variants, feat. bill campana

March 6, 2022
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Earlier today I worked on a self-portrait which eventually became “Ukraine Sympathizer.” (See previous post for that end result.) As the painting progressed I posted successive stages as my profile picture on Facebook. I thought my friends would enjoy seeing how the painting progressed…

…and one friend in particular, whom I have repeatedly referred to on this blog as “the funniest man on earth,” poet and humorist Bill Campana, went so far as to do extreme photoedits on my developing headshot, creating a total of SEVEN variants on my originals. Above is one of his two favorites, and I think it’s terrific. It captures a psychological facet of mine that whim compels me to call “Relaxed Bastard Face.” As far back as grade school, friends, especially girls, have remarked on my tendency to scowl, and urged me to smile. Sometimes, truthfully, I’ve responded “But I AM smiling.” Deep-set eyes and naturally downturning mouth corners, plus an undeniable lifelong struggle with non-clinical bipolarity, scowlify me.

These three range from slight solarization to an almost Francis-Baconesque distortion of features. Each is a different experience.

Color and detail variation evoke a ghostliness and then an electricity. And notice in the ghostliness on the left, there is an articulated eye in the orbital shadow on our right. It does not exist in the original. The line between editing and creation blurs.

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And here is Bill’s other favorite. This one is my personal favorite as well. He’s taken the ore of my painting and smelted Mystery and Depth from it.  Here is a shadowy figure with serious matters troubling him. Perhaps it is the weight of the world, perhaps unrelieved sorrow, or he could just be worried about getting home safely. “Still waters run deep” is a phrase that comes to mind.

Profound thanks to my friend Bill Campana, who did something special today, creative and revelatory. Thanks also, Bill, for graciously allowing me to share our collaboration with my readers/viewers worldwide.

feathered, tethered, weathered

March 2, 2022
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2022 0302 magnificent bird
This sketch is based on a photo of a bird who was bound by a length of cable and perched  on display at a nature fair conducted by the City of Avondale, Arizona. The photo was taken by my friend Patty after my camera randomly quit on me. Patty had me hold the leash of her dog Sparky while she took the shot I’d failed to get.

The bird seemed placid and resigned. Between the artistic/dramatic liberties I took in converting a photo to a sketch, and my limitations as a nature artist, this sketch is more “inspired by” than “based on.” “The next one will be better,” I told myself, as always, as I signed and dated the sketch.

horsemen

February 28, 2022
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2022 0228 horsemen
Here’s a sketching exercise done after freezing the frame of a DVD I was watching. The wonderful fact is, an expert director and director of photography and cinematographer and costume designer and makeup department have all conspired to give the viewer, and the sketcher, an excellent composition and value array, for delectation. From that, the sketcher can report what she or he is seeiing, or play with it, or hybridize. This sketcher decided to focus on faces and gesture and leave out a few details.

first world driiink

February 24, 2022
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The conceptualization for this page occurred while I was walking home from a drug store/pharmacy called Walgreens, sipping and then gulping on the first-world drink I had purchased, a Naked Blue Machine. It tasted sweet. Research revealed that similar products ARE sweet, to the tune of about 13 teaspoons of sugar per unit; and the nutritionally-valuable fiber is been mostly removed in the juice-making process.

So this is a product that suckers people into drinking something that they think is good for them, and it’s priced for the upscale consumer. Anyone with fresh fruit and a blender can do much better for themselves with their own concoctions, which with experimental effort will ultimately result in a drink better, tastier, and FAR cheaper than this store-bought, blatantly First World product. (I refer now not to the product I had purchased, but to the satirical product depicted above.)

I tried to be funny when I did this,m but world events have deadened my funny bone. Please think of this page as a Caveat Emptor public service.

Technical note: The “iii” in “driiink” is pronounced “three.” So the phrase becomes “snort or three.” The acrostic construction process makes for strange bedfellows, in this case triplets.

first world driiink

find your bliss with wet, not weed
in the kick your totters teeter
riffing with your snort or iii
savoringly in between
tasty and the kitchen sink

On Da Warp Path

February 19, 2022
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2022 0219 on da warp path0001

On Da Warp Path

Once upon a time we got our stuff @ A & P
Now we get nostalgic at the sound of Sha-Na-Naa
Dreaming of the Dark Age with its LSMFT
As the next Apocalypse draws nigh–YAY!! Sis Boom Bah

Notes

“A & P” refers to a chain of grocery stores, the #1 chain in the United States for most of the 20th Century. (“A & P” stands for “Atlantic & Pacific.”) In 2015, following Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, the A & P stores were liquidated.

“Sha-Na-Naa” refers to a band with a similar name, Sha Na Na, formed in 1969 and still active. {romulgators of the musical genre Doo-Wop, their perhaps most famous hit song is “Good Night, Sweetheart (Well, It’s Time To Go).”

“LSMFT” stands for “Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.” The Lucky Strike brand, now owned by the British Tobacco Corporation, is no longer readily available in the United States.

“Sis Boom Bah” is part of a cheerleading chant originating in 1867. The Sis and Boom are intended to be imitative of an ignited firework going up into the air and then exploding.

Still Life with Seven of Diamonds

February 19, 2022
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2022 0219 still life w 7 diamonds
Here is how I spent my midmorning. I had had a cup of coffee and fiddled around on the Internet some. Then for about the millionth time I realize that much of my life was going down the Shallow Fun drain. So I codified my concern with this poem, which I posted to my Facebook group Poets All Call:
****
Toxic Enjoyment

It is not cancer but
It is eating my time alive

It is fatal frippery
Terminal twiddlethumbing
Toxic Enjoyment

When I wake up I find
That the Fun God Fungus
Has given me more coins
More tickets
More lives

And so I sit on the edge of my bed
For maybe forty-five minutes
And wrestle with opponents
Or make things blow up
Or figure out a word

Finally I come to my senses
And look myself in the bathroom-vanity eye
And say (I swear) “Be Careful.”

I have Be Carefulled myself
Almost every day for years
And till now it has meant
“Be Careful whilst flossing and brushing;
Your teeth are not spring chickens”

But now
Today
It means
Be Careful
Not to leak
The rest
Of your life away
On pointless
Non
Con
Struc
Tive
Empty
Enjoyment.

Most of me nods
And thinks Whew,
Thank Goodness
The Right Track is back!

But the little I-Wanna Weasel
Chuckles and says
Smugly,
“I’ve heard that one
Before
And I will hear it
Again.”
****

Naturally, after I posted the poem the question arose: What IS the best use of my time right now? A two-hour drawing followed. It is flawed, and, despite the two hours, rushed. I hope the viewer will derive some (non-shallow, heh heh) enjoyment from the cryptic storytelling involved, and perhaps from the crude force of the draughtsmanship.

This one is atypical of my drawings in that the drawing details are in caption form at the bottom, and part of the image. I may do this more, and the images thus captioned may become postcards, or refrigerator magnets, or elements for a gallery-like montage. Time will tell.

Ethel’s Merman

February 18, 2022
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2022 0218 ethel m

Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and the Gershwin brothers fully appreciated Ethel Merman’s phenomenal voice, precise diction, and fluid, eloquent gestures to sell their songs with gusto and ferocity. Bette Midler is The Divine Miss M, but she is not the first. Midler is more than fair-to-middling, though, and for my money the heiress of the Merman mantle. And they both have referred to themselves as Broads, and they both have a lusty, ribald side.

I learned through my brief obsession with Merman during the last couple of weeks that though she hit the heights professionally, in her personal life she was hit hard with tragedy and heartbreak. When she sang “There’s No Business Like Show Business” she had been everywhere the song goes, with the possible exception of being escorted out of town by the sheriff. But she often had it tougher.

For some reason, I was thrilled to learn of her hearty sexual appetite. Perhaps in some improbable corner of the Multiverse, Chance brought her together with a young man less than half her age . . .

Ethel’s Merman

Eros gives Fantasy wings, it would seem
Time for Romance with an undersea theme
Here in the depths who knows what may occur
Energized Whales Blue Humpback and Sperm
LUST finds fine expression in seabed’s gymkhana
‘S all Good, precious girl–find Fun à la Pescan

Pescan: adjective. “Of or relating to Fish.” Not for the unpesky. 🙂

Fun fact: The Salty Señorita is a popular bar in Old Town, Scottsdale, Arizona, about five miles from my apartment’s doorstep.