A few years back I did a Spoon series. Of those I posted on my blog, “Spoon, Water, Glass” proved most popular. And in my folder of unfinished work this one has been waiting
Knife/Spoon
Kettle corn & other treats
Nurture not our souls & seep
Into longgone curio
Fog of past’s obscurio
Endless cuts & drippings when
Eating are not what we ken
Road Fork
Ripping through roman à clef
Overdrive kicks in mos def
O Attaboy & bustier
Definitely Spatial K
It’s Thanksgiving, Friends. I have a lot to do, so I rush through this.
In late 2014 I was doing quick sketches of celebrities. I noted the time from start to finish. So I did this of Alfred Hitchcock from 10:14 to10:19–something less than 5 minutes. And today it was 4:58 to 5:05–something less than 8.
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for viewing!
My younger self probably had some connectivity in mind with the triangle-circumscribed word “flax” and a woman trying to net a butterfly. If I had remembered, a far different finished drawing would have been executed. This one is a lot of free-associative groping. I like that I learned that Fl is the symbol for the trans-uranic synthetic element Flerovium. That opened a big cardboard box of weird, interesting stuff, like the term “double magic” and the fact that only 90 or so flerovium atoms have presented themselves for study.
I am a fan of the woman who was famous for saying “I want to be alone.” She was alive, she was strangely lovely, and she did it her way every bit as much as Frank Sinatra ever did.
Greta Garbo
Grand Hotel had a capital G
RUSSIA begat Ninotchka
Exit the doomed Mlle Gautier
Then exit the self-eclipsed orb
All PRAISE one magnificent solo
When I was a night clerk at Sedona Winds Independent Living Retirement Community, I had about 5 hours of work–preparing menus, folding napkins and setting tables, collecting bags of trash and meal trays from outside resident doors, preparing coffee and distributing newspapers, plus other odd tasks–in an eight-hour shift. The rest of my shift my main job was to stay awake and alert in case of emergencies and/or phone calls or visits from residents. So I formed the habit of drawing 15×15 grids, because the N.Y. Times and LA Times crossword puzzles were 15×15. Sometimes I tried my hand at crossword puzzle construction. Two such efforts, never finished, are on this page.
Crossword grids make good backgrounds for artwork, and I’ve used them suchwise many times. Here I have tried to make them more like main characters.
The drawing had a kajillian possibilities, but was in a great need for fleshing out. I thought more figures would be a mistake so I went with words. Came up with three beauts but they all began with F. That was OK. “Not a bug, but a feature.”
Light intrigues, dazzles, guides, bathes. This acrostic says that it may also be mischievous. And there is a sub-acrostic, Flash Light, that is poetically a cousin to Flash Fiction: hit-and-run, quick taste, seeyalater.
Lumen Naughty
Let unsophistication reign
Uncultured juvenilia
Metastasizes slim and smug
Evangelism’s High and Nigh
Now Tyrus has become a Ty
Trivia: Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb’s first name was Tyrus. Ty Cobb was in a way the Pete Rose of his generation.
Flash Light
Fossssil
Lanai
Augmenting
Shibboleth
Hatchet
When I ran across this old drawing with the acrostic “Craz I Ness” my immediate thought was “Needs more Crazy. A LOT more.” So i crzied it up, including having the last two lines cross paths.
Craz I Ness
Cacophonic wail and moan
Rigid blinkless smile of bone
Aerie’s music’s background strains
Zealotries leave marks and stains
The initial sketch, done recently, was an exercise: Use of Quiver-Lines to Emphasize Fear. Did it and moved on. Came back and learned that it wanted to be finished. Brought it to this stage of completion. It is not GUERNICA, nor the Sistine Chapel ceiling and walls, but it should tell a story a little bit different with each viewer.
Here is a truly horrible beginning of a drawing. There is one passage, however, that merits salvage and enhancement. Crop, draw, erase, augment, and this is the result:
Robert Heinlein once wrote a story with a good guy searching the mind of a despicable bad guy for needed information. He used the phrase “…like looking for a jewel in garbage.” Sometimes, Friends, That’s Life.
One with Clay, Image and Text 