Amy Evans McClure
Amy Evans McClure: creates “spirit guides” through her sculpture: figures, horses, goddesses, buddhas, and abstract shapes. She began life in New York, was illuminated by Arizona mountains and mesas, now her art grows near forest and ocean in the Bay Area of northern California. Her most recent sculptural commission is installed in The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley. Art in America editor Michael Duncan contrasts her artwork with Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois in his essay introducing the newly released book, Amy Evans McClure: Space In Situ. She lives in the hills of Oakland with horses nearby and the roar of the freeway below.
from the Machig Labdrön
by Barbara Moraff
Sitting in a chair
writing on my knees
broken ankle pinned w/steel
sunrise in my skull
from the Machig Labdrön
arousing resolve
meditating training the mind
immeasurably focus
painfully focus
offer offer offer
dedicate
& dissolve —
Machigma says in the Bad Time you will discard
yr lifelong buddies Take on new ones & use &
discard them the wrong end
of the stick in yr heart
Soon there will be no one
who is or has a friend everyone will argue
bitch over whose opinion has merit whose view
is clear
& all the people will know
nothing & everything
think nothing & everything
do nothing & everything go nowhere & everywhere
every gate a revolving door on fire
even now just look at all our children
doubling their chins whose distended bellies
signal starvation & sluggish
hearts
(why does this
need to be
laid out / what happened
to separate but not alone)
Machigma says the voices of those few
who live for humanity to live
will waste away in the babble electronic —
Now meditate
w/yr actions. why not
be heroic. / isn’t it
all in
the
mind ?
Veiled Absentee
by Nathaniel Tarn
Is he from Babylon, or perhaps Sumer, or
from far beyond that, the Paleolithic ? Who
will ever guarantee provenance ? He walks
through forests, never sees a tree. He walks
through women, seeing no woman. Plethys –
mographs are favorites with him though he
registers nothing. A zillion year old star
would write a great deal more beyond its light.
Eats live birds in his sleep. Does not sleep sleep:
it is too onerous. And dreams are not his forte
either: his is eternal wakefulness. Cities — you’d
think he would like cities, or cities’ contents:
streets, galleries, museums. He’s never seen
a painting he didn’t like — no one is sure he
ever saw a painting come to that. He mouths
for the sake of talking, never of saying: he has
nothing to say at any time though he sure talks
an awful lot. His reputation grows by decades.
He is well known for hosts of things no one can
quite remember. He’s won innumerable awards,
prizes, remunerations. Member of everything.
What sadness ! Sadness of loving someone with
all the love of many, many years — someone who
no, not only fails to answer but is not even there.
Tennyson Speaks and All
by Clark Coolidge
Is that . . . ? yes it’s him
now every bicycle is in danger
but that metal chap he remains
a waffle copy of Frank Sinatra I knew
what happens when you add MI 5 and 6
my pleasure Von Thibeau ducks down at the slightest
blocking of the view a.k.a. Dashboard Nash
reputable sunday driver as such ?
any of you bastards speak anglo ?
but you see it’s all here in locked cabinets
you’ve seen the exhaust and buttered scones
so anyway just what was your name ?
I’ve heard rumors put to goofy use
the greenish hue of those old brothel boards