UCLA announced recently that due to budget constraints, they are considering closing north campus's Arts Library. This small, unsophisticated space, greatly resembling the inside of a narrow ship, houses over 270,000 books, and is an indispensable resource to faculty, students, and community members involved in the many arts programs both at UCLA and in the ever-growing Los Angeles art scene. While university librarian Gary Strong maintains that these books will be dispersed throughout the campus's remaining libraries, this seems highly improbable, even infeasible, as the libraries are already experiencing overcrowding issues, due to high capacities of both books and students. As UCLA Professor Steve Nelson so perfectly put it, "There is nowhere to put the books and what will happen is that they will become inaccessible." Closing it down would create not only an inconvenience to students, but would greatly hinder studying and research in written resource-based programs, such as UCLA's Art History program. As an Art History major, I understand the importance of having these books easily within reach and readily available for use in one central location, and can attest to the difficulty of trying to relocate this collection to other campus libraries. I cannot reiterate enough how important this small space is to my program, my fellow students, and my own studies, nor can I stress how greatly and negatively this decision will impact future generations of arts students at UCLA. One petitioner (#1430) very aptly phrased it: "It is difficult to maintain excellence when the spaces and resources that support it disappear." There are better ways to save money than wiping out a community's cultural resource, a resource that is much appreciated and heavily used by far many more scholars in the Los Angeles area than simply UCLA arts students.

UCLA Professor George Baker has joined Professor Nelson in heading up a faculty/community effort to keep UCLA's Arts Library alive, and together they've started an online petition that's rapidly circulating throughout the community. Whether you are a UCLA student or not, an art student or not, we would appreciate all the support we can get for our cause. We're close to 1500 signatures, and it's only day 2! A formal decision regarding the library (which is not the only one up for discussion...the Chemistry Library may also be cut) is not set to be made until at least the fall, but there have been rumors that it could be closed as early as January 2010. So sign the petition, spread the word, and help us prevent this from happening!

The online petition: [link]

The Facebook group: [link]

Thank you

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
(Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto 27, lines 61-66)


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

(T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1919)



I'm in the process of researching Max Klinger's Paraphrase on the Finding of the Glove ([link]), an 1881 series of ten etchings centering on a woman's lost white glove, which is discovered by a man who does not return it to its owner, but instead is tormented by the object. The glove, thought to be a symbol of women, takes on a life of its own and is fetishized in these scenes, reflecting the psychological anxieties of love as well as those of the artist figure. The etchings are part of Hammer Museum's Darker Side of Light exhibition ([link]), and I've chosen them as the subject of a mini-tour I'm preparing for a job interview this Tuesday. To me, there is a striking connection between the etchings and this poem, which is my favorite, and I think this is what I will center my tour around. But there is a powerful beauty inherent in both the poem and the images, and I wanted to share this with you. Hope you enjoy them both

Well, the AHUSA Made in LA opening was last night, and it was a huge success! We had a few setbacks throughout the day with installation, some more crucial than others, and I almost missed it and wound up in the hospital instead, but in the end, almost everyone pulled through to make it a truly amazing experience. I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. And, to make things even better, Kyle Lishok, whose work I curated, sold a couple of his pieces! I'm very proud :-D. All in all, I don't think it could've been a better night









Kyle's website: [link]