drawpaintwritemakethings

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

the empress awakens

an original mixed media painting on canvas

24 x 36 x 1.75 inches

The castle is still grand I tell you. Somewhere upstairs the empress awakens. The empress awakens and she has not aged a day. She has not aged a day and her room is brilliant and warm from the morning sun. Her room is brilliant and warm from the morning sun and this could only be a signal and that signal could only mean victory. Victory precious and glittering. Nineteenth enigma of the pack. Astral body of immutable constancy. Rays of flame. Of course the empress is still young and strong and radiant, the envy of all that have eyes. Purified by trial. Can you not see her, and all that she is? And is still yet to be? When she rises from this bed she will be in possession of all her authority once again, all her great power. When she rises from this bed the world will tremble. When she rises from this bed her enemies will know only fear, then pain. First she will deal with Garcia; he will be arrested, convicted, humiliated and condemned in a short but convincing trial. Then a proper public hanging, removing the hands first, of course. The spectacle is the thing — reduce the world to simple images and the crowd will be hypnotized. From there the rest will tumble. She will have Sanchez and Gomez buried alive. Their names erased. She will have Rodriguez locked in a gibbet on the northern cliffs to be exposed to the elements and picked to pieces by birds. She will have Ortega thrown into the sea. Nunez can be rolled in a rug and trampled by horses. Vega will get snakes. Diaz can have fire. Then a few others, more or less at random, just to set the proper base level of fear. A few heads on pikes, that sort of thing. People will know their place, by God. They will love her again, too. They will love her and know her power even if it takes tearing the sun from the sky. So much to do! This castle was once grand but now it is ruined. If only she could get out of this bed, and escape from this windowless room, and remember how long she’s been a prisoner. It is not up to you to free her.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

the whole sky

ink brush drawing on yupo paper

8.25 x 11.5 inches

yupo is a synthetic paper that is waterproof, stain-resistant, and durable

Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky. — Anaïs Nin

New Tinyletter today, it contains all the launch codes.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

nothing curdles my insides faster than hearing someone talk into a microphone about how “honoured” and “blessed” they are. if you hear yourself sounding off like this — don’t. just say thanks for coming. just say it’s nice to see everyone. just talk like a real person and not like someone who hides their entire neck under multiple scarves, brings the same broken story to group every week and always insists on a table by the window and can we get some fresh water that I won’t drink please? also if you’re that kind of unprocessed person then this painting is probably not your bag because it looks like a billboard ten years after the apocalypse. on purpose.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Cade Jaden

Cade Jaden noticed the two security drones as soon as she exited the driverless company car. They were supposed to be noticed — that hydraulic kind of buzzing, somewhere just high enough in the white sky to make her twist her head. Another reminder she had guests that day. Quickly, almost floating with the early heat, she crossed the cracked and bleached-out parking lot to the front doors of the office building. Long ago, in some other lifetime, she’d been told these were called Fortress Doors. By whom? She could not remember. She swiped in, then entered the latest security code, and the doors opened. This would register far away, with an artificial intelligence on the other side of the planet. She entered the building. Other than the echo of an acknowledging beep, the lobby was empty. 

She took the elevator. Cade Jaden’s desk was on the ninth floor but in various corporate documents (how Command & Resources loved its reporting structures, organization charts and colour-coded operations diagrams, even now) she was listed as existing, simultaneously, on the ninth, tenth and eleventh floors, which all belonged to SPARENT. Footnotes and addendums explained how she was the acting authority for all three floors, and so was automatically assigned the manager’s office on each. Standard policy. And for a long time Cade Jaden even made a little joke about it, to herself, often while holding a palm to a cold, unmisted mirror. About being a sort of ghost, being extra-dimensional, and floating between these three floors. But then one day she thought, Exactly who am I haunting? I’m the only one here. And so this little joke, before it became something else, had to stop. 

Three times a day Cade Jaden visited the other SPARENT floors. I’ll do the rounds, she would think. She always took the elevator, as the issue of wasps and sour-sweet smells in the stairwells had still not been addressed, would never be addressed, despite an archive of trouble tickets riddled with exclamation marks. Each floor was identical — a front reception area by the elevator, the central working space of three rows of four cubicles, a kitchen, a set of washrooms, a small conference room, and the manager’s corner office, all of it in tones of muted blue flecked with grey. The exterior walls were floor-to-ceiling windows but the view, thankfully, was treated and tinted, which helped dim and obscure the flaring and unsettling effects of current weather events. Interior light came from banks of fluorescent tubes. Some homage to vintage design. These turned on and off according to a schedule coded for a different era of progress. Still, at least the electricity still flowed. As Cade Jaden exited the elevator and stepped onto each floor, she would often look up at these lights and think how they looked like the undersides of spaceships, passing overhead. You could imagine anything, if given enough time, she thought. Even escape. 

Her rounds of each floor included going up and down the aisles between cubicles, looking in on the kitchen, the washrooms and the corner offices. Aside from the absence of employees or any evidence of human activity, everything appeared like a functioning office, albeit an increasingly dusty one. As Cade Jaden walked the floor, a soft, sporadic beeping would emanate over the sound system. Each beep indicated a new purchase, somewhere in the world, to Ending Sparkle, which was far and away now SPARENT’S most successful product. This electronic stuttering, in alternating tones, acted like ambient music and, combined with the flat fluorescent light, always made Caden think of the old days, of going to supermarkets in the evening, that sense of shallow awareness while pushing a sticky cart against tile, half looking at prices while a checkout bleeped somewhere in the background. This deserted floor does not make me sad, Cade reminded herself. It was a declarative voice she often used. I’m lucky to have a job. To have a place to go. I’m lucky to be SPARENT Bureau Chief for the Interior Region. And on this day, while visiting the other floors, Cade Jaden added something extra: Besides, I still see my colleagues, from time to time, with meetings and things. Why, I’m having guests this morning! 

She examined herself in the mirror of the eleventh floor bathroom, trying to admire the Donna Reactive jacket that she’d acquired for this very meeting. Somehow it did not look new. In fact, the light was not flattering at all but she forced a smile anyway. There was some kind of dark, dilating spot flaring on the side of her neck but she was determined not to touch it. No one will be looking at your neck, she reminded herself. 

Back in the elevator, Cade Jaden wondered why she kept her office on the ninth floor and not at the top. All three corner offices were identical. Perhaps she would submit a request for a change. 

She stepped onto the ninth floor. The frequency of beeping always dipped mid-morning into something like a slow electronic stutter; most customers purchased their Ending Sparkle kits at the beginning or end of the day. A text scrawl on a digital message board in the hallway read: ACCEPT ... ORGANIZE ... DEDICATE ... MEMORIALIZE ... IT IS 9:30 AM. Cade’s guests would begin arriving soon. She went into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. The gift-wrapped bottle of milk was still there. Where did you think it would be? she said out loud. Just looking at it made her nervous. It had been so difficult to acquire. She hoped her guests would be impressed. At the conference room door she looked in on the four glasses and linen napkins she had carefully arranged around the table. 

Back in her own office, she sat down to review, one last time, the meeting agenda. Her laptop sang with notifications of new messages but she ignored it — any messages this early were probably from Cameron James. She resented him for bothering her at work. What new thing could he possibly have to say? I feel bad, my symptoms are worse, everything is worse, why are you still going into work, we have to do something, we should at least have a plan. What could she do? Going to work was one of the few things she could actually do. She reread the agenda, made a few notes, sighed and then finally turned to her laptop. 

The first message was not, in fact, from her Cameron James. It was from SPARENT Corporate. It began with a congratulations for her above-average performance this past year, which had been a challenging one for all personnel. Have faith, the message went on, that Command & Resources is working tirelessly on rebuilding critical infrastructure and finding replacements for missing physical assets. In recognition of her dedication, Cade would be rewarded with a substantial raise. Corporate had wanted to convey this news to her in person today but its attentions were being diverted, once again, to the growing emergency in the southern markets. The meeting was cancelled. There was also a reminder that all video-telephone conferencing was still suspended due to insecurity around A.I. fakes. We appreciate your work! the message concluded. 

Cade Jaden turned away. When she turned back, the screen was black. She looked out the window. The city loomed in the distance. Were parts of it on fire again? The way it was rendered, it was difficult to tell. There are so few people left, why are they still looting? she wondered. She looked at the dead trees, at the peeling sky. Streaks of burnt orange reminded her of a brand of expensive French beauty products that she used to buy. How long had that been? She could not be more specific. There were four burnt out cars in the parking lot below. She wondered who they might have belonged to. It was something she should know, be able to remember. Why did she not know this? What floors had they worked on? Why kind of work did they do? Why was she crying again?

Ten years ago, the morning after the last election, the fabled last election, there had been a great parade in the capital. Eruptive, spontaneous, the purest joy. Cade Jaden had driven two days to be there, had wanted to be there, be part of it, see it with her own eyes. This unexpected victory from the heavens. Some kind of magic. Everyone sang and danced and waved flags in the streets. A new day, a new freedom! They exulted and prayed and gave thanks. Hearts full to bursting. Everyone felt like champions. One man wore the costume of a giant tiger. He pointed at himself, then at those around him in turn. WE DID IT! Together they had changed history. Finally, they could show themselves, their true hearts. They had manifested in the millions. They had demonstrated their commitment and strength. Their deep faith. They could take back control of their lives, their country. The elites had been defeated, finally and forever. No more elections! No more stepping over the past, no more impediments to progress. Now the future could be reclaimed, and in that way a more legitimate destiny restored. 

In fact, the man they elected was a con artist, a pretender, believed in nothing, would deliver nothing, nothing but this one magnificent yet empty victory, and then disaster after disaster, a black hole of sickness and corruption that destabilized everything, everywhere. Still, for a moment in time, it had felt so real, so much like the stars had aligned, and nothing could go wrong, because they had won, and the other side had lost, and Cade Jaden thought she could live inside that feeling, always, but somehow it slipped away. And now there was only this feeling of drift, successive shocks and this after-ending of interior dislocation, and arrangement of former places, former lives, with digital substitutions, as if cards in a deck with half the cards missing. Every day the same day, over and over, the desperate messages from Cameron James, some damaged house at the end of a deserted street, these meaningless office floors. She thought about the milk in the fridge, how ancient it must be by now. She thought about the empty box from the Ending Sparkle kit she’d kept hidden in her desk. She thought about computers simulating people who then thought about computers simulating people. Where did it end? She thought about the security drones that would already be leaving the area. Or if they were ever there. She thought about the company car that would be waiting for her in the parking lot at the end of the day. She thought about coming home to a silent, empty place.

 

For other stories, artworks and thoughts like this, please visit my (free) Patreon page. Thanks.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

this is a painting for someone in grips of something. this is a painting for someone who knows something is wrong. this is a painting for someone who needs to investigate that noise in the attic. this is a painting to describe what's behind that hidden door. this is a painting about going into the basement of that abandoned house. this is a painting about being lost in a wilderness. this is a painting about the time your car broke down in the middle of that godforsaken place, and the terrible things that followed.

untitled horror show

mixed media collage on birch wood panel (cradled)

18 x 24 inches

this layered painting has everything you never wanted:  erratic marks, found paper, torn board, eccentric marks, smudges, mistakes, tenuous lines, gobs of paint, horrific drips, ruined objects and destroyed drawings

Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red. — Clive Barker

oh my god, it’s a collage

you can find more of my work at:

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

today might be the day

some tempera and acrylic over a map folds down to the size of a page to travel the world with you

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

There are some thoughts about this, which you can read here.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

waiting for the emergency

an original painting in tempera and acrylic on heavy paper

26.5 x 35.75 inches, but folds down to just 5 x 9 inches to fit in an envelope

We have only two modes — complacency and panic.   — James R. Schlesinger

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Fine, it's number eight, then.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Now set yourself

an original mixed media collage 

on hard panel

6 x 9 inches

an original collage comic, pop and ukiyo-e elements

The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives. — Armistead Maupin

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

i swear i had a plan (mourn and move on)

a double-sided mixed media collage on canvas panel board

11 x 14 x .5 inches

I make collages. I join the shattered world creating a new harmony. — Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

the spectacle is capital

an original painting and in mixed media on paper board and wood panel

9 x 12 inches

Like lost children we live our unfinished adventures.   — Guy Debord

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

thrill seeker

mixed media on bamboo panel, 8.125 x 9.75 inches x .5 inches.

You live by what you thrill to, and there's the end of it.  — D.H. Lawrence

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

How to Say No

an illustrated chapbook

28 pages plus covers

a little book about the word ’no’

how to draw no how to colour no how to print no how to collage no and then a section of addtional notes

stitched by hand

5.25 x 8 inches

to be found here

and everything else here

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

stop holding onto yourself (all of us are in orbit); an original mixed media painting on cradled wood panel, 24 x 30 x 1.75 inches. 

Space is to place as eternity is to time. — Joseph Joubert

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.   — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.   — Henry David Thoreau

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

three crushed collages

three original collages mounted to archival backing board (51pt weight)

each is 9 x 12 inches

drawing + painting + found paper + collage + wax transfer + writing + mark making + pressed layers

collages that look as if a handful of imagery has fallen like a comet and flattened on impact

oh my god, it"s a collage

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Your ambient themes for 2025. Feel free to add whatever layers of hypernormalisation feel most appropriate.