GROWING UP THE TAGALONG WAY

Today is my brother's birthday--the Big 8-0h! He was born in Belfast, Ireland on Christmas Day on a Sunday. I heard many stories, and sometimes the same story, from my mother about how she and her best friend, Cassie Main, would take their babies to the park with large black umbrellas. Even then, humor and cheery steadfastness helped my mother through what must have been six years of grim days. Being transferred to Brazil wasn't the idyllic solution one might think. Yes, there was sunshine but there was, also, a larger than average bug kingdom; piranhas, anacondas, horned frogs, scorpions, and dragon iguanas were added to her vocabulary. She joked that St. Patrick drove out the snakes in Ireland by deporting them to Brazil. I'm surprised she didn't acquire an Irish accent given as she was to reciting Irish poetry. She was "daft" for Yeats. "I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree." This image of Innisfree and the cabin was obviously a big influence on me because when the opportunity came decades later, I was overjoyed to have a small cabin built in the Blue Ridge mountains. I didn't have the "nine bean rows" or the "hive for the honeybee" but I certainly had the poetry. My mother's idea of avoiding sibling rivalry was to implant a certain star-struckness in me. I became a regular pint-sized paparazzi. When I learned to walk, I followed my brother as if I were his numero uno disciple. One day I was discovered standing in a corner. Everyone laughed. This was the form his punishment took. My brother had to stand in the corner for drawing on the walls. I hadn't made the connection. I thought standing in the corner was part of some prayer ritual. I did make the connection that "Bobby" came from the land of leprechauns and pots o' gold which seemed much more protective than Brazilian jujitsu. He had the Luck of the Irish. It made a lot of sense to hop on his lucky wagon hitched to his lucky star. Looking back on my life, I know it was the best idea I ever had. 

  My brother has come full circle. He often exhibits in Ireland and when in New York, he wanders around the Big Apple, yes, drawing his glyphyti on walls.


This is the bio on the CENTRE CULTUREL IRLANDAIS   Paris site where he was an Artist in Residence in January of 2011:

Robert Janz Robert Janz’s poetic art is a passionate plea for greater restraint in civilisation’s encroachment on the natural environment. His works explore aspects of motion, change and transience. His project in Paris is ephemeral and out in the streets. He will also use his studio, drawing and erasing on the walls every day, a slow kinetic installation. And here is one from the Irish Museum of Modern Art: Humans were once just one animal kind among others. Now dominant, we rule. The quality of life on this planet is ours to decide. We decide whether any animal or plant has sufficient habitat for meaningful survival. We decide whether any empty spaces remain, empty of our imprint. We decide whether there is any place free of our sound, our smell. We are endowed with evolution's greatest achievement, the creative imagination. Yet squander our energies on obsessive denials, on endless tribal wars,on insatiable greed for power. This waste shapes the planet's future. We are the world we inhabit. We decide all. Nature's us. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a boy, his favorite carol was "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Maybe today, in his honor, I should stand in the corner and sing along.