A leather mask, covering half the face, as a thought for 2018…
A possible explanation (insert yours here) is that I’ve been constantly annoyed by people who clandestinely tries to change one into something beautiful that one isn’t. To the best of my knowledge, unicorns don’t have foul manners, never swear and only drink water. But I’m not a unicorn… One also happens to be an artist, and as such we work with All emotions, All aspects of being a human being, even the less appetizing ones. I know an excellent actor, a good soul but an annoying fussbudget too – she’s utterly perfect for characters that demand a certain hypocrisy, shallowness and so forth. Because she is the one that she is. Light can’t exist without darkness.
When you truly Accept a person, you accept the whole works, the entire Gonzo – thinking of Hunter S. Thompson now, who was a truly difficult person, with endless faults, and thus the only one who could’ve written the works of Hunter S. Thompson. There’s a notion that I’ve often heard:
“I like X’s plays/movies/books/etc. but not this or that part of X.”
It is a notion for cowards, who refuse to see the complex thing that a human is; to be a Self is to be a self-contradiction.
“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
There are of course limits. You might not have to be a murderer in order to write Crime Fiction (even if some poor works in that genre – there are so many – would’ve been improved by it) but perhaps you, at least for a moment, have to Want to kill?
So, now when you sit wondering what lofty promises that you’re to make for this year, be careful of what you wish. Above all, don’t wish to become a Better person. Lord knows what’ll happen on the dark, masked side of your soul then. You should rather wish to know thyself. Have a whole face.
---***---
A glimpse behind the curtain: this is the tinting before I added the details on top…
…and this is the original pencil drawing.
Happy New Year 2018, Happy Same Old You!
Merry Xmas unto all that are Xmasing -- and I wish you a fine day to you who aren't too -- this is what Yours Sincerely has been doing on the side of complaining and whining in general. It might not look too well in our prolonged November gloom. The grain of canvases have always deterred... and so on. To stop whining, here it is: Åsa-lo (good friend!) calls this a Trontelont -- what would you say that it is? Mini-Mimi-Mastodon?
Pictures in magazines have never been so pro, so snazzy, so irrelevant. With a few golden exceptions (National Geographic etc.) they are all brought from Shutterstock and their ilk. They fit, but just barely, whatever the column, editorial or whatever was ever about.
How do you explain this 'for whom it might concern'?
That instead of something embarrassingly generic (it grows all the worse when the reader soon sees this photobait in some entirely different context somewhere else) ...they may get something on-the-spot, crafted by hand, -- yes, something locally produced instead of this McEyecandy they've been addicted to?
Now, does this matter? Our little worries, with this world being as it is?
Partly, it does. This Unnecessary Comfort.
"Iceberg ahead!"
Ah, nah, this is a modern ship, just go ahead.
"This beef is produced ecologically, and --"
Pollution schmollution, let's do McDonalds.
And so on.
I could mention various Titanics of the modern mind, but by now I think that you got the point.
Even if you're a lazy Art Director, and an addicted one too.
This is another one for the book that I might finish before being caught up by Death or Flies: In my surreal little tale, the Flies are pestersome creatures that try to see and control everything, have opinions about everything in general and especially how you and me live. Sounds familiar? (I just hate flies, so the choice was obvious.)
The compound eyes was made possible thanks to my dear model, who patiently let me take pictures from a dozen different angles. Using one eye (or worse, stealing imagery) just wouldn't yield the same result.
Some kind of fungi (that I can't place) made the basis for some of the yuckier textures. The wings are warped from weeds (inverted).
The older I get, the less patience I have for people that buzz about and can't live and let live. I want a swatter!
Dear readers -- here's an elephant.
Now, elephants are generally not perceived as very sexy. So their chances of getting into the art market via bed are rather slim.
Here I wanted to add a few notes about #metoo and how this debate has spread to the cultural world -- with a notable exception, the spheres of Fine Art, where everything immoral and possibly illegal is part of how this dimly lit world works. But I can't. Merely thinking about it is draining my soul. The best that I can do is to go on writing my little book of mine: I've done that for seven years, so don't expect any release soon. But it will contain artistic elephants...
...Despair not, little elephant! You might not have a chance to enter the World of Art, um, bedwise. But if you have but mediocre talent in your snout there's still a good chance. You might know the good Art Writer, who writes in the fancy Art Columns. Hmmm, very expressive! Wide strokes. An emotional talent... -- The Writer knows the Gallerist who knows the Collector, and together they'll make your art very wanted and praised and costy all of sudden. Tooot! I know -- this is Insider Business and that normally lands you in jail. But art business is a strange thing, with plenty of space for the elephant in the room. Or an entire herd, give or take the recent one.
------
Technical notes for the easily entertained: The elephant texture is a leather pattern (it was brown before and part of a handbag) while the canvas, apron and cap was made out of the same image (but very different resolutions): It was part of my sweater. The floor is made out of ... a floor. So enfin a little electric hokus-pokus, and there you are.
