the purposeful use of confusion / invention is

Hans Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art (New York: McGraw-Hill, n.d.), p. 145—

One day [German Dadaist artist Kurt] Schwitters decided he wanted to meet [German artist] George Grosz. George Grosz was decidedly surly; the hatred in his pictures often overflowed into his private life. But Schwitters was not one to be put off. He wanted to meet Grosz, so [Walter] Mehring took him up to Grosz's flat. Schwitters rang the bell and Grosz opened the door.

"Good morning, Herr Grosz. My name is Schwitters."

"I am not Grosz," answered the other and slammed the door. There was nothing to be done.

Half way down the stairs, Schwitters stopped suddenly and said, "Just a moment."

Up the stairs he went, and once more rang Grosz's bell. Grosz, enraged by this continual jangling, opened the door, but before he could say a word, Schwitters said "I am not Schwitters, either." And went downstairs again. Finis. They never met again.

Koestler on creativity

Remembering AK

end of performative writing / writing for voice

Roy R. Behrens © 2005

Above Exhibition flyer for works by Mary Snyder Behrens (2005).

•••

William H. Gass, interviewed in Tom LeClair and Larry McCaffery, eds., Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), p. 158—

I think contemporary fiction is divided between those who are still writing performatively and those who are not. Writing for voice, in which you imagine a performance in the auditory sense going on, is traditional and old-fashioned and dying. The new mode is not performative and not auditory. It's destined for the printed page, and you are really supposed to read it the way they teach you to read in speed reading. You are supposed to crisscross the page with your eye, getting references and gists; you are supposed to see it flowing on the page, and not sound it in the head. If you do sound it, it is so bad you can hardly proceed...By the mouth for the ear: that's the way I'd like to write. I can still admire the other—the way I admire surgeons, broncobusters, and tight ends. As writing, it is that foreign to me.

info online

art is rare, sacred and hard work / no short cuts

Mary Snyder Behrens, Drawn Conclusions No. 14, Cleave 2005

Anthony Burgess, But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwertyuiop and Other Writings (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986)—

Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered. You can't create unless you're willing to subordinate the creative impulse to the construction of a form. But the learning of a craft takes time, and we all think we're entitled to short cuts…Art is rare and sacred and hard work, and there ought to be a wall of fire around it.

I mean the thing you use to rub out mistakes

Altered book montages, Roy R. Behrens © 2004

Bessie Head [South African novelist], "Some Happy Memories of Iowa" in Paul Engle, et al., editor, The World Comes to Iowa (Ames: State University of Iowa Press, 1987), pp. 86-87—

American English isn't the British English that is spoken in southern Africa. I walked into a stationery shop and said to the man behind the counter, "I would like to buy a rubber, please." The man said: "We don't sell them in ones. We sell them in threes." I said: "But I want only one rubber." The man became hostile: "But I told you we only sell them in threes." I said: "All right, I'll take three then." The man walked to the back of the shop and returned with a small packet of prophylactics that he handed to me. He had such a peculiar look in his eyes that I thought he believed I was a prostitute who had suddenly invaded Iowa City. Half fainting with shock I struggled to explain, "I mean the thing you rub mistakes out with." "Oh," he said, "you mean an eraser."

awaiting the shared use of a set of false teeth

Altered book montages, Roy R. Behrens © 2004

Kingsley Amis, Memoirs (New York: Summit Books, 1991), p. 1.—

[My paternal grandfather] was a great teller of jokes, typically without preamble, to trap you into thinking you were hearing about some real event. One of these horrified me so much [as a child] that I have never forgotten it. A Scotsman (I was still so young that I had not heard about Scotsmen being supposed to be mean) took his wife out to dinner. Both order steak. The wife started eating hers at top speed, but the man left his untouched. "Something wrong with the steak, sir?"—" No, no, I'm waiting for my wife's teeth." I had not then heard of false teeth either, and imagined the living teeth being torn from the woman's jaws on the spot and inserted into her husband's.

milkman comes up the walk and pauses to talk

Altered Book Montages / Roy R. Behrens © 2004

Susanah Mayberry, My Amicable Uncle: Recollections About Booth Tarkington (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1983), p. 4—

Early one morning during this period he [Booth Tarkington] went for a walk after an unusually long writing session. He met the milkman coming up the walk and stopped to talk: ''You been up all night?" he [the milkman] asked. ''Yes," I answered. "What you been doin'?" he went on. "Working," said I. "Workin'!" said he. "What at?" "Writing," said I. "How long?" said he. "Since yesterday noon," said I. "About sixteen hours." "My God," said he. ''You must have lots of time to waste!"

language in which faith intertwines with desire

Montage © Roy R. Behrens

Francine du Plessix Gray, in George Plimpton, ed., The Writer’s Chapbook—

We must all struggle against all that is curious, already-seen, fatigued, shopworn. I battle against what my admirable colleague William Gass calls "pissless prose," prose that lacks the muscle, the physicality, the gait of a good horse, for pissless prose is bodiless and has no soul. Of course this holds equally true for fiction as for essays, reporting, a letter to a friend, a book review, a decent contribution to art criticism—in sum I search for language in which faith intertwines with desire, faith that we can recapture, with erotic accuracy, that treasured memory or vision which is the object of our desire. I'm keen on the word "voluptuous," a word too seldom heard in this society founded on puritanical principles. I think back to a phrase of Julia Kristeva's, the most interesting feminist thinker of our time, who speaks of "the voluptuousness of family life." I would apply the same phrase to the prose I most admire, prose I can caress and nuture and linger on, diction which is nourished by the deep intimacy of familiar detail, and yet is constantly renewed by the force of the writer's love and fidelity to language.

Arthur Koestler / not in his most admirable state

Koestler on creativity

Sidney Hook, Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1987, pp. 441-444—

The outstanding personality at the Berlin congress was undoubtedly Arthur Koestler. He was in his element — masterful in expression, keen in give and take, and unwontedly eloquent. Tireless in energy, he had an excellent sense for practical detail. And most surprising to me, he was disciplined and cooperative. There was, however, one aspect of his behavior, not relevant to the proceedings of the Congress, that I found so painful that I could hardly bear to be in the same room with him when he let himself go. This was his rude and cruel treatment of his wife, who though obviously hurt by his remarks seemed to dote on him all the more. It must have been the country bumpkin in me that prompted me to say to him, when we were taking private farewells of each other the last night before our departure: "Well, Arthur, you really excelled yourself at our meetings. We couldn't have succeeded so well without you. I admired everything you did — except the way you spoke to your wife." He cast a startled look at me but said nothing.

The next morning, while I was having coffee early in the breakfast room of the Hotel am Steinplaz, Koestler waved to me from the other end of the room and then approached as I finished. Taking me under the arm, he walked me toward the waiting bus and solemnly said: "Sidney, as a friend, I want to tell you something important. Whatever you do, don't drink! As soon as you get too much liquor in you, you say the most terrible things." He obviously assumed that I must have been drunk the night before to say such a horrendous thing to him. In truth I was stone sober.

he and i sat down together and became friends

Roy R. Behrens, Montage (detail)

Kurt Vonnegut, in William Rodney Allen, ed., Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988), p. 68—

The most pleasant author I might see socially is John Updike. First time I met Updike, incidentally, which was very funny, was on the Boston shuttle down to New York. The plane was not crowded, and as I walked down the aisle, this voice came from a seat saying, "Are you really him?" And so I turned to see who said it and it was John Updike, and we sat down together and became friends.

Mary Snyder Behrens / currently exhibited work

Mary Snyder Behrens / 2025

Tomorrow afternoon marks the opening "artists' reception" for an exhibition (12:00-2:00 pm), titled the 2025 Group Fiber Show, at the Burlington Art Center (301 Jefferson Street) in Burlington, Iowa. 

Shown above is one of the featured works, a dress made entirely of used tea bags, titled The Tea Party Dress, created by Iowa-based artist Mary Snyder Behrens (2025). More examples of her work can be accessed online here.

Despite its recycled components, the elegance of this artwork is undeniable. To see it only in photographs is one experience surely, but its nuanced richnesses become far more evident when viewed in person. You won't regret it.

four persons who deserve wider recognition

In the last week of October, I will begin to teach my latest online course for Drake University, as part of their Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) course offerings. Titled ACCOMPLISHED BUT INSUFFICIENTLY PRAISED, over four weeks, with one presentation each week, I'll be sharing what I know about the lives of Four People Who Deserve to be More Widely Known. Looking forward to it.

there is no better book about human creativity

Douglas Fowler, S.J. Perelman. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983, p. 83—

Continuing an ancient and honorable line of speculation into the nature of humor, Arthur Koestler has theorized [in The Act of Creation] that human laughter may be a sort of alternative satisfaction of “biological drives,” a substitute for “killing and copulating,” for planting antipersonnel bombs. The aggression implied in laughter—and laughter almost always involves ridicule, bringing low—is “sublimated, often unconscious,” but the mechanism of laughter surely involves a psychic effort to reduce or even imaginatively destroy its objects; and we can agree that a good part of the comic phenomenon might be understood as brutality without consequence.

•••

I discovered The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler’s classic book on science, art and humor, as a college freshman in 1965. It had been published the year before. At nearly 500 pages, it is not an easy read. Or, it might be better to say that the text, as one moves through it, is immensely pleasurable, stirring and insightful. That is especially true of Part One. In Part Two, as Koestler cautions, the wording thickens somewhat and the content grows more technical. But you must not be put off by this. 

Over the years, I have owned six or seven copies of this book, and yet I have never read the entire text in sequence, page by page from beginning to end. I don’t think it works best for that. But most likely I’ve read every word, in session lengths and sequences that seemed appropriate at the time. Even today, I still go back to it, because its concepts are so illuminating, and the writing is so perfectly phrased. I have learned immeasurably, I don’t deny, from other educational opportunities, and from other published sources, but I continue to be convinced that, at a critical point in my life, Koestler’s book provided a “big picture” framework for those.  

The entire book is now available free online. If the book seems somewhat daunting, you might first read an essay I wrote in 1998. More recently, I produced a short video talk on the subject, which is also free online. Near the end of the video, I recall an incident that took place in my classroom, back in 1968, when I was a 7-12 art teacher in a public school. In subsequent years, as a university professor (and as a grapher design and writer) I made frequent use of Koestler's approach to innovation—and I still use it to this day.

the frustrations of small mistakes in video talks

Making online videos is apparently always a challenge. From my experience, the results are always uneven, largely because there are always mistakes. Some months ago, for example, I made what is presumably the best of my eighteen video talks—or at least the most popular one. The title is Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version, and currently (although I do not promote it by pleading for viewers to “like and subscribe”) on the average it is being watched by someone, somewhere in the world, day and night, about once per hour. As good as it is, I still wince in response to its errors.

One that always bothers me is a scene in which I provide an example of the simultaneous contrast of color, in which a single color appears to be two noticeably different colors, when placed in different settings. The still shot reproduced above is the slide that I intended to use. It is a persuasive example of simultaneous contrast, because the field of background gray (behind the name Bing Crosby) conspicuously appears to be two distinctively different grays. This is the image I should have used, and everything would have been perfectly fine. Unfortunately, as I was editing the final version, I slightly adjusted the overall color balance—with the result that the contrast effect is far too subtle in the film.

the education of vision—before it's too late

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzYrUfsAvkZur5cBv6xlhSg

 

art, design, architecture / online published links

more>>>

 

Ruth Suckow exhibition at Bettendorf IA Library

Good news! This is an installation view of the traveling exhibition about the life and work of Iowa novelist and short story writer Ruth Suckow (pronounced Soo-Co). It was organized and produced by Iowa writer Barbara Lounsberry (UNI professor emerita of literature), who is also the president of the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association. I was fortunate to be asked to design the exhibition panels, the banner and the shipping crate.

The above is how the exhibition looks, as currently installed at the Bettendorf Public Library in Bettendorf IA. Bravo! What a neat, professional way of setting it up. 

This is hardly its first exhibition. The initial traveling show took place in January of this year at a location near the extreme western edge of the state, and it has now proven so popular among Iowa libraries and history centers that it has been booked for more than a year in the future. With each display, there are also various public events, such as a presentation at the Bettendorf Library on Thursday, April 18, at 1:30 to 2:30 pm, titled Profound Realism: The Rediscovery of Ruth Suckow, featuring Michael and Hedy Hustedde. The exhibition is on display at Bettendorf from April 14 through May 12. 

Other libraries or history centers who would like to host the exhibition in the future will find information here.

newly revised site map for ballast / camoupedia

At long last. We have finally succeeded in cleaning house on our website—or at least on the site directory. Essays, design and art portfolio, blog links, online video talks: all in one location.

the extraordinary visions of Joseph Podlesnik

Above The photographs of Joseph Podlesnik are simply astonishing. A large selection are on sale through December 8, 2023, online here.

the process by which creativity works / koestler

Roy R. Behrens, from the film narration in HOW TO WIN KINGS AND INFLUENCE CABBAGES: The Process by Which Creativity Works (2022), free to watch online on YouTube here—

As a college student, I was required to read for a humanities class Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Years later, I found out that, amusingly, all three of these literary titans had been drinking companions in postwar Paris, and that on one unforgettable evening in 1949 a greatly intoxicated Koestler (who was small and reputedly scrappy) had thrown a glass at Sartre and given Camus a black eye.

My favorite photograph of Koestler was made in the same year as that famous brawl by Dmitri Kessel for Life magazine [see above]. A double portrait of the Hungarian-born British writer and his magnificent boxer Sabby, it is memorable in part because of the uncanny resemblance between dog and master—boxer meets boxer, they seem deliberately to be imitating one another.

It is also, as might be said, a “self-exemplifying” image because that portrait is a superb example of what Koestler identified as the key ingredient throughout all creative activity: “The discovery of hidden similarities” or bisociation (perceiving things “in two self-consistent but incompatible frames of reference at the same time”).

Walter Hamady // book artist and paper maker

Above (and below) Title frame and other single frames from a new 20-minute video talk about Walter Hamady (1940-2019), prominent book artist, paper-maker, and collagist, who was well-known as a teacher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 

Having earlier taught in Milwaukee for ten years, I had become aware of his work in the 1970s. Because of his liking for Ballast Quarterly Review (which I had founded in 1985), he and I began to exchange spirited letters (along with a mix of enclosures), once or twice or more a month. 

This led to collaborations of one kind or another, eventually resulting in exhibitions, published essays, and an archive of his artist’s books. I saved everything, even all the envelopes and mailing containers, in part because they were always addressed to mutilations of my name, such as Corps du Roy, Rhoidamoto, Trompe L’Roi at Labbast, Royatolla, and so on. This continued for more than a decade, perhaps to the mailman’s amusement.

Looking back on what I have, I have now produced a video talk (a brief memoir-like tribute) titled BOOK ART: Walter Hamady’s Books, Collages and Assemblages, which can be accessed free online on my YouTube channel.