The Art of Fred Martin
Homepage      Art      Exhibitions      Art Histories      Essays        Publications
 

About my work, 1957-58
Harrison Street and painting on the pages of old books...

Unless otherwise noted, all paintings are distemper and watercolor on paper, various sizes around 9 x 12 inches.

Scroll down for the paintings, click the thumbnail for a larger view.


 

Scouring used book stores in the search for old paper, I found an old German religious book.  It was ideal for my purposes--I could not read a word, the paper was old rag paper with the feel of reality to it and foxing which already told of lost signs, sigils and talismans (one of my phrases for the lost marks of salvation which I sought).  I marked the pages with the signs of the autumn of that year, with a message to art critics as to why this pathetic little art of  mine mattered more than any of their public utterances about the great people in the world, and, as time went on, I found in the pages the maps to the place in my soul where lust might transmute into love, family, homestead and the immortality of our lives through all the generations past and to come...

As in "Again, again, I go only to seed in immortality..."  The life of the rose, the stems and thorns, the buds, blossoms and falling petals--and then the rose-hips loaded with seed--these were my vision of life from youth to age, from the young husband I was to the old man I have now become... ejaculation is the seed of the future, the seeds of immortality in the eternity of time.  (The "Again, again..." was framed because I submitted it to a juried exhibition of flower paintings.  It was rejected and lost for nearly forty years.  It has been on a shelf in my studio now for a long time--a message from the past that tells the only future I think we any of us have.) 

 



"Again, again, I go only to seed in immortality"


"And the path there
is hard with dying weeds
seeding, seeding and hoping"


And there are young trees
there but half a hundred
years old...
 

 



More clear seeds are
seeding and...


There is the seed of September days. The true seed
is the sun-wheel
of the speculum mundi.


Then there was the booklet addressed to a local art critic, "Amy--" (I no longer remember her last name)  who was a weekly art critic
on KPFA in those days
click here for more about Amy

 



The full text was...
"Dear Amy
Art is for eternity, it is not for you.
For the cry of the world.


For the sob of the sky.
It is not for you.
But art is my home in Hesperus


for I am a fountain,
a stream of ever jetting sperm."


Untitled


"The ground plan
which is at the base of the belly
and crowns the aureole of the mind
Grandmother's House"

 

 



"The Map to Grandmother's Treasure"

 

 

 

 

 

Click the Image to Continue



"Do You Know My Name?"

 
   

Click here for an extended text about the work on this page