Roman Scott: Painter (Video)

Recently I watched again this video (in its original VHS format, from 1997), featuring interviews with Roman Scott, and related images and sequences. The director, who did a stellar job, left his name out of the credits; and some searching by me has not yet revealed his identity. With material such as clips from Taxi Driver (one of Roman's favorite movies, for its painterly qualities, as he explains), intersecting with his art; and an appearance by a work including the Twin Towers, the videocassette has an atmospheric and spectral feel.  As Roman stated, it's a mysterious thing to create something out of nothing.

Here's a link to the production, digitized by, and posted by Todd Mecklem, in 2015.

 

2016 Trip Journal

In September 2016, I took a car trip through parts of Oregon, Washington state, Idaho, and Montana. I followed this excursion with time spent in Washington, D.C., and Providence, Rhode Island. I took the journey in part to mark the 30th anniversary of a cross-US railway voyage I made (Todd Mecklem published the resulting journal in 1990, through his imprint, Terata Publications). Following are the published version of the trip journal cover, by Roman Scott, a variant, unpublished cover he drew; and a lightly edited transcript of the 2016 notes. 

Original cover, by Roman Scott

Variant cover, by Roman Scott

A Trip Journal: 2016

by Jonathan Falk

September 11, 2016, Sunday

This day I drove out to Dry Falls State Park, Washington State. The Missoula Floods have enthralled me for some time. The wind shrieked constantly in my ears as I hiked around Umatilla Rock -- like a paranoia-critical monument rising from talus. The ghost of J. Harlan Bretz played antique tunes. Soft reeds. Lonely hawks sailed in the draft. Austere -- bleak -- forbidding bluffs, the beds of the former ice age falls. 

From now & then, Trump-Pence signs rise on the sagebrush range. 

I am in Ephrata, WA for two nights, one day.

Long drive here. Stopped briefly in Toppenish, WA, which my mother visited as a child. Drove by an otherworldly viewpoint, faerie lava peaks and a paleaogean valley. 

15 September 2016. 

Dream last night in Hamilton, Montana, of a man/subway/interdimensional penny farthing. 

I am in Coeur d'Alene now. 

Today in Wallace, Idaho, gunning down mountain slopes at 80 MPH. Apparently I was there as a child.

Mining museum, scale models of mining shafts, mine bicycles, mine wars, the big burn of 1910.

Other part of my dream: A pit bull locked jaws on my throat.

I visited my aunt & uncle in MT. We went to the Daly Mansion, game room glittering glass eyes of gazelles and black bears, yellow screeching wallpaper & the bed where Mrs. Daly breathed her last

And Fort Missoula yesterday vegetable cellar cool as a ship burial. Hello at a chapel like the nave at a stave church. Ripple marks of glacial Lake Missoula a celestial shore seen from an observatory tower, over high grounds

18 September 2016 in Washington DC for the first time today. Humid air and crickets and birds shrill over Andrew Jackson in horse stride. Panhandlers near the White House. Sniper atop the Corinthian-columned facade. And a henna-bearded guy holding an Arabic scroll and calling prayers. Bomb scare, bulky secret service agent yelling whose camera bag is it. (Someone caused alarm, by abandoning a camera bag.) We were ordered to the other side of the street. The agent found the bag was empty. Shone his flashlight through it. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Truman, a bucket of warm spit, marchers from 1960s stride by.

Last day driving home in Gorge, Biggs Junction, Brother Speed bikers ahead of me. Shot through a red light. Yakama nation license plates handed food to homeless man. Feathery plangent sunset. 

At rest area, crickets voices swelled, twilight wind filled shore branches, navigation lights rang green and blue. 

Way behind on journal. This is written September 22, 2016, Thursday evening. 

In Warwick, Rhode Island. First time back in R.I. since August 1986, with dad. Previous three and a half days I was in Washington DC, first time. Steam drumming against vents -- walk by business women & men -- Peruvian chicken devoured in moist shape. Studded with mosquito bites on my arm,  bunks to coed hostel like Dana or Whitejacket, Hostel Manager asked me how I liked DC, MLK statue at golden sunset hour ferrous with night, excited cicadas in unseen blends.

The Washington Pillar rakes the music of the spheres, symphonic gloaming bars of the reflecting pool in the tragic rumples of the Gettysburg address writer's jacket, crepuscular mirrors of Vietnam Vets slabs, Jefferson Memorial an island of sagacity -- A kid screamed: "There's TJ." FDR Memorial, a maze supernal at night. 

24 September 2016 Derangement of the Senses -- Providence RI  This trip is almost over, as all trips shall be -- 

I found this is more about understanding my 1986 self & honoring & bidding farewell to those who are lost -- Today (or rather the 23rd) was a comedy in part of misadventures. Two bus drivers yelled at me -- one for putting a day ticket (in the slot he pointed at) in the wrong place. The other looked like Joe Piscopo, and screamed when I boarded -- the back door was broken, and I was supposed to know this.

I visited Lovecraft's grave, arriving by bus, then trudging through the hot sun rays. A pond nests in the cemetery, shaded and gardened. A security guard drove up to me and asked me what I was doing. He directed me to the grave and hung around, telling me no photos.. Where are you from? Oregon. "That's way out there." and he informed me of HPL cons, and "an HPL website."  The slab is angular midst Whipple, Robie, Susan and Winfield, trampled grass, bare ground. I paid honor to the ones and to the author of the Shadow out of Time, and left. 

And I walked to 65 Prospect Place, formerly 66 College -- Faint light within, Fanlight crowning, ghostly crickets mourning the breezes -- lunch at a bad sushi place -- 

White house, break dancers folding shoulder blades -- lights, inside -- Dreams of relatives faces alternating, Fake beards, woods 

10-17-16 Home, arboreal lava, dead rice

In the Hall of the Flatirons: Letter from Boulder, Colorado, October 22-23, 1984

Here follows the (lightly edited) text of a letter I wrote, in October 1985, to family members; during my stay in Colorado, through parts of 1984 and 1985.

I've tried to call about 6 times or more the past 3 days, but with no luck. I realised then that you are probably in California. Otherwise, I would've written sooner.
(Switching to ink -- that ball-point is hard on my hand.)

I went to Roman's last week-end and stayed for 4 days. The 1st day he served me frog legs, seaweed and noodles, a most exotic dish. His apartment is nice, tho' the furniture is rather broken down, and he has no bed (we slept on mats on the floor).

The first night we viewed a great film directed by Luis Bunuel, Viridiana. We spent a lot of time painting and wandering about in Denver.
On the 3rd day it snowed 2 feet; we went to downtown Denver, as he had no classes, and ate at a Russian cafe; on the way back a car smacked into the side of our bus, and the bus drove over the sidewalk & smashed into a 'phone (sic-- with power lines) pole, which broke off and slammed on the roof with tremendous noise, causing people to scream; everyone thought he was done for. Several wires lay across the roof of the bus, so everyone on board (about 20) had to wait for quite a while whilst police, fire trucks, power officials and so on showed up. Finally, the power was shut off, and we could leave; the incident was on the news a couple hours later.

Oct. 23
As soon as the bus had come to a stop the driver screamed "Don't anybody move! Don't anybody touch anything!"
I got back here alright, as most of the streets were clear, tho' they were like rivers from the melting snow. It seems to snow more in Denver than here for some reason; only about 1 foot of snow fell here.

I feed the 3 horses 2 bales of hay every day, and break the ice off the tanks. The temperature has been in the 20s and 30s, which is unusually cold for this time of year.

There was an earthquake about a week ago, centered near Casper, Wyoming, which rattled Colorado, Nebraska, and a couple other states, registering 5.5 on the Richter Scale. I was sitting on the couch, and felt it shake, but I thought it was the cat playing until I heard later about the 'quake.

Thanks exceedingly for the birthday presents; I did not expect them. I'm wearing the long-sleeved shirt right now. 

-- Would you send me, please, the address of the U of O School of Musick?

Clark Dissmeyer and Marc Myers called a few weeks ago, comprising the first time I've talked to Clark, tho' we didn't get much said, it being difficult to talk to two people at once.
    As always, your oblig'd and obt. servant,

    Jonathan

A sample from the letter, and one from the envelope: and a photo of me, Boulder, 1985.

"I am considering moving Into one of those lofts around Union Station:" Letter from Roman Scott, 1988

The following is a letter to me, from Roman Scott, detailing a period in his life when he moved from Sandy, Oregon, to Portland (as things transpired, he initially dwelled in an atmospheric apartment building, with shared bathrooms, in the Lair Hill district, instead of the "lofts near Union Station"). After about a year (also including a stint living in the attic of the Pythian Building) in Portland, he headed to New York City, where he spent the next 12 or so years; as artist, student, and teacher.

 

 9.7.88, Sandy

J.,

Dreamt of an impossible large old factory building, so huge it would dwarf the largest of the pyramids. Inside it was built an entire old city, known for ages, with odd & forgotten streets build on many levels.

 

My mom came into my room, & I realized with horror that her face was that of an old Indian.

Lately I’ve been getting my airbrushes back in working condition as I have an illustration job which requires the technique. I’ve taken to a British canned airbrush propellant called friskair; the stuff is 8.00 a bottle, but it lasts a good while, & is infinitely more enjoyable than that damned compressor hammering away. It took two days to repair the more expensive brush, the company of which, incidentally, has gone out of business, taken over by a New Zealand firm. I bought it for $60; now it would cost $200.

Sent some Hollandse Zigarren to the Meck for his birthday.

 

I am considering moving into one of those lofts around Union Station; actually, they are not in Union Station, but on Everett & 6^th, closer in. & they will be quite fancy (Casablanca fans, high ceiling, a living loft above, & a kitchen/bathroom space below. Even with the subsidy I wonder whether I could afford it. Yet it would be in the best location. I would call it “Gallery Roman” perhaps. I have till Nov. to decide. 

 

Today commenced “Sandy Mt. Days.” I am doubtful that I have the strength to confront it again.

 

Instead I’ve been lounging around making cassette tapes. Last night I finally made a recorder take two different inputs, recording internally. This tape, the final product, I will call Het Ij.

Recorded a good, though expurgated Burroughs reading on Kaboo (KBOO).

The stamp & envelope of this letter are compliments of Anne Hughes’ coffee room, which sent it to me so that I would feel inclined to buy a spendy 10.00 ticket for one of their performances.

 

            Yours,

St. Pangrass

Roman's Comics

A short piece I wrote on the artist Roman Scott's comics, in 2016. The impetus was a proposed tribute to some of Roman's early graphic work, which would have appeared in a local publication (unfortunately, the project never materialized). And the cover (ca. 1980) of his photocopied mini, called Flamboody.

Roman Scott Letter from Winchester, November, 1985

  Here is an extraordinary letter from November 1985 my friend, the late artist, Roman Scott, mailed me, when he was an exchange student in Winchester, England.  I transcribed and lightly edited his words.  Written on a lithograph, the epistle, in its breathless mystery, almost feels like a page from a Mayan codex. The writing, including the section concerning his wrestling with his art's direction, is remarkable. The envelope is a striking example of mail art.

 

Novr 9, 85

Dr. Jonahan,

I go through phases here with astonishing speed. One week I’ll believe only in painting, the next, only in sculpture, the next only in literature, the next only in prints, the next, only in comix. For the past week or two I have been in the comix phase & I wonder whether or not it isn’t permanent. I see that comix are irremediably imbedded in my blood, & that nothing gives me greater ecstasy than the times at which I am immersed in drawing them. Likewise, I have seen them regarded as an “high art” (not here in England, but in Holland, Skandinavia, & to some extent Germany & France, though there they are more commercialized & base), so that it is easier to reconcile them, since I have been so indoctrinated with the idea of “fine art.” I spend the good part of the day drawing madly at my table, keeping myself warm with dark coffee. Since the days have lately become fierce & miserable, I am not guilty of wasting my time, since I would be drenched & chilled if I tried to draw anything outside. I have come to a time when my mind wishes only to create, not to see; any trip that I now take is slightly tiring & difficult to absorb, so much I have seen. I have drawn up several scripts for my old character Pete Moss, who is now a wanderer, & have created a new character called L’arteeest, & have continued old Mr. Spleen as well. My “fine art” of prints & painting deal now with comix, which I refer to as “time art,” the back of this sheet being an example. Comix hold an additional appeal now simply because they are not an academic art – the students in this school are so horribly academic, seeming to be continually performing autopsies on Matisse, always the same old buttery, huge canvases with designer colours splashed around, a chess game on the canvas, the solution of which (composition & colour harmony) is the sole reason for the painting. To hell with solving composition & colour – there are art forms of other cultures which have no idea of colour harmony (as Indian music has nothing to do with harmonics) or the balance of composition. (the above entry, written in a somewhat depressed state.)

21 Nov I was glad to have gotten your last lettre. Your assertion that I must live in a dream world is fairly accurate; as a matter of fact, I have many dreams now directly influenced by England; stone passageways in fog-choked meadows of dark colours, usually ultramarine blue & viridian-type colours. Indeed, my unconscious assimilation of a given sight is often more important than the sight itself, which is the same for all people. I take every opportunity to travel; last weekend I spent four days in the North: Newcastle (as far as the Romans got), where all the great John Martin paintings are displayed, including The Bard, and Belshazzar’s Feast, Durham (the most massive of all English cathedrals), & York, with its impressive cathedral, & an interesting recreation of life in Viking times, when York was called Jorvik (thus, New York should really be New Jorvik, if not New Amsterdam). Winchester is like the spot at which all blood vessels & nerves converge in an eyeball’s retina: though the center of the town may be somewhat unpleasant because of all the automobiles, virtually any direction one chooses out of town leads to wonderful, peaceful places: ancient, seemingly forgotten Saxon-like churches, rolling fields divided by small woods, & even occasional stately homes surrounded by incongruous trees, the houses chimneys now clogged with growing shrubs, reminding me slightly of an Edward Gorey story. I’ve eaten a number of kidney pies which are strong-tasting. Apropos to Ravi Sankar: I recently went to South Hampton to hear a lecture/concert by Vijay Rao, a main shisya of Shankar, who has a bearing not dissimilar from that of Ginsberg or Seidel; the moment I entered the auditorium he seemed to look through me, nodding to me, for I was the first to enter. The music was amazing – I need not even describe to you what it did to me. Likewise, his description of the structure of his music & its goals brought me to an unknown world. If you have about 4.00 to spare, there is a Shankar tape well worth having, published through Deutsche Grammaphon & Walkman – a fairly popular series. It is two albums worth of some of the best music I’ve heard. Englishmen tend to have rather rough-looking mouths – broken or missing teeth, & prominent, gleaming crowns. This is no wonder: their food is dangerous. Recently damaging a molar on a damned pebble embedded in a chicken, I was today greeted by a horrible crunching, tingling sound of another piece of grit, this time within a Swede I had just cooked. I hope I have escaped damage, for this was close to the other casualty. Tomorrow I head into London to see a show on German art, a comprehensive exhibition at the Royal Academy, after which I will attend a two-day seminar on “The Nazification of Art,” an in-depth examination of film, painting, music, & architecture during the Nazi era, paid for by this art school. Yes, I shall be home for Christmas, though only for about 10 days; definitely we should schedule a visit. Your Dali dream struck me with an odd pang: it recalls a similar dream which I had years ago: Also in a supermarket (at the same time a giant stadium), Dali walked in a frozen-food section, seeming to defy gravity as the aisle was on the ceiling’s curve. I shall be interested to see yr. pan pipes. Oddly enough, I also bought some in Cambridge. I have no ability in playing them, however. Yes, I remember every scene of that divine Leone film as if I saw it just yesterday. I would kill to be able to witness such a poignant film – no, such a life – for the first time, as you just did. It is good that I am writing this, for if I tried to speak of the film, my mouth would sputter my eyes brim with tears, remembering such greatness as that. Your stamp-laden card could not be verbalized – it is so ingrained into truth; I tried to read it out-loud, but broke into spasms, at reading of the Cyclopean thing. I wonder how the English would regard your interpretation of England.

Yr. Obt. Servt.,

H. Hauser (sic)

Dunwich Horror Illustration by Roman Scott

A drawing (1977) by Roman Scott, depicting a scene in H.P. Lovecraft's story 'The Dunwich Horror.'

Light Portal

Roman Scott, NY, 1990s.Photo courtesy of Marc Myers.Photographer unknown.

Obitulog

From Roman Scott's Obitulog. "I wonder if that guy is still alive?" Dneprov looked intriguing. 

 After the last posting, the blog subsided like the last notes of Schubert's 8th or Bruckner's 9th symphonies.

Cosmic Art Nouveau

 

 Roman Scott collage/ airbrush/ink art. The back cover of the third issue of Poultry (1983).  

Collage, 1977-79

 

A collaborative collage, known as The Giant Collage, created by me and Roman Scott, 1977-79. I posted about this work previously.

 

The same work, filtered through Dream deeply. As some others have indicated, the program generates a lot of dogs. This is, however, still an engrossing interpretation of the fractal original.

 

  And one more Dream deeply rendering -- of Marc Myers, Clark Dissmeyer, and me, Nebraska, 8 March 2015. We look like psychonauts in a Stanislaw Lem novel, or figures in a Francis Bacon painting, or both.

Roman Scott Painting and Sound

A recent video that I made. The photo used (shot by my father) depicts Roman Scott painting in Brooklyn, ca. 1991. The soundtrack is a form of musique concrète. Roman and I created many hours of such distorted and looped sounds in the 1970s and 80s, using recordings of our own voices, ad hoc sound effects, and samples of TV shows, radio broadcasts, and recorded music, among other sources. The first part included someone reading a Dadaist poem, from a public TV documentary on the history of the surrealist movement. Later, Roman read his poem The India Rubber Heads, backed by what sounded like eerie carnival music. Next: a snippet from a Buñuel film.The section toward the end was a selection from Les Chants de Maldoror, by Lautréamont, from the same documentary. Thanks to Marc Myers for converting some of the surviving cassette tapes to digital format.

In Memoriam Roman Scott,1965-2015

 

I just learned that my friend, the artist Roman Scott, passed away at the age of 50, after a long illness (just five days after the death of actor Christopher Lee -- a resonant fact). I met him in September 1976 when we were in the sixth grade, and have been in continuous contact since, as he moved first to a different school district, then later in life to Colorado, New York City, and Norway. I'm happy to write I was able to visit him a number of times, in all three of these places -- we joked about him moving ever eastward. Thank you for nearly 39 years of friendship. 

He is survived by his wife, Heidi, his brother, Dave, his father, Walt, and many other grieving relatives and friends. Above is a photo I took of Roman in Kragerø, Norway (a haunt of Edvard Munch, the Norwegian titan of art), on a trip in June 2009.

"But O the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wilde thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn."

Milton, "Lycidas" 

Scandinavian Roaming

     

Herre, Norway.

  

With Roman Scott in Herre, Norway, 12 April, 2015.

  

 The entrance to Christiania, 9 April, 2015.

Photos taken by me.

Unrealized Film

Roman and Dave Scott, Sandy Oregon, 1987. The photos (and a few others) are the only fragments remaining of the production of a Super 8 movie on which we worked. As I recall the camera malfunctioned, so little if any footage resulted from the shooting. The movie was to have been an exercise in rural independent surrealism. Photos by me.

And happy 2015!

Self-Portrait

 

Roman Scott -- Self Portrait MIB

Roman Scott posted this piercingly extraordinary painting on his blog (image retrieved from http://romanscottart.blogspot.no/2014/09/selfie.html ).