The East Ghost

I've always liked Halloween. As a kid I was, for some reason, drawn to the "darker" side of subjects, although really scary movies would really scare me. The commercials for "Children of the Damned" freaked me out considerably. Peter Lorre's appearance on the "Jack Benny Show" had me looking under the bed. But most "horror" movies were too cheesy to be really frightening. The loveable "gothic" soap opera "Dark Shadows" was appointment television in the late 1960s.

I was also very much engrossed in the comic book universes. I was inspired to invent my own characters and write and draw my own comics. I always gave them away, as it was too much hassle to try to get anyone to buy them. One of the characters was based on Halloween culture and was named after a great game I had, called "Green Ghost" (it had glow in the dark elements and was to be played in the dark. Very cool). The idea in my head, which never really came to fruition, was that the story would follow an arc beginning in November and come to a climax on Halloween night.

A few years ago I was relating this idea to a friend who had a fledgling comic publishing project and he encouraged me to pursue the idea. The problem was that I couldn't come up with a story I really felt was good enough, so I never did anything with it. I did go so far as to develop the way the character looked, and outlined his abilities, which were those of a ghost. The Green Ghost could fly, become invisible, walk through walls, that kind of thing. In my original conception he was more of a crime fighter, who battled semi-supernatural bad guys and his powers were made possible by science. For example, he had an anti-gravity belt to help him fly and a device that could render him invisible and another to change the molecular structure of objects, such as walls, so that he could pass through them. I still think that was an interesting idea, especially for a 13 year old. The new concept gave him supernatural origins and the plan was for him to deal with other supernatural phenomena. A little too close to Marvel Comics' "Dr. Strange" character, probably, but in any case it never really jelled story-wise.

Anyway, this "Neo-Retro" piece was done, as all of them have been, for fun and to explore what a typical scene in a story might look like. I also got concerned about copyright issues with the game reference, so I changed his name. At first I thought of calling him "West Ghost", a pun on west coast. But much as I love the Pacific coast, it doesn't really lend itself to ghosts and fog and all of that, so I decided to call him East Ghost. After all, that's the home of Salem, Massachusetts and the coast of Maine (the setting of "Dark Shadows"). The dark, wintry and stormy coastline of the east is better suited to the nature of the character.

Have a happy Halloween or Autumn festival or Day of the Dead or whatever form of celebration you want to engage in.

Happy birthday, Willie Nelson

His birthday is actually tomorrow, April 30, and he'll be 80 years on earth. Willie Nelson is one of those musicians whose music transcends its genre.

When I was still in college he came to the university to play a concert and I had the opportunity to illustrate a t-shirt for that show. I depicted him riding a guitar like a horse. A couple of years later I was at another concert and saw a young lady walk by wearing the t-shirt.
Flash forward twenty or so years and Willie's bus is parked outside the building where my wife Becky once worked. He was in the building on business visiting a lawyer or something. When he returned to the bus there was a throng of fans, including Becky, wanting his autograph and he graciously complied.
When she called me to let me know he was there and that she was going down to meet him I said, "Ask him if he remembers the t-shirt at East Texas State University in the 1970s."
She asked him and he said with that famous smile, "Well, tell him I remembered."

The Sunday, April 28 edition of The Dallas Morning News featured 80 artists' images of Willie and here's mine. The rest can be seen at this link.

Happy Valentines Day

This "Neo Retro" style piece from a few years ago is included with many other interesting and beautiful images on the Altpick.com blog, Altpick Connects.

I hope everyone has a great Valentines Day, regardless of what form it takes. This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first date with the beautiful love of my life, Becky.


Ain't she gorgeous?
"Yes" is the right answer.

Below is a piece I made for her when we first met. "A Dozen Roses", acrylic on canvas, each about 7 by 5 inches.

The Lunatheists

The Lunatheists are a Moon worshiping cult who don rabbit masks for their Full Moon rituals, paying homage to the rabbit shape they see on the face of the moon.

And no, none of that is true. I made it up. It's what I do.

Space

Sometimes we need some space from the everyday, from the ordinary, even from each other, and time to think. Sometimes that time to think leads to a solution that requires direct and immediate action. Which might mean dumping that cig in the shot glass and getting on with it.

I don't recommend smoking, by the way (particularly if you wear lipstick), and I don't smoke. This is all metaphorical.

Secret

We all got 'em. I don't think this guy wants to hear any.

Square the circle, or circle the square?

That's the puzzle for our time. One solution may be to just blend the colors, but as that process becomes more common I'm always amazed at the resistance to the idea.

Robert Frost and John Steinbeck

In the search for subjects to explore in this graphic style I've been developing, I decided on two of my favorite writers, poet Robert Frost and prose author John Steinbeck. I'm deciding on a third, in order to make it a trifecta. Odd numbers are more interesting than even ones, much like people.

Frost used New England as a subject for much of his work. Although I have spent little time in New England, especially in the winter (anywhere lakes freeze over so hard one can drive a car on them is going to be too cold for me), it holds such an iconic place in American culture it seems to belong to all of us, regardless of our geographic origins or preferences. I do enjoy the rare snowfalls we get in Texas, so his invocations of snow resonate with me. I used the snowflake motif as an overall pattern that disappears into and re-emerges out of his dignified white hair.

Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath also resonates, if not with me on a personal experience level, certainly with the current economic and political environment. These days we don't have Nature going after us, in the form of massive dust storms, on top of ill-advised policy repercussions, but the story of institutions giving more value to profit than people and the animosity in some sectors toward organized labor seems very familiar.
The background suggests the tone and color of dust and the oppressive conditions of the Great Depression.

Click on these images to see them larger.

Barefoot Hippies

I did this piece for my friend Kathy Corbin and her band Barefoot Hippies. She didn't ask me to, I just did it because the name inspired me. I was thinking of a bare foot and the shape of the foot and the image of the guitar seemed to come together naturally. I like when that happens and I wish it happened more often.
She likes it, so what is done with it remains to be seen, but it will be fun to see it used.

Fluid

I'm looking forward to the return of hummingbirds this Spring. Their doppler effect arrival and departure sounds are more like a buzzing than a humming to me, but "buzzingbirds" sounds more threatening than "hummingbirds", I guess.

Happy Winter Solstice

Wasted energy

Having energy to waste, and wasting it, in a futile effort may be the ultimate vanity. But we never know what might be futile until it we've tried it.

A Summer place...

This seems like a good Summer image to post.

I'm going to be out of place for a couple of weeks, so posts to this blog may be even more scarce than they have been recently. After this time away I'll get caught up with some of what's been going on up to now and beyond.

The lesson

There is one in this somewhere, I'm sure.

Two media, one subject.

The piece on the left, "Suddenly Last April", is an acrylic on canvas painting. It's small, 8 by 6 inches. On the right is "April", a mixed media and digital piece, 7.5 by 6.5.
"Suddenly..." is going to an auction for an independent film company, raising money for a project about the "therapeutic process of Art Therapy as a healing and life enhancing practice", according to their brief.
"April" is another exploration of the "Neo-Retro" style I have been developing over the past couple of years. It has evolved from a kind of brutish and primitive look to something more, if I may say it, elegant and refined. Examples of its evolution can be found at this link.
Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting juxtaposition to show the different styles. Interesting for an easy Saturday morning, anyway.

Sea Change

Who doesn't feel this way sometimes these days.

Fair Trade

I do these pieces in the "Neo-Retro" style because I really enjoy the process. And they are really fast to produce. Speed of production has always been a problem for me. My mentors worked very laboriously on their own image making and when I was in college the fact that a project required fifty hours to create was some kind of wacko (in retrospect) badge of honor. My acrylic paintings still are very labor intensive, but that labor is one of love, to be sure. But it's still nice to be able to make an image quickly that still has visual strength, and it's great to mix up the media once in a while. Keeps us fresh in all areas of endeavor.
As with all of these postings, you can click the image to see it bigger.

The Chooser

How are choices decided upon? There are times when it seems the choices made by the choosers are random at best. That may be unfair as an observation, but no more so than how choices are often made.
This is another Neo-Retro sample, with that in mind.

Lady Gaga

I see Lady Gaga as a combination of Madonna and David Bowie. While her music is not really my taste, a little too "pop"/dance (the latter of which I do very badly, so I don't do it at all), I do like "Bad Romance". Even that song would have probably never been heard by me but for the gym I sometimes visit, with its top 40 radio station blasting, about twenty minutes apart, that and every Ke$ha, Katy Perry, etc. sound to make the airwaves.
But my preferences aside, in interviews she makes references to her "little monsters", fans who feel outcast, uncool, nerdy, all those things which, if one is considered such, makes adolescence much more difficult than most adults realize or remember. So I have to admire her for reaching out to that demographic and giving them a feeling of acceptance.
Her stands taken in favor of gay marriage and the humane treatment of animals, while maybe not that radical or surprising, still show an interest in more than just draining cash from the pop music trough. So here's a little tribute for Lady Gaga, and another sample for the "Neo-Retro" style for me.

Chili morning

After a week of inordinately intense winter weather, and more coming soon if it all works as forecast, a flaming bowl of chili can be a consolation.