In Love and Pain - THE NEIL YOUNG SERIES by Jenice Heo

Artist Jenice Heo
(Click photo to enlarge)
We have highlighted artist Jenice Heo here before, most notably for her work with Gary Burden on The Neil Young Archives for which Neil Young won his very first Grammy Award in 2010.

Jenice Heo’s NEIL YOUNG SERIES will be on display at STRUCK Contemporary in Toronto until February 2016. A portion of the sales will be donated to David Suzuki’s Blue Dot Campaign.

From Nartional Music Center | Canada by Juliette Jagger:

As one of the most iconic musicians of the past five decades, Neil Young’s contributions to Canadian iconography and to the canon of rock ‘n’ roll are irrefutable. Having penned some of the most poignant protest anthems, fragile love songs, and self-aware balladry of a generation, Young has long been the sort of singular voice that aches under the weight of social realism and tenderly illuminates that which exists at the core of the human condition.

To most music fans, Young is something of a legend, but to Los Angeles-based visual artist Jenice Heo, he’s a life-long friend. Both she and her husband and creative partner, Gary Burden—who is best known for designing some of rock’s most iconic album covers, including Young’s After The Gold Rush and Joni Mitchell’s Blue—have known and worked closely with Young for decades.

After the three took home a Grammy Award for their combined efforts on the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 Box Set in 2010, Heo was compelled to begin work on what would eventually become known as the NEIL YOUNG SERIES.

Comprised of thirteen oil paintings on found objects and mixed media assemblages, the series was originally inspired by a small scale assemblage titled “NEIL Letters,” which appeared on the cover of the box set. “Neil loved the Wallace Berman series with the hand holding the transistor radio,” says Heo. “When we couldn’t get the rights to use his art on the box set, Neil asked us to do a rendition of the hand but with cards, using various images from his archive. He loved that first piece and so I was encouraged to move forward with no trepidation.”​

Neil Face With Hand
by Jenice Heo
Each of the 13 assemblages, which will be on display at STRUCK Contemporary in Toronto until February 2016, takes its title from a Neil Young song, and seeks to provide a unique and personal glimpse into the heart and soul of the man who wrote them. “The intriguing part of assemblage is that the whole picture​ ​represents the sum of its distinct parts,” says Heo. “​It is collecting relevant images and putting them together in an informative way to depict Neil’s life.​ ​My intention is that the attached objects retain their ​individual character and soul, yet contribute toward a gestalt that unifies the entire visual​ ​field. I like things to disappear, sometimes reappear, but ultimately blend into a patchwork of​ ​sorts.”

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“This series was never really meant to, in a conventional sense, illustrate Neil’s songs,” adds Gary Burden.

“It was always about expressing what Neil meant to Jenice and I think that’s what makes it so true.”
By nature, we are constantly deducing the sum of our lives through the filter of another’s gaze, however, we are rarely gifted the chance to see it rendered as beautifully as in Heo’s NEIL YOUNG SERIES. When asked her thoughts on the significance of her own work and friendship on Neil’s life, Heo modestly replied: “Neil has expressed how true the art felt for him, but his creative process is insulated within him; it’s the other way around where he is the influencer.”

More on "In Love and Pain - THE NEIL YOUNG SERIES by Jenice Heo" at Nartional Music Center | Canada.

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Farm Aid Board: "Stand up for transparency in our food!"

Dave, Willie, John, & Neil

From Farm Aid:

Giant food, chemical and biotech corporations have spent millions to pass what has been called the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act. It would preempt GMO labeling efforts already passed in Connecticut, Maine and Vermont and obstruct federal labeling of GMOs. Together, farmers and eaters helped prevent the DARK Act from making it to the Senate this year.

But in the 11th hour, as members of Congress work on a year-end omnibus appropriations bill, lobbyists for the world’s largest food, biotech, and chemical companies are pushing the White House and members of Congress to sneak a rider into the bill that would block the labeling of GMOs.

That's unacceptable. Join us — Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews — in calling on President Obama to stand up for transparency in our food system. Tell President Obama to use his authority to block the DARK Act Rider!

Time is running out. Add your name below to join Willie, John, Neil & Dave in the fight for transparency today!

Posted by Neil Young on Sunday, December 13, 2015

Sign petition at Farm Aid.

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A Member of Our Community Needs Your Help: The Susan Miller Story

Dear Readers of Thrasher's Wheat,
We bring you a special message from a friend we have never seen, but has reached out for assistance.

Please find a few moments to read over this letter, think it over and maybe do what you can to help.

Much love,
The Thrashers
ps - many, many special thanks to our dear friend K, who helped so much in finding the spirit road and traversing no hidden path.xo

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A Letter to the Community from Rustie Susan Miller

Meeting Neil Young in New York city in 1996 is something I will never forget. Neil's music has always been a huge inspiration to me, touches my heart and my soul. He is one of the very few who does not care about the fame and fortune. When I met Neil he was very laid back and so real -- nothing fake about him. I know that he cares about this world and the people in it and I love and have so much respect for him because he never once sold his soul! Neil's music has given me the strength and courage to try and hold on . . .

It is very difficult to tell my fight for life story in a paragraph, but I will try. Basically, I got into the wrong hands dentally in New York city in 2001. I had an old filling fall out and went to a dentist to get it fixed -- it should have been a simple procedure, but it wasn't. Rather than adjust the new filling, the dentist did extensive, unnecessary and incompetent work that ultimately threw my bite off and eventually changed the shape of my face. (I was numb and upside down in the dental chair so I did not know what he was doing until it was too late!) As a result of this dentist's "work," I was left with no function of mouth. I had beautiful teeth and a smile prior to this. I had to find another who would fix this botch job and the next (incompetent, unethical, swindling) dentist took thousands of dollars for temporary teeth, telling me it was the only way to fix this before putting in the permanent work. I ended up worse off than before!

My life since 2001 has been trying to find the right dentist -- and the funding -- for the full mouth reconstruction I need now. Mouth reconstruction is not free and the system offers no help. Medicaid does not pay for this kind of dental work. I need public involvement to help me to be heard and a philanthropist who wants to help save an individual's life and champion my cause. In my consultation trail, dentist to dentist, all I ever got was the run around and bogus excuses, but I had the funds to pay for the total case then. When I finally found one or two of the right ones, I had spent all of my savings on my efforts -- everything was gone and I could not afford to pay for the necessary work. I now suffer far below the poverty level when I used to be middle class. I cannot eat, chew, smile nor talk properly. I look 20 years older than I am. I cannot work until I am fully reconstructed, and well again with my function back. My suffering goes beyond what words can say here.

I am reaching out to the Thrashers Wheat community because I know we are a group who has compassion for injustice like Neil Young does. The T.W. community speaks out and that's what I need now.

For me to be well and functional again I need serious financial assistance. The cost of medical treatment -- $150,000 -- is a ball park figure from one of my doctors, Dr Alan Winter, back in 2007. The first stage of my treatment is to put my jaw back into its normal and natural position. The treatment plan is to rebuild my occlusion (bite), and that will take at least three different sets of full mouth temporary teeth. This is a lengthy and expensive process. After this first stage is complete, my face will go back to its normal shape, I will be able to speak and eat properly. The next step is bone replacement, which involves root canals and gum surgery, and then the last stage of my treatment is the permanent work of dental implants.

I have created a page on GoFundMe, please help if you can: https://www.gofundme.com/susanmiller

Also, I would be grateful if you would share my story far and wide. Maybe submit on my behalf to some of the TV magazine shows like www.thedoctorstvshow.com, or to a journalist who does human interest stories. Help me expose the corrupt New York dental profession! There are currently no overseers in New York who protect dental patients from being ripped off. Please contact the New York State legislation at www.nysenate.gov, and email Senater Brad Hoylman at hoylman@nysenate.gov, sending a message on my behalf that the laws in New York have to change to protect unsuspecting and vulnerable dental patients.

My goal is to GET WELL, to get what I need so I can try to pick up the shambled pieces of my life. But also to help prevent this from happening to others!

Thank you,

Susan Miller
susanmiller555@yahoo.com

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Dave Rawlings Machine with Gillian Welch cover Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" on Nov. 21, 2015 in Richmond, VA. at The National

Inspired by the recent posting on Dinosaur Jr. covering Neil Young’s ‘Cortez the Killer’ with Fred Armisen and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, a TW supporter offered up this cover.

Dave Rawlings Machine with Gillian Welch cover Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" on Nov. 21, 2015 in Richmond, VA. at The National.

Also, here's a CTK cover from awhile ago - the NPR Tiny Desk show - Cortez starts at 6:00 mark.

This one includes John Paul Jones (Led Zep) on mandolin.

Cover from earlier this year!

And how about this version of Pocahontas?

Thanks Cliff!

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Mon$anto To Be Put On Trial For Crimes Against Nature And Humanity

Monsanto is to be placed on trial for “crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide, in The Hague, Netherlands, next year on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.”

During the Climate Conference in Paris, France last week, several groups (Organic Consumers Association, IFOAM, Navdanya, Regeneration International) declared via a press release that the court, in The Hague, Netherlands, will use the UN’s ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ developed in 2011 to assess damages for Monsanto’s acts against human life and the environment.

The court will also rely on the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense. This International Criminal Court, established in 2002 in The Hague, has determined that prosecuting ecocide as a criminal offense is the only way to guarantee the rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.

More in this press release from Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, along with dozens of global food, farming, and environmental justice groups.

Also, see Bad News Has Come To Town: Mon$anto is literally being burned to the ground .




The Monsanto Years - Neil Young + Promise Of The Real
(Click here to enlarge/zoom)

Also, see Corporate Food, Will It Make You Fat and Sick?

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VIDEO: Dinosaur Jr. Cover Neil Young’s ‘Cortez the Killer’ With Fred Armisen and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo

Here is a video of Dinosaur Jr. covering Neil Young’s ‘Cortez the Killer’ with Fred Armisen and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on December 4, 2015.

Dinosaur Jr. is celebrating their 30th anniversary with a residency at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Other special guests, including Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Henry Rollins, and Charles Bradley ( who did a cover of Young’s “Heart of Gold.”)

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