Sketch for an upcoming 22" x 30" graphite drawing.
Boolean (Bowling) Far (for) Doll Hearse (Dollars)
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Tag Archives: illustration
Flatscreen Voyeur
A conventional-but-not 21st-Century flatscreen-owning young man voyeuristically eyes a conventional-but-not topless-but-not beachbunny-but-not. Popcorn is involved until it's gone.
Desperate But Sequel
Here is something I started over a month ago and invited collaboration (see the post “Seven, Eight–Collaborate”). One brave soul told me there would be a try; that I have not heard from the brave soul since casts no aspersion on said soul. Collaboration is tricky.
Indeed, collaboration ended up being the theme of this, now finished, page:
And here are the words of the triple-acrostic sonnet:
Desire may ebb when disillusion flows
Endangering stability, which flees
Each time de-Liberation strikes a pose
Some issues turn to Beasts none may appease
Proceed OUTSIDE the box, and P.D.Q.
Example: cure your Beef with B.B.Q.
Rescind your doubt! Do what WILL do for you
And with each therapeutic molecule
Add TLC that’s stubborn as a Mule
The optioned limitation with accrual
Ensures the Trust that leads to Love’s renewal
“Desperate But Sequel” hearkens back to the bad old days of “Separate But Equal.” Alas, Racism is still alive and “well” more than a half-century later. Not much more we can do about that but get our own houses in order (see Avenue Q’s “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”).
The image is a four-shot sequence wherein two people are irritating each other’s stiff backs, then find a synergistic solution when they loosen up a little and rub together. I am ridiculously proud of this metaphor for relational friction. Honest to Goodness, I have no memory of ever seeing this bit of storytelling before–but I suspect I’m not the first…
tragicomedy masks
The late Martin L. Stoneman loved comedy and tragedy masks. On the offchance that his consciousness is still attentive to the Earthly folk he left behind, I did these for his possible entertainment. He well knew that Life is never as cut and dried as comedy Here and tragedy There. Now, “if the accident will,” he has that illustrated.
Seen From Next Weak Show
One unfortunate thing about growing up in the early 60s is that the phenomenon of Television Syndication was first getting real–and they started with Lassie and continued with Leave It To Beaver. Supposedly there are seven or so basic stories in the human story grab-bag, but Lassie and Beaver only used one each. The Lassie story: Little Her-Name-Here is trapped under a lean-to in the woods, and she doesn’t have her medicine. Lassie finds her, barks his/her heinie off to the nearest first responder, who finally gets the message and follows Lassie just in time to rescue the stricken child. Then Lassie goes back to June Lockhart and the rest of the family, only to find Timmie stirring his uneaten food around with his fork because he’s afraid Lassie will never return. O joy that Lassie is back safe and sound–till the next episode. (After a few years, the townspeople rescued by Lassie outnumbered those who hadn’t been.)
The Leave It To Beaver story: Beaver and his pals talk about doing something really neat, but they’ll get in trouble if they do it. They all agree to do it the next day. Only Beaver does it, and he gets in trouble. Ward gives him a good talking to, and Beaver learns a valuable lesson–which he promptly UNlearns in time for the next episode. (Oliver Sacks should have studied him and his short-term memory loss.)
My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, My Friend Flicka, Sky King–all had basic stories, not well told, flogged to death. So I have decided to tell a NEW story. It is at most eighteen words long, but there are pictures. It relates to the discussion above, but obliquely. The reader will have seven puzzles to solve. Five of them are pretty easy: How do the pictures illustrate the five acrostic words? The sixth is only a little harder: Which one of the acrostic words illustrates the picture illustrating it, and why? But the seventh one can take from half an hour to forever: What story can be told that will logically link all of the illustrations? Solving THAT one, dear Reader, will make you a better storyteller.
Here’s the image/story/quintuple acrostic:
“Today I Get To Be A Lazy Bum” Day
Nothing new but this all-too-candid photo, Folks. It’s Father’s Day, and I celebrate.
But here’s something I DID work hard to make, back in aught-eight:
Sorry: I’m too lazy today to transcribe, or even resize.
Finally, here is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us:
For the Love of a Pooch
It has been more than five years since Bill, great-souled dog of the Family Bowers, breathed his last. Here’s to him.
Fate took us to the shelter, not any agenda
Forces beyond our control, but benign, and a plethora
Of circumstantial oddity eased our leap
Over into not-really “ownership” in one Swell Foop
Remembered times: a lovely fugue in allegro
This is a noble BEAST with an urge to GO
He is brave in the face of Danger and of high ethic
He is patient even though he loves to be manic
He has a sweet disposition–his empathic
Ego is healthy and his FIDELITY is top-notch
Every woof and boof of his is music of his worth
Credit is due my sweet-natured former wife Joni for coining the word ‘boof,’ which rhymes with ‘woof’ and describes the sort of stifled, dewlap-muffled bark Bill would issue, priming his barkmaker for Full Bark Mode. Joni also loved Bill with all her heart, as did Kate.
A Middle Name To Live Up To
The middle name starts with a W. People would ask, “What’s the W stand for?” and often they thought they heard this in reply: “Whatever you say it is, it’ll be right.” But what was actually said was, “Whatever you say it is, it’ll be Wright.”
“Wright” means “maker.” In my more pompous moments I have said it means “Creator.” But its original meaning referred mostly to things of wood; thus were dubbed Shipwrights and Wheelwrights. Later, Playwrights. Perhaps one fine day Dreamwright will be a legitimate profession. One may dream.
As a Wright, it is incumbent upon me to make things. Here is something I made in September of 2005, via the process described a couple of posts ago as “the superheated glory of RAKU:”
And here is something I made in July of 2008, and “digitally remastered” just this morning:
The text is a triple-acrostic sonnet that goes like this:
Full fathom five to fifty off the reef
For all the Captain’s faithful to his staff
Onsurgent waves tall as a tall Giraffe
Obsess, convulse, and bloom like an O’Keeffe
Let’s pack it in lads this is so unreal
Let’s lash the sail and say that I’m a fool
Let’s learn our lesson and go back to school
Let’s NOT feed lampreys–sucks to be a meal
O MY, spake Bo’s’n–I’m already Jello
O LORD cried Brother–I donwanna halo
Whoopee! said Zooey–why so bleakly stay low
Why Shore said SureShot we’ll be coolly mellow
West of the Sun, Wise are the Woken Few
Whip out the World Wide Web O Brothers New
I love that I have made two such diverse-but-not-opposite things. About the poem I have a perspective just shy of six years from its creation, telling me that despite its adroitness of meter, rhyme and storytelling within the straitjacket of the acrostic form, scholars of the future will not take it seriously due to its scattershot clownishness. That’s moot, though: Not only did I make it, but it reflects my mind with a good transparency. And so in conclusion, ye Creatives, ye Makers, ye Wrights–go thou and do likewise, with my blessings and bonhomie!
Dusk 2 Dust, and Other Musings
Lenny Bruce once had a bit where a thief was asking his fence, “Ya wanna buy a hot?” The fence says, “A hot what?” and the thief replies, “A hot ANYTHING–I had a helluva week!” Similarly, I had a helluva night last night. I could not stop drawing. Here are some, but not all, of the results:
Dip ye into H2O–uh oh–it is très chaud
Urge a flooded 2-step & becalm the sea’s rain’s beau
Solve a Driftwood Puzzlement & give your Mojo brass
Killer Time will 1-2 PUNCH you–your job is to last
Deliverance of Country with a capp’d & righteous C
Admixturance prog/Southern Rock to make it neo-Neat-o
Veer not from fearless choices as you twist the reverb knob
Endurance with Enjoyment: a Producer’s V i t a l job
I’d never heard nor read of this gentleman before this morning’s WSJ. He’s a record producer who, judging from the article on him, is doing fine work.
Lastly, a (perhaps) work in progress with plenty of blanks to fill. Anyone who provides the between-acrostics text with reasonable meter and rhyme will get their text calligraphed and placed in the acrostic with full credit and praise from me.
Furnace Blast from the Past
The Superheated Glory of RAKU
Give to the fire ceramic ware
And wait–the ware will glisten–
Uplift the drum; grip tongs with care;
Now grasp; place; burn; imprison
The ware in what were ‘garbage’ cans–
Lo! They contain flamed treasure!
Enjoy the smoky night–and, fans,
Thanks for the shared, pure pleasure.
The process as practiced at Phoenix College in the mid-2000s involved preheating raku-glazed ware in an old open-topped kiln, placing the ware where a fifty-five-gallon drum could be lowered to contain it, gas-firing the ware till it looked through the peephole as if it were sweating, raising the drum, and pulling the ware out with tongs and placing it in metal trash cans containing combustible material. The material would catch fire and then the trash can lids would be slammed down, trapping the smoke within. A couple of hours of that and you’d smell like you’d been in a poker room full of cigar smokers. You’d be tired, hot and probably singed a little. You’d feel Glorious.
One with Clay, Image and Text 