CX3Y7G5YTAGD

And sometimes we do strange things to be seen. Today, a place called Technorati wants me to write CX3Y7G5YTAGD in my blog, so that they can be sure that my blog is my blog and nothing but my blog so that they can tell the world about its existence -- in large letters, please? And when we're all connected we'll look like this sketch, which is part of a thing that I worked on until I felt that it had become far too silly. I felt that this digital work was as weighty, as meaningful, as the sentence CX3Y7G5YTAGD.  

Greetings from Stockholm

A peaceful postapocalyptical view of Stockholm, with the City Hall, after the Arctic Meltdown or so.

Some paintings refuse to look well in my scanner, no matter what. There's some mysterious schism between this machine and light hues of deep indigo. We're spoiled nowadays; most colours don't hate each other and don't try to wage war on the surface upon which they are put, unlike in the days of the great teacher Cennino Cennini, when colours for unfathomable chemical reasons often refused to behave, and all maestro could do was to say Don't mix that or that, and especially not that... like arranging tables at a party where certain people can't stand each other.

I'll have to sell it as an original. While it looks all right in low resolutions (with the imagination of the viewer filling in between the pixels) it won't become a poster. I had to let go, lest I spend more time nursing and retouching the thing back into faux original shape instead of making a new original, perhaps sans indigo. It will contain birds and gentle insanity, I think.

    

Can You 'Ear Me?

Hearing Aid Landscape -- A sketch in ink and gold on paper; the rich landscape of Day and Night that unfolds with the help of my hearing aid; with oxeye daisies in bloom, birds, hills and clouds etc.

If you'd like to have one of these on your wall (the walls have ears, you know, why not help them to hear better?) you can find your very own here...

One of those days I'm going to paint the constant Noise Orchestra known as Tinnitus; flutes, bells and all, but I suspect this audioscape would be considerably darker.  

With Kay Sage in Mind

And so International Women's Day passed by without much ado at all, and being back to abnormal normal I feel sorry for one of my favourite surrealists, Katherine Linn Sage, marginally better known as Kay Sage. She deserves more attention. (She was married to Yves Tanguy, a better known surrealist -- I don't know why.) As for landscapes, she had no equals. 

Look at a Tanguy. Various odd shapes, forms incomprehensible as a foreign language, they mean something, but you might never learn what. Interesting as these heaps are, there's no point in looking up; the horizon is a blurred or a sharp line and that's all. (You find this among a score of surrealists, including Dalí.) Then look at Sage: Interesting things happen out there! She was a true landscape painter. Using strict forms, her works are very still and they don't seem to try to shock you, there are none of the usual shrill fanfares. But they stretch into infinity. After staring for a while, they become rather unsettling, the quiet moody, lonely architecture of uneasiness, etc., and I'd rather say no more but send you out to wiki or even -- if you can -- see her brilliant works live. She's worth it.   

And Round and Round and Round She Goes...

(Click/tap to resize the image)

And so I stumbled across yet another wheel of fortune in the art world. (They're lying all over the place and you have to be really careful when trekking across it lest you stumble and fall.) Today's wheel is named Exhibitions Without Walls, a competition for digital artists and illustrators and whatnots. You may win cash! And the guidelines are so delightfully fuzzy and money handed out so often and the past winners are good but not shockingly so and I can do better than that, you think, so let's go! Bold letters point you straight down the yellow brick road.

Less bold letters tell you that "You can now submit up to 10 images. [Oh thank you so very much, sir!] Entry fee for up to 5 images remains $25.00. Each additional image submitted will have an additional charge of $4.00". In English:
"We want you to spend at least 25 bucks, then we only need ten of you monthly to pay for the top price of 250$. Those of you daft enough to spend twice as much will make us even happier."

  

No, it's not the first time that I've seen a lottery. They keep sending me offers to appear in a certain Great Book of International Art. (Can't remember its precise name as I burn such mails before reading.) If I pay them a lot extra I may even get my very own copy. A few vanity galleries in Stockholm are regularly barking that I should try a spin on their wheels. But what about this? Even one of those who often warn us against vanity galleries and such pitfalls -- other pitfalls -- can now be seen happily sponsoring the cute enterprise that I mentioned first, so it's funny how this little world is spinning. And round and round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.