Anders Nilsen's Blog, page 27

Some of my dad's work

Below are some artworks by my father that can be found in his house. Apologies must be made for the bad quality of the photos, reflections etc. I hope to document the work properly on a forthcoming visit. The first is a pastel drawing of me aged maybe 7, that we came across in an old sketch pad. My father made both my sister and I sit for him for these. We both hated it at the time, now I kind of admire his ability to get a seven and nine year old to sit still long enough to do anything worthwhile.
Below is a painting of a longtime family friend. My dad pointed out that this picture is unfinished. The little metal eyelets in the shoes are unpainted.

The next two are portraits of two brothers, Jim and George Bartlett, who lived up the road when my dad moved to the neighborhood. I remember them taking long slow walks on the road. A few times I recall riding to their very dark ramshackle house on dirtbikes with my friend who lived in the area year round. in my memory they gave us pink fluffy marshmallowy cookies with shredded coconut on top. Occasionally Jim would knock on the door to my dad's place and come in. All work on the house would cease, which never happened, and my dad would sit with him at the kitchen table while he rolled cigarettes and told stories about the old days. I remember these involving beaver trapping at the stream below our house. His New Hampshire accent was so thick that I had trouble following his words. I was a little scared of these guys.


This drawing was done from a photo my dad took at a nearby county fair. When I was young I thought this boy was the coolest kid on the planet. A smaller version of this piece hangs in the New Hampshire Statehouse.

When I was a toddler I slept in a crib my dad made, with these carved and painted wooden animals. Such a piece would never have passed review by the child safety commission, with all its awkward openings for little legs and heads to get stuck in. But I survived it.




The most recent of these pictures is dated in the mid eighties. But when I asked him about it my dad still talked about his intention to do a portrait of another local, Red Landry, who runs a auto wrecking yard up the road, in the present tense. The first of several, with any luck.

My dad and his house

I was at my dad's place in Northern New Hampshire last week. Below are a couple of drawings I did while I was there. I'll post some photographs I took in the next few days.

The Trading Tortoise

The fantastic duo of Souther Salazar and Monica Choy are on the road with the Trading Tortoise. If they hit your town you should really go check it out. Check their schedule here. They'll be in Minneapolis on July 8th.

For Isaac

I was talking to my friend Zak today and he said he was wearing his Dogs and Water t-shirt ("not on purpose" he said) and he said his son Isaac asked him what does it mean. So he said he would ask me. I said I didn't feel that I was under any obligation to explain the mystical symbology of my self expression to a six year old. But he said that probably wouldn't be good enough. So this is my best guess. (The above diagramatic explanation is intended for application to the t-shirt image only. Extreme care and subtlety should be employed in extrapolating it to the book as a whole. Such application, while reasonable as far as it goes – more or less – would be woefully incomplete.)

Snatched from the Jaws of Defeat

Three years ago I cobbled together a fundraiser to support the raging fight to pass Obama's health care law. I was humbled by the many other artists who joined in. But a lot has happened since then and yesterday I would have called my own attitude about the law's chances extremely pessimistic. I expected it to get washed unceremoniously down the political drain in the raging deluge of rightward moving storm clouds we've all been struggling against lately. But it survived. The Chief Justice surprised me. Expanding health care is good policy, it's the human thing to do, and it actually goes a long way toward reducing wealth inequality in this country, but I've been more active in support of health care rights than other issues in part because I lost someone whose life might have been saved if she'd been able to afford insurance. And I'm far, far from alone in that circumstance. The law isn't perfect. I still support Medicare for all. But this is a victory. And it's as clear and ringing a call as we can expect that while this president may be imperfect he has done something historic and remarkable in passing the Affordable Care Act. And he deserves the support – along with the emphatic nudging – of those of us to his left.

The sky photos above and below are Cheryl Weaver's. More here.

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Sonnenzimmer Rules

Nick and Nadine over at my favorite @#$%ing printshop on the planet earth are raising money to make a book. Even if they raise their goal... well, they don't really seem to be paying themselves. They're too damn nice. Kick in some cheddar. Get a book. Get these mother@#$%ers paid. If you don't they'll all sell and you'll be pissed because your friend will have one and you won't. Because they'll be GONE.

and then Prometheus Sneaks Back into the Garden of Eden to Steal More Fire

The show opens tonight. Here's another page from the accordion book.

And if you can figure out how to be in two places at once you should go see Kevin and Dan, too.

Adam Henry made some paintings

I met Adam Henry in freshman orientation for art students at the University of New Mexico in 1992. We immediately connected because we stood out as skaters. Big pants, baggy shirts, wrecked shoes. We've been friends ever since. And I could write a novel about all that's transpired in our lives since. But from that first year he's been the best, most quietly ambitious and committed painter I know. I mostly stopped painting after undergrad to tell stories, but talking to him about the medium – or whatever else he's doing (there were these amazing collages a few years back, too) always gets me stoked on making stuff. It's like clockwork. He's worked in all sorts of media in the last ten years, but in the last two or three he's come back to painting. With a vengeance. It feels to me like he's come home. He has a show up right now in New York at Joe Sheftel. Its only up for another week. So you should get down there.

When Venus Passes before the Son

In honor of today's astronomical peculiarities: a selection from the accordian book Rage of Poseidon