Author: Tetman Callis

Now, for something (almost) completely differentNow, for something (almost) completely different

from long ago and far away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjcPS4ekOA

Long live the kingLong live the king

“A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.  Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.  Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissable; so that rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.” – Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address”

ThingsThings

Marilyn on a Stick, 1991 by Tetman Callis (about 2 ft. tall by about 8 in. round; mixed media–gift bag, painted metal decoration, toothpicks, little plastic babies, dried cholla stem, plaster of Paris, KFC bucket, gift wrap)

Grand teleologyGrand teleology

“To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations, or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.” — Abraham Lincoln, “Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society”

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Manhattan 1993, 1993 by Tetman Callis (about 3 foot square with its transparent overlay; mixed media–photographs, rag board, metal, plastic, electrical tape)

It’s hardIt’s hard

“Learning to write is a mother-fucker.  But what great feelings of joy and power and something more atomized than clarity when you get it right.” – Eileen Myles (from Amy King interview in Denver Quarterly)

ThingsThings

Laughing (Please Touch), 1989 by Tetman Callis (about 3 ft. by about 5 ft. by about 2 ft.; mixed media–scrap metal, yarn, elastic, reflector, paper clips, little plastic dolls, hanging wire, barbed wire, rubber band)

Mightier than the sword, able to leap long centuries in a single boundMightier than the sword, able to leap long centuries in a single bound

“Writing—the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye—is the great invention of the world.  Great in the astonishing range of analysis and combination which necessarily underlies the most crude and general conception of it—great, very great in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.” – Abraham Lincoln, “Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions” (emphasis in original)

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Kiln Dried, 1992 by Tetman Callis (about 2 ft. x about 6 in. x about 4 in.; mixed media–nails, razor blade, paper, blood, butter, and semen on rag board on pine)

Gone with the windGone with the wind

“When we review the past, it would seem that Christianity was but a name—that the Atonement had failed, and Christ had lived and died in vain.” – Phoebe Pember, A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond

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Intranslation, 1994 by Tetman Callis (about 2 ft. x about 4 in.; mixed media–pamphlets, tacks, nails, and screws on fiberboard)

A nation of hothouse flowersA nation of hothouse flowers

“As if it weren’t ludicrous enough for every child to be ‘gifted’, now they have to be ill as well: a touch of Asperger’s, a little autism; dyslexia stalks the playground; the poor little gifted things have been ‘bullied’ at school; if they can’t confess to being abused, they must confess to being abusive.” — Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

ThingsThings

Franklins 95, 1995 by Tetman Callis (about 5 ft. by about 4 in.; mixed media–photographs, cotton cloth, and plaster of Paris on pine)

There is seethingThere is seething

“Behaviours could be changed, attitudes modified, mentalities transformed, but it was hard to have a dialogue with the somatic habits of infancy.  How could an infant express himself before he had a self to express, or the words to express what he didn’t yet have?  Only the dumb language of injury and illness was abundantly available.  There was screaming of course, if it was allowed.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

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Excoriate (main component), 1992 by Tetman Callis (about 2 in. by about 4 in. by about 2 in.; mixed media–French tchotchke, hanging wire, dye transfer dye, acrylic)

The reptilian brain awaitsThe reptilian brain awaits

“Neither a soul nor a personal identity was needed to precipitate a human life, just a cluster of habits clinging to the hollow concept of independent existence, like a crowd of grasping passengers sinking the lifeboat they imagined would save them.  In the background was the ever-present opportunity to slip away into the glittering ocean of a true nature that was not personal either.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

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Crayons #30, 1996 by Tetman Callis, from The King of Crayons (about 4 in. by about 10 in.; crayon on cedar)

Getting pretty crowded down thereGetting pretty crowded down there

“Before they became masters of the universe, usurers were consigned to the seventh circle of Hell.  Under a rain of fire, their perpetually restless hands were a punishment for hands that had made nothing useful or good in their lifetime, just exploited the labor of others.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

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Crayons #29, 1996 by Tetman Callis, from The King of Crayons (about 4 in. by about 10 in.; crayon on cedar)

Nothing meaning nothingNothing meaning nothing

“Forget heroin.  Just try giving up irony, that deep down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

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Billy Bob Sweet Thang, 1996 by Tetman Callis (about 18 in. x about 15 in.; mixed media–photograph, stickers, bullets, macaroni, plywood)

Give me what I want or I’ll kill myselfGive me what I want or I’ll kill myself

“Suicide wore the mask of self-rejection; but in reality nobody took their personality more seriously than the person who was planning to kill himself on its instructions.  Nobody was more determined to stay in charge at any cost, to force the most mysterious aspect of life into their own imperious schedule.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

PlacesPlaces

NYC 1992, Exterior #4, from NYC Exteriors Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

Print more!Print more!

“What is there to do with money except spend it when you’ve got it or be bitter about it when you haven’t?  It’s a very limited commodity in which people invest the most extraordinary emotions.” – Edward St. Aubyn, At Last

PlacesPlaces

NYC 1992, Exterior #3, from NYC Exteriors Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

It’s good we finally got that straightIt’s good we finally got that straight

“All sex was prostitution for both participants, not always in the commercial sense, but in the deeper etymological sense that they stood in for something else.  The fact that this was sometimes done so effectively that there were weeks or months in which the object of desire and the person one happened to be in bed with seemed identical could not prevent the underlying model of desire from beginning to drift away, sooner or later, from its illusory home.” — Edward St. Aubyn, Mother’s Milk

PlacesPlaces

NYC 1992, Exterior #2, from NYC Exteriors Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

He’s over there on the couchHe’s over there on the couch

“There should be a superhero called Whateverman.  Not an action hero like Superman or Spiderman, but an inaction hero, a hero of resignation.” — Edward St. Aubyn, Mother’s Milk

PlacesPlaces

NYC 1992, Exterior #1, from NYC Exteriors Series #1 (copyright by Tetman Callis)

The chosen people, the promised land, the cattle to the slaughterThe chosen people, the promised land, the cattle to the slaughter

“Would America be just like he’d imagined it?  Along with the rest of the world, Robert had lived under a rain of American images most of his life.  Perhaps the place had already been imagined for him and he wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.

“The first impression that came his way, while the plane was still on the ground at Heathrow, was a sense of hysterical softness.  The flow of passengers up the aisle was blocked by a red-haired woman sagging at the knees under her own weight.

“‘I cannot go there.  I cannot get in there,’ she panted.  ‘Linda wants me to sit by the window, but I cannot fit in there.’

“‘Get in there, Linda,’ said the enormous father of the family.

“‘Dad!’ said Linda, whose size spoke for itself.

“That certainly seemed typical of something he had seen before in London’s tourist spots: a special kind of tender American obesity; not the hard-won fat of a gourmet, or the juggernaut body of a truck driver, but the apprehensive fat of people who had decided to become their own airbag systems in a dangerous world.  What if their bus was hijacked by a psychopath who hadn’t brought any peanuts?  Better have some now.  If there was going to be a terrorist incident, why go hungry on top of everything else?

“Eventually, the Airbags dented themselves into their seats.  Robert had never seen such vague faces, mere sketches on the immensity of their bodies.  Even the father’s relatively protuberant features looked like the remnants of a melted candle.  As she squeezed into her aisle seat, Mrs. Airbag turned to the long queue of obstructed passengers, a brown smudge of tiredness radiating from her faded hazel eyes.

“‘Thank you for your patience,’ she groaned.

“‘It’s sweet of her to thank us for something we haven’t given her,’ said Robert’s father.  ‘Perhaps I should thank her for her agility.’

“Robert’s mother gave him a warning look.  It turned out they were in the row behind the Airbags.

“‘You’re going to have to put the armrests down for takeoff,’ Linda’s father warned her.

“‘Mom and me are sharing these seats,’ giggled Linda.  ‘Our tushes are expanding!’

“Robert peeped through the gap in the seats.  He didn’t see how they were going to get the armrests down.

“After meeting the Airbags, Robert’s sense of softness spread everywhere.  Even the hardness of some of the faces he saw on that warm and waxy arrival afternoon, in the flag-strewn mineral crevasses of mid-town Manhattan, looked to him like the embittered softness of betrayed children who had been told to expect everything.  For those who were prepared to be consoled there was always something to eat; a pretzel stall, an ice-cream cart, a food-delivery service, a bowl of nuts on the counter, a snack machine down the corridor.  He felt the pressure to drift into the mentality of grazing cattle, not just ordinary cattle but industrialized cattle, neither made to wait nor allowed to.” — Edward St. Aubyn, Mother’s Milk