Beautiful Flowers, Awful Machines

The pattern is very clear now this summer in bi-polar art. (I don’t think that I am, but my art might be.) I’ve made an entire bouquet of nice flowers and a machine park of pain. Next month I should make awful weed flowers, full of thorns, along with beautiful mechanics. Just to compensate.’Til then:

“Monday Mood, a.k.a. Correspondence grinder.”

I intended a longer rant to go with it, in which I connect the habit of not answering cold outreach such as mails to the pandemic – when such asocial habits were aquired, I believe – to the global warming that can kill us all. It sounds like a really long shot. But the carelessness! --- ladies and gentlemen and other animals, that carelessness is in itself the very same. Mechanics doesn’t care what it’s grinding. I and the environment have the same enemies.
So: I gave “Insta” some technical notes instead, told my readers that the background is patterned from a tiny piece of Hieronymus Bosch. I hoped that they knew Bosch (or started googling) and saw how very apocalyptic and fitting that is. Next I double-exposured this pattern, which I lowered for the “table”, emphasis was on making 1+1 into a darker 2. (And the front was an even darker third go.) The pattern also resurface in the motif in very neat way, or so I think.

The floral motifs are blessedly simple in comparison. Here’s…

Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus

And a Bluebell (with a bumble bee) Hyacinthoides

And last but not least, A red rose. (Rosaceae) One might believe that the flowers were made feeling good and the cruel machine while feeling bad. It ain’t necessarily so...

Peonies, Monsters and the Mood Swings of June

There are two wolves inside me, and the third one bites them both by the troat. One who paints supercute things, like Peonies.

Ink and watercolours on cardboard. Look at all those nice little petals?

The other wolf howls and scowls and hates, for instance, being allergic, what we do to the Earth and being Overheated.

Digital nightmare. Hard to believe I'm the same person. I am fully aware this is no way to treat an audience. Thou shalt stick to one thing. Damn, man, thou mustn't vary like this! Some days I'm in between, still a surrealist but not that radical. Some days I Just Can't at all, thank you Wolf no. 3. So please let my moody mood swing its swing? Then I'm at least moving.

My World is Dissolving.

My World is Dissolving. An Essay.

I was an analogue person. But I think that I’ve used computers since my teenage days and Photoshop since 1996, that might be a bit rare. They’ve always been along. So I shouldn’t be a hypocrite? Still, my fortunes rose and fell with the analogue world around us that is rapidly disappearing.

Now first. You get some art. Ballpoint pen + som digital enchangments, here you go. '

Example number one. The Fine Arts’ Market.

I had my first exhibition in 2004. I did utterly well, but it wasn’t dumb luck, I had studied this. I sent my local rag a picture so good that they voluntarily printed it along with the details of the event -- back then, there were special pages dedicated to local cultural events of general interest, which you could report yourself, and those suggestions were kindly read and taken care of by humans.
We’ll get back to humans.
And people did read local papers, and they came.
There were also special advertising boards all around the town slated for culture and community life, and man did I wallpaper those things, spending days biking around putting up my posters. I put energy into those. They were artworks in themselves. Last but not least, I sent physical invitations by mail to a huge amount of people, but the rationale was, if One of them bought a large painting, this still paid off.

And all of this did. I sold the first one some fifteen minutes after opening on the first day.

(This was the one that the local paper editors liked, too.)
And I actually next to sold out.
Painting, painting, and then exhibiting yearly (doing all the marketing chores mentioned above) I soon had a list of some 60 regulars. They brought others, and for many years this went promisingly well. The recipients of my fancy letters are all dead now. (I can even point out the churchyard where many of them rest, along with my grandparents.)
The humble advertising places for local culture and activities are still up, standing near parks and public places. The people pass by, looking at their cell phones. It is very crowded inside their little cell phones. If you want to get somewhere inside them you have to pay a huge lot of money. And my other means of reaching out have passed away in similar manners.

Example number two. Finding, Getting Deals with and Trusting People.

One also finds me in illustration, music and giving seasoned advice as a language consultant. In theory, I should survive. But on the Web, you have to be seen and Found and recognized among the Zillions of Others. People have the attention span of… I can’t think of any animal with less attention span.
Even if you Do get the attention of someone, I’ve learned that the character of the human race isn’t the same as before the Internet. The final blow was the Pandemic. The Pandemic taught me this: If you can’t meet and shake hands and look each other into their eyes, well, then you can’t trust this person afterwards. It was difficult enough before, God knows. But now! The greatest victim of the Pandemic is not the humans that died, after all, but the humanity in those who survived. If you don’t know a person thoroughly it is as if you ever existed, and they can treat you and your feeble attempts at negotiation any which way, if they at all think that you exist. Internet business has reached the depths of internet dating.

Example number three. Surviving.

--- Well, for said reasons, I won’t. And this grand state of things has permeated all of society. For every day, new acronyms like NFT or AI are invented, and this world of abstract letters is a good home where robots can thrive. But there is no life for me or soon not anybody who speaks a human language among those abstract letters. But well. I am a thing of the past. My world is disappearing. Soon, and this is not entirely unrelated to said loss of soul and language and higher values, all of this world will burn like a Canadian forest.

This is an Essay, which means that I must try but need not succeed in finding any solution. I lay these observations out bare on the table, as they are. And lay myself down to rest, hoping not to wake up soon. The world spins madly on, for now being. With or without me.

-- Dedicated to Larry of Larry’s Corner, one of few but luminous exceptions.

Forest Anemones

I have drawn some Forest Anemones.

And here's a movie where you may see the process.

S:t John the Baptist

"And here's S:t John the Baptist. He is very lucky to be served Swedish style, with lingonberry jam, gravy, potatoes and of course a little green on the side. We're so very healthy up here."

Thus endeth my presentation on Instagram. I threw it up on Twitter too, to see if there's any difference in appetite there.

The details were just a bit tricky to do... but that's why you do it?

I really don't have any idea what this means. Probably feel consumed as usual. But Swedish style, of course.

Sad, Dumb and Grumpy 50’s Car

This is a Sad, Dumb and Grumpy 50’s car, clouds of poison included.

The sketch preceding this one was ordered by an enthusiastic lady on the behalf of a Veteran Car’s Society, for an event this summer. (Having some income would be nice.)
The Veteran Car’s Society, I swear to God, is however peopled by…

…Sad, Dumb and Grumpy and disgracefully ageing blobs of white men. Swedes, on top of that, so they did not want anything artistic. They’ll do something themselves, and I also swear the resulting poster will be ratty and they’ll be hopelessly proud of it.

(You find the same fine spirit in boat clubs where yachts grow bigger and bigger while other belongings grow increasingly limp – I once happened to have a very small boat in one, so now I recognise this mindset at once. Small matter if the artificial self esteem has wheels instead.)

So well, now I don’t have to draw some happy symbol for old environment destroyers.
The enthusiastic lady sent a trifle for the original sketch, It made her happy:

As for me, I (as you see) proofed it all into a Sad, Dumb and Grumpy 50’s car.
Meanwhile, I myself shrink into something Sad, Dumb and Grumpy and increasingly poisonous. I’m a sort of veteran myself, and this war has been going on for too long.

Poor, Stupid Erdoğan

Only once in a while I take part in drawing contests, knowing that they’re not entirely unbiased. (At least none of the usual favourite pets came 1:st this time.) I was a little wary about taking part as this satire competition was instigated by Flamman, a Swedish newspaper on the Leftier Left whose hostility to NATO is vastly greater than its on-off care for the Kurds that Erdoğan tries to exterminate.

What happened was that Kurds in exile hanged E. in effigy outside Stockholm’s City Hall, which --- hang on! --- made E. do some political sable rattling concerning Sweden’s future alliances, which pleased the Leftier Left, who dislike the NATO as it’s associated with the USA, which defeated the Soviet Union which was bad too, but it was Their baddie. Shedding that old skin was likewise painful, and now someone has to pay.

On one side, Erdoğannish fury. On the other, wholesale slaughter. Genocide shenocide, says Erdoğan.

What happened next was predictable. The alt-right also wanted to play, and burned a Quran outside the Turkish embassy. For the alt-right has close ties with the present Russian regime, which also lives back in the USSR past (among other blood soaked pasts of varying plausibility).

Poor, stupid Erdoğan. Getting stuck in the crossfire between Swedish Right and Left. It must be of small solace to him that the fire normally is so intense that all other questions and thoughts vanish too.

Well, I drew my little satire, just because. But, as Tom Lehrer said: Satire is really dead. Now I’ll go back to my usual stuff. If I can find the energy for it. Surrealism is dead too. It had a too hard time catching up with the rest of reality.

A Year of Staring At Screens

Yet another year is drawing to an end. I had better not even guess how much of it that was spent sitting like this:

It has some pretty funny details too, the cuneiform (symbolizing, what? Feeling old and worn, perhaps) and the long fingers (as I’ve done this for such a long time?) & so on.

It’s on a par with my other works for this year; I threw together a nice little movie with a selection: Enjoy. You may hear the Straussian love of banjoes in the background.

Pengruraffe

This month I drew a Penguraffe.

Outside, the last colours blew away (as shown here in ink and aqua) and everything got dressed in fifty shades of pure tristesse. (I've learned that this is actually a cherry tree, who could've guessed.)

And inside, I went into exile, fleeing into my inner cosmos, where this cute little thing could be found. A digital creation, perfect when the November light is as discouraging as it is. It's possible that I made a pencil doodle a long time ago to keep the idea, but it's a very vague memory now. Such figments resurface when they want to.

October, Elephants & Other Things.

This month has seen me doing various little things. Toot.

I can't show you everything that has been brewing.

I decided very early on not to take part in "Inktober", though. So many other things to do.

Three Eggs & a Leaf

Credit and merit where merit is due!
Justice as soon as shells burst
If you have hatched and were labeled as “One”
We must assume you were first

If it says “Second” where you first saw the light
--- So says every good referee ---
Second you are and will second remain
No matter how close you might be

We’re ever so sorry, egg number three!
For a life of less corn, full of scorn
But you must have been lazy, a terrible sport
Even before you were born.

One more poem, just for the hell of it? ---

As autumn leaves are falling
I fall away
You are green and healthy;
You are boring! -- you may stay

Gravity now calls me
Away from your healthy lot
I don't think I can stand you
Please let me plunge and rot.

A Party for Fellow-Travellers

Now it’s raining, summer has left us and some badly needed rain is soaking this wayward little spot on Earth. I’ve been mostly busy having an exhibition, leaving little headspace for new works, but now I’m on it again. This one I made yesterday. From the description on Insta (where I am @j_ceder) :

"Election time is coming to Sweden, and with it a feature that is called the “Election Hut”; every major party has to have one in every major town square, they stand there a-talking and hand out flyers and false promises from it.

This election is a particularly worrying one, with the “Sweden Democrats” on the rise --- a funny name for a party that has imported German National Socialism and dressed it up to look Swedish and democratic and decent. None of which it is. The special thing about the SD is that it’s a party for fellow travellers. Regardless if you join them for just a short ride with some illusion of personal gain or all the way to “final stop, Auschwitz!” with right arms stretched you’re welcome, as long as you follow them one station closer to power. This means that you don’t need to think that much, and up to one fifth of the voting stock and a number of von Papen-ish parties seem to fall for it. Eerie.”

---***---

Other simple stuff that I made post finissage: This door with eyes becoming my favourite butterflies, the ubiquitous Cabbage Whites.

Let’s have a look at the details! Nothing is ever simple, and the eyes-turned-butterflies of course don’t stop transitioning there.

That’s about all that I have right now, save but for small stuff like this one, it might speak for itself. Decision, decision.

A Busy July; Cloves, Apples and Monsters, Oh My!

As Larry of Larry’s Corner has been so kind to extend my exhibition, this being low season and all, I’ve had much to do as a guide among my own creations, telling tales and (hopefully) creating interest. The personal eye-to-eye contact is dead important in all relationships --- including the one between Artist and Collector --- and it is an outright shame that our digital times now kills so much of this. It kills business too. One of my favourite poets wrote:

“Now it’s not far from house to house / But far from heart to heart”

Nils Ferlin was referring to the fast but heartless highways that they were beginning to build in his days, but it goes perfectly well for information highways too. We connect so easily, but it is futile as we do not quite reach each other this way, and in business context this means No Show. As this globe gets overheated, we’ll just sit there with our excellent contacts:

“It’s burning here!”
“Really? Here too!”
“And here!”

And nobody will have the heart put the fire out. Consuming sensibly, staying on the ground and all necessary last-minute implementations become Somebody Else's Problem. How much for communication when caring is gone.

Trying to see beauty in the middle of impending doom, I painted “Cloves” --- digital, saving a failed painting on cardboard.

I also invented The Abdominable Galtan, a parody monster, on the “political maps” that you may see here and there. (Sometimes referred to as “GAL-TAN”.) Galtan, this daft beast, can only think in terms of left vs. right, mild vs. brutal force. But I couldn’t care less if we’re ruled by an elite of idiots or an equally idiosyncratic herd. I am also oblivious to whether this rule is to manipulate you or whip you into submission.

What a cutie. On the lighter side, here’s “Cherries and Windfall”. It’s made in ink and many, many layers of watercolours on a thirsty piece of cardboard.

The odd little WW-beetle is something that I’ve seen two times in my life. The first time when having a dangerously high fever in my teens. The other after staying awake for three days and night, finishing my Bachelors’ thesis. Creepy-crawley. But the other time I was but in my twenties, and we were immortal back then.

Purple Squirrels, Ellyphunts and Other Strange Things

Firstly, the Ellyphunt, made outdoors before this month got too scorching. An Ellyphunt, dearies, is what an Elephant would look like if one of the less insightful and therefore more entusiastic souls that I might encounter would describe it to me. And then I would not be paid, qua the result being Ellyphunt instead of Elephant.
As a rule of thumb, thus:
The more you do what such souls think that they want, the less they want it. O santa simplicitas.

During this month I also met with a lot of pink squirrels.
They might belong to the same bestiary. A "Pink Squirrel" --- I was very happy to chance upon this term --- is the job applicant that actually can do the six or sixty impossible things before breakfast that such wishlists often demand. It goes without saying they're part of the great Potemkin village of "meritocracy" that we have today.

Sorry: I'm not in any mood, obviously. I blame the heat. And some sales fatigue as a cherry on the top of that, trying to do business in the great Swedish Sloth Month of June (and July will be worse). But well, please have my business card. I'm here if you want me:

Here We Come Going Nuts in May

In order to handle this month, I let spin-offs turn into works in their own right, sailing away with brushes and all…

…or turn into other fruitful stuff when the original ventures grew too heavy. Or “berryful”? I have to check out whether cherries count as berries or fruit.

It’s no wonder that May is a wearisome month. For a start, it's dumb enough to begin with May 1^st, the hypocritical hours that call themselves Worker’s Day.
Thus I had to draw this Chess Party.

The feeling of futility also spilled over to this little landscape, with my last little question towering in it. I used a local field, damp and misty; the warped colours might hint a cold and frosty morning.

And so a word from our sponsors... I don’t know where you are, but the place where you should be is saatchionline.com where I’m trying to sell this --- here’s

Cruel Music Box Mechanics.

Go get. We’ll see where I am, if I am, in June.
“Cut!”

Art Made to Last, Burn or Crack

May I Come In?

I have already decided for an explanation, why do I draw and next paint on such an ephemeral material? I used to do fine oils (Winsor and Newton's best, Madame!) on carefully selected canvases, much the way that Rembrandt, van Dyck and Artemisia Gentileschi did. I will explain to the dofus that they made paintings meant to last as long as civilisation, in their case a few hundred years ahead. And so do I! I waste fine ink and watercolours and some faux gold even (a few modest strokes for fun, I don't think you see it here) on a recycled piece of cardboard that'll last for many, many months --- as long as our civilisation will.
The latter won't be recycled, obviously.

As a proof of this I point to the

Local Air Biz Dragon.

Speaking of things unsustainable. I had a grass fire near me this month, and the yellow airplane in the background that lifted to pour water on it (I saw it myself) came from the same airport as some of the planes that cause it... So my dragon now bears the colours of our local airline. It transports people who in nine cases out of ten couldv'e taken the train instead.
To make all of this extra funny: Our local flight is sponsored by our taxes. It can't fly by itself any better than a kiwi bird -- or fruit -- can. So this grass fire belongs to the citizens. We own every flame of it, obviously.

Lastly, this is

A Very Well Planned Egg.

I used it for a small rant that I wrote in Swedish, published obscurely. People do not speak or listen to eggs anyhow, no matter what language they use. So now it may squeak for itself until it cracks:
"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness."

War News Overload and Other Dispatches

War News Overload

"All wars are exciting during the first two weeks".
(Unknown.)

As I write this the war in Ukraine has carried on for a round month, and both sides are showing signs of fatigue, and so are the spectators. The length of a war is generally measured from the first shot fired 'til Armistice (or, failing that, cease-fire of varying degrees of stability) but I wish that there was a name for the Fatigue Point, when wise warriors for the umpteenth time in history come to the insight that wars (with a few smashing exceptions) can't be won really.

Battery Newt

But we're fighting a different war with such success: The war on nature. This one I made as a comment on Volvo Cars, which plans to build a fine Electric Car Battery Factory, which sounds grand until ou learn about the -- already inhabited -- wetlands where they plan to build it. You can't make up a better illustration of greenwashing or "Green Growth", no matter how you try. You can't make this up at all.

This is merely

Dr. Giraffe.

This is the kind of image that one produces when one has spent March trying to show important stuff to people. Dr. Giraffe thinks that Humanity needs stronger meds.