Tastes of Paradise by Wolfgang Schivelbusch

I am most interested in the history of the senses. Our need and desire for sensual satisfaction has greatly impacted world history. Could who we are as a culture solely be due to the senses? I think the impact of sensual desire is often overlooked when examining culture and history.

One book that I find most intersting on this subject is Schivelbusch's Tastes of Paradise. From the preface, "This book deals not only with the history of Genussmittel - the spices, stimulants, and other substances ingested or inhaled by humans to produce a pleasurable effect - but more importantly with the question: In what say did these substances affect the history of man?" Just a quick note - I would change that last word to "humankind".

A comprehensive review of Tastes of Paradise by David Denborough. I found the review at the Dulwich Centre. Link here.


More books by Schivelbusch that I would like to read.

"Defeat in modern western history is the subject of this book, but the implications are global. The reaction of other civilisations to western victories is, after all, at the core of most interpretations of world events over recent centuries and indeed of most interpretations of today's international politics."-from an article by Martin Woolacott, The Guaridan, 2003. Link here.

Sugar, wax and pencil on tea stained paper.

On Longing, Susan Stewart

Listen to Stewart read her paper, On the Art of the Future. Slought Foundation. Link here.

I have been carrying this book around and reading it since graduate school. I am most interested in the chapters that discuss the souvenir and the miniature.

"The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three-dimensional into the miniature, that which can be enveloped by the body..." -from Chapter 5, Objects of Desire

I have always been interested in physical perception. Holding an object in one hand. Make a fist and cradle the object with your fingers. Are you holding the object or hiding it? You know it is there, you can feel it. Others do not know. Reverse this. If I occupy space in a large cathedral, now I am the object. I can be the envelope or I can be in the envelope.


"The nostalgic is enamored of distance, not of the referent itself. Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss. For the nostalgic to reach his or her goal of closing the gap between resemblance and identity, lived experience would have to take place, an erasure of the gap between sign and signified." --from Chapter 5, Objects of Desire

Pink Dye, Felt, Paper and Sewing

Studio

I only had 30 minutes in the studio tonight. This is what happened.

Jamie Marie Waelchli, "Thought Map No. 8"

I found this artist on portland.net. Link here.

Awhile back I was making drawings and diagrams using bumwad paper, in layers. I think this image is beautiful. Think I will pull out the bumwad paper and do some experimenting.

"False Front presents Jamie Marie Waelchli's Thought Maps, "a continuing series of psychoanalytic installations. Using strategically positioned illumination, Waelchli directs the viewers eye through layered sheets of vellum textured with self-examining stream of consciousness writing, diagrams and drawings. Designating these works as 'maps,' she encourages the viewer to navigate, unconditionally, the artist's notion of continuous introspection-stimulus for both development and reversion of the creative process."

Pink Circle