Dandelion Clock Revolutions

The artist, like the idiot, or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it. ~Osbert Sitwell

Insanity.


We've often found that our most provocative works of art emerge out of the brink of insanity. As if, in those intense fits of overwhelming chaos we, on rare occasion, channel something magical filled with evocative visions of enrapture & awakening. Perhaps it's our overwhelming desire to find something true in such moments, perhaps we're more in tune with the divine while fissuring, perhaps we realize that the entire time we were waiting for our Godot life was happening, and through that moment of awakening the luminosity of the visionary oozes through our pores onto paper and upon canvas. Often times, what we create in these moments of arrival is far beyond the limits of our conscious understanding. There's a reason that the madman is often the saint. When the frame no longer fits, when the vice squeezes beyond bearing, we break out and forge new ways of seeing, healing, organizing, conveying.

These moments are invaluable. These moments we live for.

We're looking for artwork that embodies this rapturous call to action. The best works of art do not demand satiated servitude, they instill a sense of urgency within the participant. They challenge & incite the spectator to see the world anew. They demand connection, they beckon the audience find its voice, and call for immediate action. They transform the spectator into actor, actor into poet, poet into director, director into visionary, visionary into student, student into oracle, and the cycle spirals a sea shell, inwards and outwards, until infinity looms up in the cosmic blue and the chord resonating all chords is hit. From this chord we climb, and redefine the nature of climbing.

It's like when that individual, looking on silent for so long, starts to sing. Like riding a bike for the first time, without training wheels, and the butterflies that hit stomach as the whole world opens up. Like that first moment of watching our feet hit pavement, and realizing that rhythm was always the way of things.

We take our cue here from Dario Fo's 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist':

"An old Sicilian song goes:

A woman crossing the square slips in the mud
and falls head over heels.
Her skirts go over her head
She shows her bum
The fools laugh fit to burst and shout dirty words
The king passes on horseback, the mud makes him slip
The fine beast and the King roll on the ground
and in his turn he shows his bum through his torn breeches.
The fools rush to take off their hats
Only a madman across the way
seeing this new and unfamiliar face of power
can't help laughing his head off.

The fools chorus at the top of their voices-
so as to drown the madman's laughter-
their praise of the great royal bum
'Oh, magnificent cheeks basking in the sun
nailed by God, wonderful spheres'
The fools, because the King has shit himself, for fear
begin to praise the stink of the noble motion
The madman runs up waving a censer
and sings Te Deum to the King's shit
and plants a jasmine sprig in it.
The fools applaud and then by a miracle understand the jape
and take up stones and sticks
and make to lynch the mocker.
But since they know it is great bad luck
to kill a madman
protected as they are by the pity of St. Francis
'the great madman of God'
the fools, impotently watch the pantomime of the madman.
Later at home, in secret, each one by himself
remembers the madman's pantomime and laughs.
They laugh till they pee themselves.
The fools for a moment forget they are
fools but only for a moment
because, alas, madmen are few and far between
and the fools don't get much chance
to see their mad, obscene pantomimes."

We want to see your mad, obscene pantomime.

We want your aRt. 

Submission Guidelines:

Dandelion Clock Revolutions is always accepting new submissions for our paper & online magaZine. Please note: the paper & online magaZine is only one facet of the Dandelion Clock Revolutions project.  The following only applies to our magaZine, and is not the overall guidelines for portfolio building, artwork sharing, and discourse on the site (please see the About Us section for more information on the online collective). The magaZine consists of select pieces of artwork submitted to the site by artists within our online community, and selected by the Dandelion Clock Revolutions team.

• All written pieces must first be submitted & shared within the Dandelion Clock Revolutions online community, via posting your artwork within your community profile.
• In your email, send your name and a brief bio
• pitch an idea, rather than sending an entire finished article
• tell us why it is relevant, why you should be writing it, and whether you have visual support for the piece
• do NOT submit articles in the body of an email; submit articles as word documents (you can send your pitches as an email); avoid using strange fonts, formats or colors
• the deadline for submissions is the 10th of each preceding month
• provide a short list of previously published work

• All visual art must first be submitted & shared within the Dandelion Clock Revolutions online community, via posting your artwork within your community profile.
• In your email, send your name and a brief bio
• include low-resolution (72 dpi) versions of your work or a link to your online portfolio
• if you are pitching a photo essay, provide samples of the photos and a brief synopsis of the written component
• provide a short list of previously published work

• In our Paper magaZine & Online Journal, Dandelion Clock Revolutions does not accept submissions of previously published work
• Any piece of written content, artwork or photograph printed in the Dandelion Clock Revolutions magaZine or featured in our Online Journal at www.DandelionClockRevolutions.com remains property of the writer/artist BUT is subject to a three month publication embargo. Submitting is conditional on acceptance of these terms.
• We're very much members of the 'cheap art' mode of thinking. We work for free because we love this project, as it allows us to interact with provocative artwork and facilitate discourse. The Dandelion Clock Revolutions team makes absolutely no money from this project - and are looking to feature artists that respect our vision of dialogue, alternative-education, & share because they understand that when it comes to art: 'you can't eat it, but it feeds you'.

 
Step: like there's only one dandelion clock left in the world, and you're holding it in your hand about to breathe out.


Sincerely,

Dandelion Clock Revolutions