be a retreat for “movers and shakers of the earth. Scientists, artists, statesmen, creators, promoters of values and changers of the world.”

Supposedly the house and grounds have not changed that much since those days. So as I sit up here and look around I can’t help but imagine what it would have been like to be here when those minds walked between these walls. The one I would most like to sit down and have a palaver with is Carl Jung. In the past I have read some of Jung’s writing and it opened doors in my mind that I did not know I had.

And one last unique fact about this place. In the 70s it was owned by Dennis Hopper. He edited Easy Rider here and had friends like Bob Dylan, Alan Watts and George McGovern stay here. That would have also been an interesting time to be here as well.

These days it is an inn and convention center as well as offering artist workshops of all kinds. While checking in I spotted fliers for a writer’s workshop taught by Natalie Goldberg.

It is my hope that these great creative minds and thinkers that have passed through here left something of themselves behind. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to pick up that something and add it to my own creative life.

More from Taos to be posted soon,

www.zaf622.com

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Congress Having A Chat With Artists

September 26th, 2007 admin

Musicians seem to be the most common artist to find themselves sitting before Congress. I can remember Tipper Gore and the PMRC. This week it is Hip-Hop that is under fire. And it is the same tension that it always is, just a different form of music.

Read the Denver Post article here.

What are your thoughts? Do artists have a responsibility to homogenize their art and experience to make it safe for all? Or do we need to restrict certain art? Thoughts?

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Whos On First?

June 20th, 2007 Daryle Dickens

How is it such a simple question can leave such a mark on history? Bud Abbott and Lou Costello performed the classic comic routine on stage and the radio beginning in the 1930’s. But it was the movie One Night in the Tropics which came out in 1940 that really launched the routine and the careers of Abbott and Costello.

Time Magazine named Who’s on First? the “Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century,” the American Film Institute listed it in the 100 most memorable movie quotes, a gold record of it was placed in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and there was even a board game made from it in the 70’s. It has also be referenced countless times in pop culture.

If you have not seen it in its entirety take six minutes out of your life and check it out. Comic genius. Art history.

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1984

June 7th, 2007 Daryle Dickens

It was this week in 1949 that George Orwell’s novel 1984 was published. The novel that let us know Big Brother was watching. Orwell was born in 1903 with the name Eric Blair. Even though he was born in India he was a British citizen. And he spent many years of his young life as a British policeman in the Indian Imperial Police. It was these years participating in the declining yet oppressive British Empire that formed Orwell’s world view. A world view that came out in his two most well known works, 1984 and Animal Farm.

His first published work, Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. He wrote while teaching at a private school. The book was an account of his days living with the poor of the two cities. 1934 Orwell’s first fiction work, Burmese Days, was published. After that he was able to focus on his writing more and the following years saw a steady stream books from him being published. But it was not until 1945, when Animal Farm was published, that Orwell experiences fame.

Fame did not suit Orwell and he moved to Jura, an island off of Scotland, in an effort to escape it. Living on the island aggravated his tuberculosis which he had been living with since 1941. Even while bedridden he wrote Last Man in Europe, the original title for the novel that became 1984. He died less than a year after it was published.

What I find interesting about an artist like Orwell is that his work has made his name an adjective. Orwellian, which basically means something that takes away from a free society. Forget money, forget fame, I’d like my work in this life to become an adjective. I doubt it will happen but it is a nice idea.

I wonder what Orwell would think of life in 2007. He tried to warn us about Big Brother but it seems in the age of phones with video cameras and YouTube, we need to be wary more of the guy on the street than we do of an all seeing government. Especially if you’re a celebrity, just ask David Hasselhoff.

So be careful out there, you don’t know how is watching. But don’t let the fear of a totalitarian state stop you from creating. The very act of creating can stop such things from becoming reality.

Live to create.

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Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art.

February 22nd, 2007 Daryle Dickens

Twenty years. It has been twenty years since he died. Andy Warhol passed away quietly in the night, alone in a hospital bed. He did not die how he lived. Andy was not a man to do things quietly or alone. To be honest for most of my life Warhol was a name I knew, but I did not know much about the artist. His art and his life made him a celebrity. Something few artist achieve. Andy Warhol was a household name. Your mom knows who Andy Warhol is. And his work has impacted your life. No doubt about it. Warhol left his mark on both the art world and pop culture. He made pop culture art in and of itself. Looking around today one can see how he was a bit ahead of his time. I think Andy would be quite at home in the MySpace YouTube world we live in now. These days we each can give ourselves our own 15 minutes of fame, just like Warhol predicted. Andy Warhol was a commercial artist, a painter, a writer, a publisher, a film maker, a business man, and a music producer just to name a few of the highlights of his life. He desired to be a machine that recorded the world around him so I wanted to honor that by writing a few words on the 20th anniversary of his death.

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