Steven LaRose, Mesmerism, 2008

Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 48 x 32"

Monochrome Pictures of Nothing

Upper: Brice Marden Cold Mountain 3, 1988-91, oil on linen, 9' x 12'

Lower: Heda Willem Clasz, Still Life With Gilt Cup, 1635, oil on panel 88 x 113 cm

Actual Size Love Tuesday

I'm into my second week over at 10,000 Pixels. It is a blog that Marc Snyder recently asked me to jam on. Last week's theme was "After Dark" and I was fairly exited by the coupling of images that happened. As a reminder: All images are 100 pixels square and 72 dpi. I came up with the theme for this week, "Actual Size Love" and wouldn't you know it, yesterday morning, Marc enriched his life further with a new daughter. Congratulations Marc, I can't believe you are still posting!

Kelphorn

I know this woman who is dabbling in sequential art. She started out using her real name, but now she is Ms. Br4ziL. The narrative is a little spotty because she was censored by her husband (is my guess because all reference to "The Russian" have been removed, which is too bad because those were some funny bits). Kelphorn is a semi-autobiographical journey of an over thirty mom living a normal life full of daily irony and loving sarcasm. It sort of reminds me of Peter Bagge's Hate which "tells the story of Buddy Bradley, a disenfranchised borderline-alcoholic but ultimately responsible Generation X slacker, and his perilous search for love and happiness in modern-day Seattle and suburban New Jersey."I mentioned this comparison to "Ms. Br4ZiL" and she was not familiar with Hate. I found this extremely refreshing. Imagine. . . someone over 30 years old attempting something so difficult as a daily sequential art narrative, without all the Baggege.

Collective

John Constable, Cloud Study, 1822
Oil on paper laid on board, 19 x 23"

Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature, 1836

March of this year, Master Hollingsworth posted briefly about James Elkin's What Painting Is. It has been driving me nuts as to where I first heard of the book. It finally occurred to me that it was during my January 2006 interview with Duane Keiser. I wish I owned a copy.

Stream Drop

Alfred Kubin, North Pole, 1901

Ink on paper, 9 x 13"

I was unfamiliar with the work of Alfred Kubin until a couple of days ago. The drawing above caught my attention because it reminded me of Carla Knopp's paintings. Carla Knopp, Mount M, 2008

Oil on wood, 10 x 10"

As an aside, when I was looking at other drawings by Kubin, I came across an index of images taken from Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity which appears to be a text used for an anthropology class at WFU. I get the feeling that some things never change. It seems that many of the Symbolists working a century ago felt that degeneration, disease, and entropy were just around the corner. Or maybe, by the same principle that keeps a sword from cutting itself, we can't see our own materialistic preoccupations or our distorted faith in empirical science. Is the worst of our imagination happening now? Are Heaven and Hell Ideas like the Past and the Future? Are they all just abstract brackets to help define the only true Present?

My "aside" went farther then I had intended. Sorry. I guess I'm finding an odd form of comfort in the fact that in 1851 John Martin can paint the romantically sublime,

The Great Day of His Wrath

Oil on canvas, 78 x 121"

and 150+ years later, Jacques de Beaufort is doing his thing.

Good Evening

A version of Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School landed in Ashland tonight. I went, "figuring" that I should practice what I preach. There are loads of figure drawing groups in our small town, all of which are held during civilized hours, and so I can't attend them. From seven till ten tonight, however, it was a real treat to spend three hours with a sketchbook on my lap. I could complain about some things, but the overall experience was just what I needed. The event was hosted by Bohemia Gallery & Framing.

There was a male model with a sword fetish (one minute):
There was a blond ballerina kitten (five minutes):

Finally, there was a dark haired dominatrix with a parasol. A cat fight ensued.
The guy had all the voodoo you could ask for, but in the last pose, the ladies came out on top.

The onion skin relationship between innateness and environmental influence

From Jim Woodring's blog: This is an incidental character design sheet drawn by Jack Kirby for Ruby-Spears' The Mr. T Show sometime during the 1980s. The script was changed and these dogs were discarded. I was working there too and I saved them from the trash, if you can believe that. How'd you like to have these monsters out for your blood? Gawd!

The seemingly innocuous subject, a garden pond framed by two ornamental rocks, becomes, in his rendition, profoundly unsettling.

Fish and Rocks, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), dated 1699
Bada Shanren (Zhu Da) (Chinese, 1626–1705)
Hanging scroll; ink on paper; 53 x 23 7/8 in. (134.6 x 60.6 cm)

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art