Showing posts with label Morris Graves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morris Graves. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2009

Indeterminacy 86


Morris Graves introduced Xenia and me to a miniature
island in Puget Sound at Deception Pass.
To get there we traveled from Seattle about
seventy-five miles north and west to Anacortes
Island, then south to the Pass, where
we parked. We walked along a rocky beach
and then across a sandy stretch that was passable
only at low tide to another island,
continuing through some luxuriant woods up a hill
where now and then we had views of the
surrounding waters and distant islands,
until finally we came to a small footbridge that
led to our destination — an island
no larger than, say, a modest home.
This island was carpeted with flowers
and was so situated that all of Deception
Pass was visible from it, just as
though we were in the best seats of an
intimate theatre. While we were
lying there on that bed of flowers,
some other people came across the footbridge.
One of them said to another,
“You come all this way and then when
you get here there’s nothing to see.”

- John Cage

Monday, May 25, 2009

Indeterminacy 30



Morris Graves used to have an old Ford
in Seattle. He had
removed all the seats and put in
a table and chairs so that
the car was like a small furnished
room with books, a vase
with flowers and so forth.
One day he
drove up to a luncheonette,
parked, opened the
door on the street side,
unrolled a red carpet across
the sidewalk. Then
he walked on the carpet,
went in, and
ordered a hamburger.
Meanwhile a crowd gathered,
expecting something strange
to happen.
However, all Graves did
was eat the hamburger,
pay his bill, get
back in the car, roll up the
carpet, and drive off.

- John Cage

Monday, May 18, 2009

Indeterminacy 133



A mother and son visited the
Seattle Art Museum.

Several rooms were devoted
to
the work of Morris Graves.


When
they came to one
in which
all of the paintings were
black,
the mother,

placing
a hand across her son’s
eyes,

said,

“Come, dear,
mother doesn’t want
you to see these things.”

- John Cage