I am please to announce that I am now showing and selling some of my work at The Eclective in the NOTO Art District.

900 N. Kansas Avenue

Topeka, Kansas  66608

Hours of Operation Friday-Saturday 10:00am-3:00pm

The Eclective website

The Eclective on Facebook

]]> http://www.joeyembers.org/blog/the-eclective/feed 0 http://www.joeyembers.org/blog/rooms-of-the-interior-an-exhibit-by-joey-embers http://www.joeyembers.org/blog/rooms-of-the-interior-an-exhibit-by-joey-embers#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:43:58 +0000 Joey Embers http://www.joeyembers.org/?p=581 “Rooms of the Interior” an exhibit by Joey Embers will be on display at the Heritage Gallery of the McPherson Opera House.  Several of the paintings were started during a two weeks residence at the Red Barn Studio in Lindsborg Kansas.

                A sheet of water covering the windshield has made it impossible to see in order to drive.  From the beginning of this discourse, the music has been turned to the maximum decibel level possible.  The music begins to fade into the background with the rattling of the passenger’s door, which needs repairing.  A yellow-neon sign emerges from the down poor of water creeping into consciousness.  To pull over would be the smart thing to do.  The limited parking space is empty; making one to think that there is no activity inside this small town bar of Danzig.  In the window a flickering lit sign reads “OPEN”.  There is another sign cockeyed and worn into the door like a tattoo.  It reads, “The meaning to life is to lessen one’s suffering, so come inside and intoxicate the soul.”  The door in itself is hard to open, and in opening it, a gust of wind comes swirling from within, knocking off one’s balance.  

              To one’s surprise there are a handful of colorful characters inside drinking and playing chess.  The atmosphere dense and heavy like the rain outside, but instead of rain cigarette and cigar smoke made the air thick.  Walking to the bar is the focus movement; no mistakes can be made.  There must be contentment in the stride, for every glazed over eye is peering deep inside.  The barkeep stood behind the bar with small beady black eyes embedded in a face that is weathered away from years of contemplation.  A deep monotone voice vibrated from his chest as he spoke, “Do you need a drink fellow traveler?”   Not much of a drinker.  When one’s father is dying from a liver disease, it serves as a deterrence from hitting the bottle as so many do.  “Just waiting out the storm. . . What would you recommend?”  Reaching for a bottle on the top shelve, disturbing years of settled dust, the barkeep was pulled down what must be a prize possession.  “This here is a 1665 potion imported from Germany.  This will close the windows of any problems one might have with the physical world,” the barkeep said with a broad grin.  Why not, there is nothing to lose.

              The drink had a specific sharp sting to the tongue almost as if a needle was pricking every single taste bud working its way across the tongue.  Turning and facing the handful of characters that inhabited the bar.  They consisted of white men, much older than the self.  All of them engaged in a game of some sort.  Except for one gentleman who sat in solitude next to the only window in the bar where the “OPEN” sign hung.  The window covered in a thick layer of residue coated from the dense atmosphere of the bar.  The barkeep’s deep voice made its way from behind, filtering its way through the idle chatter.  That there is known as Narcissus; he spends every evening peering in window at his transcendental reflection.”  Uncertainty arose in the mind as to wither those words came from the barkeep’s mouth or from one’s own head.  For a brief moment locked with Narcissus’s eyes inside of the reflecting glass, his hand moved from underneath his chin as he reached up turning of the sign in the window.  Shifting back towards the gentlemen who were playing games, their material bodies were integrating into the cigarette and cigar smoke that had been luminating above each of their heads.  At that moment a burst of wind flung open the door sucking the smoke out knocking me to the ground.  I must have been unconscious for some time.

              Setting up as the fogginess lifted from the mind, I was soon aware that all corporal objects were gone.  That I am in a room with no windows and no doors and that I alone exist.  Oh great, I thought to myself.  I am a full fledge alcoholic who lives in complete solitude of the mind.  I went to scratch my head.  To a great surprise I could not find my head, because I could not find my hands.  My physical body that I once knew is no longer to be found.  Where am I?  Who am I?  What am I but idle chatter in a bar?

              Pealing my face of the sticky bar top I could feel marks of sleep covering my forehead.  The barkeep in his monotone voice says, “Oh I see that you are awake.  You have been asleep for some time.”  “Is the storm over?” I ask. “No, I am afraid not comrade.  You still have some time to kill.  Let me get you another drink” he said in a sly voice.  Turning around the barkeep grabs a bottle that was almost empty.  “This shot will give you a greater awareness of the nature of things,” the barkeep proclaims.  As I took the shot it felt like a big medal ball rolling down my throat it almost made me gag.  It had the same German flavor of the earlier drink.  On the bottle the date read “1799 Germany, Hegelian Brewery”.

              With in minutes of consuming the drink I felt the weirdest sensation; it was as if every monad of my being was aware of each other.  My first thought was I have been drinking too much and it was time to relieve some of the pressure that was building up.  Finding my way to the restroom I notice the wooden planks of the floor had lost its polish from people traveling across them many times to get to the restroom.  Stepping up to the urinal I could feel the residue of all previous occupancies that had at one point came to this same point in their life.  The pipes dripping from the humidity, I slip in a puddle of collective residue.  Finding me again level to the plane of the floor as darkness paints my eyes.  Not to my surprise that when I slip into sate of consciousness that I find myself in front of a painting with a paint brush.

              In an absolute state of self-consciousness I discover my ego.  When I pick up the paintbrush I am not alone in this act of being.  There is a deep conversation between me and the raw materials I use.  When I paint there is a tremendous amount of weight looming over my head.  This is where I feel safe to be a glob of fluidic paint on the tip of a paintbrush as the nature of the Absolute is being express.

              A warm fluid, I fell running down my face a huge hand with a wet cloth pulls away.  One of the older gentlemen I saw earlier playing cards was sitting with me in a booth by the front door.  For some reason when he spoke, I could only hear the sound of each word.  It took me a couple of seconds to associate the sounds into useful meaning.  “You have been consuming too much and in doing so, slipped in a correlated puddle of piss, my friend.” He said as he handed me a glass.  Responding quite quickly,  I said, “I do not want any more to drink.”  “This is just water; it will rehydrate you and give you back your strength “the gentleman says.  “Thank you” I say with sincerity.  This has been a strange evening I thought to myself, I need to learn to hold my liquor.  “Hey do you want to join guys and I in a game of poker as you wait to be replenished?” The gentleman asks.  Peering over at the table of elderly gentlemen I saw that they were playing for money.  I said, “I do not have much money and what I do have I need for gat to get where I am going.”   “That is all right we can play without money” the gentleman states.

              The gentleman who was earlier setting by the window was at the table with the barkeep and another gentleman.  Properly introducing myself I told them who I am, and going around the table they did the same.  The guy who brought me over, his name is Ludwig.  The guy who had been by the window was Leibniz.  The guy to his right was Hegel and the Barkeep was Schopenhauer. 

              We sat for hours engaging in deep philosophical discussion as we played.  Each of us refuting the other with words of persuasion, bets were being made but not with money.  Hegel pulling out a golden pocket-watch placing it on the table said, “Here I bit this.”  Schopenhauer won the round and took the timepiece and was smashing it into tiny pieces, he said with laughter, “I will show you complete annihilation.”  The storm was clearing up outside.  It was late and I needed to get going.  I thanked each of them for their time.  Getting back into my vessel of transportation I felt inspired to open my eyes wider and to drive with speed.  I did not turn on the music, because the racing of the little four cylinder Rabbit and swooshing of the trees was enough sound for me.

Passing in the shadows of existence.  Never seeing a reflection.  Never knowing.  Never aware.  An echo that fades…

As I wade my way through the muddiness of paint and color I find truth from the act of painting.  The sub-consciousnesses emerges in symbolic forms and arrangements of composition.  The understanding of my existences is revealed by moments of the past made clear to me as I watch my children discover the world around them.