L'ATELIER ROBERT COANE
- THE CARAMEL AWARD -

Fall 2004


LORAINE a.k.a. MURRAY
POSTELL

www.murraysportraits.com
Dubya
Postell
Jesus
The NERVE ...
"...to dress up a turd and call it a
CARAMEL!"


"If it's not political, it's not Art." - Diego Rivera

The above is a self-portrait I did in 1990, at the height of the "culture wars' that ensued at
the end of King Ronald's reign. It depicts an artist bound and gagged in front of a blank canvas.
It's about censorship and, on the background, I pasted all the news articles published during 1989
reporting on cases of censorship in the arts.
You'd think things would have changed by now
and they have.
They have come full cycle.

"The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed.
A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated."
– William Ellery Channing

Now the war is a "real war", a blood and guts kinda war. Thus, the rhetoric goes, we must watch
what we say lest we give comfort to the enemy and demoralize our troops.
Dissent = Treason. Dissent must be squashed.

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition,
it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures,
until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country
where everyone lives in fear."
- Harry S. Truman

But it's not just a matter of government secrecy, embedded journalists, forbidden pictures
and smear campaigns. A continuum of panic is created and fostered and
we are encouraged to look at all with distrust.

“The state has, in order to control us, introduced division into our thinking,
so that we come to distrust others and look to the state for protection!” - Butler Shaffer

So we have those who should be supportive being antagonistic. Artists, so mistrusted and derided
by government and the powers that be, are not exempt from this folly. Consider the following e-mail
from one Lorraine Postell who apparently calls herself Murray Postell, perhaps after her husband but,
who knows? I can't figure it out.... All I know is that the work on Murray's website, www.murraysportraits.com,
is the same as is attributed to Lorraine elsewhere on the 'net.

Lorraine / Murray Postell with son Seth

That being neither here nor there and each being left to his / her identity crisis, I get a reply from Lorraine Postell
in response to one of my own to those artists affiliated with my site, family, students and friends (we had
mutual links, 'Murray' and I, but I didn't at first make the connection). As follows:

ME -
-------------- Original message --------------
> News sources report today that the "NEW" information released this
> Sunday, 1 August, leading to the imposition of present "Orange Alert"
> emergency measures around financial institutions is in fact FOUR YEARS
> OLD.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/politics/03intel.html?hp
>
> Furthermore, the claims that Al Qaeda plans an attack "60 days before
> election day"is timed to coincide with George W. Bush's acceptance speech
> at the Republican National Convention in NYC.
>
> COINCIDENCE? SERENDIPITY... ??? SERENDIPITY....!!!!!!
>
> TEXTBOOK DECEPTION - GOVERNMENTAL HOAX -- ELECTION YEAR POLITICS
> W's TRUMP CARD
> George Orwell, "1984", written in 1949:
> "WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IN STRENGTH"

"One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression."
– Howard Zinn

'LORRAINE' -
Subject: Re: NY TIMES: Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say
From: gopost@comcast.net 
Date: Wed, August 4, 2004 7:44 pm 
To: <rcoane@atelier-rc.com> 

Dear RC:
If you had taken the time to get the update on this report, you would have not
send this erroneous and propagandized email. I would suggest you stick to your
art. I am not interested in your opinions, or your politics.
Have a nice day.

--Sincerely yours,
Lorraine Postell

Loved the "have a nice day" bit.

Did she mean ... wait for the "SPIN"? I'm dizzy to the point of collapse.

"All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it."
– Alexis de Tocqueville

Am I not as political as the next man? Does being an artist preclude me from political life?
Would she deny me the right to independent thought and opinion?

"A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life."
- Bruce Springsteen

So would this administration's cadre, the most
censorious mob since the inquisitioners of the House Un american Activities Committee in the 50's.
Do we forget that one of our freedom loving Attorney General's first decrees was to clothe the
NAKED statues of Justice at his department? That shallow, that vacuous, that inane.

Attorney General John Ashcroft at Justice

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny."
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Ah, but portraitist Murray / Lorraine / he / she / whatever it may be paints pictures of
JE-E-E-ESUS and DUBYA. Not to mention that, as stated in his / her / its published resumé,
a "partial list" of "Recipients of Murray's work" includes:
"Carol Channing, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Steve Garvey, Mathew Saad Mohammed,
Barry Manilow, Tom Sullivan (newspaper columnist), Mickey Mantle, Ron Dugay,
Herschel Walker (the first million dollar sports figure), and many more...."

Talk about chutzpah! How carefully worded! These people all have been "recipients" of Murray's works.
Pretense! Clients they certainly are not. Giveaways masquerading as commissions?

The truth be, she never expected a reply to her smarmy little note but reply I did.
Her reply to my reply?
"I respectfully ask you to please delete me from your mailing list.
Thank you, Lorraine Postell"


Now she can't take the heat. No more "have a nice day". Now it's "I respectfully ask".
I welcome debate while people like her / him (and all of the Bushy mindset) won't. They can't.
They cannot go beyond their posturing and mantras. As I write, our most misspoken
Commander-in-chief retreats to his Crawford domain to get his "soundbites" down
for the first presidential debate of the season. This is what passes for "DEBATE" in Bushworld.
Robert Hughes put it plainly enough in CULTURE OF COMPLAINT, "Ronald Reagan left us all
a little bit 'stupiddier' than we were" and now we've got George W. Bush.

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
-
Plato

I often quote from Francis Bacon:
"People seem to be offended by facts, or what used to be called truth."
Oh no, they MIGHT just change their minds!


So, to
Lorraine / Murray / he / she / it / them
Postell...
Off with HER / HIM
to the dustbin of
Art
!!!



"Nor wonder how I lost my wits;
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!"
-
Jonathan Swift

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