#brushstrokes of individuality within the machine

[air-mechanical]

Consider all of the TIE fighters lost. Mark their captain for a citation.

This is why Thrawn's people are so loyal to him. He'll deploy his troops when needed - he'll spend his resources without regret so long as something can be purchased with them - and will honour them if they don't return home. They will be remembered. This was important for his people and for Thrawn himself pre-exile. But for the critically low numbers currently aboard The Chimaera In Exile, it's critical.

[pb-dot]

Writeblr Introduction

Suppose I should introduce myself per the writeblr Very Friendly Suggestions. I'm PB, or peebs if you prefer. I publish my books under the pen name Victor S. Dale. I'm in my 30's, bisexual, dyspraxic, and as behooves a man of my standing I'm also grappling with considerable depression.

I like to write, like it a lot and I always have. My main WIPs are: a clockpunk love story titled The Clockwork Boy, a Lovecraftian Horror Romance titled His Impossible Brushstrokes and a 30s-punk portal fantasy serial titled Thereafter. I also dabble with smaller projects I won't get into here. Mostly coherent and concise synopses of The Clockwork Boy, His Impossible Brushstrokes, and Thereafter follow below.

The Clockwork Boy

My NaNoWriMo 2022 novel was initially conceived because I couldn't find much fun MLM genre fiction to read, so I decided to get myself good and wedged into that niche. The story follows Jake, who's stuck in a dead-end job of machining gears and sundry parts as well as lifting heavy things until a small, yet deceptively strong young man crashes into his life, and also his arms. The young man is called 13, his entire body from the neck down is made out of impossibly complex clockwork parts, and he's on the run from multiple powerful people and factions.

13 is stronger and faster than anyone has the right to be, but several broken parts hold him back. Jake is immediately smitten by the complex mechanics of 13's clockwork body, not to mention his sad, blue eyes, and so vows to help repair 13. The complexity of the task at hand is only increased by the two being pursued by local goon squads as well as other clockwork-bodied people with numbers for names.

The world of The Clockwork Boy and the Hearts In Clockwork series, provided I get around to writing more of these things, is languishing in a peculiar type of anarchy. The Age of Steam has come and gone and after a series of destructive colonial wars known as The Coal Wars, the power of government and nation has all but eroded. In their place, an alliance of powerful merchants and holders of capital keeps an iron grip on what passes for law from their seat in the massive tower known only as The Spire. Their power is exerted through monopoly and other economic maneuvers, but also by their rowdy Enforcers, who rule through intimidation and sheer brutishness.

13, as it turns out, is part of The Clockmen, a hitherto hidden faction within The Spire, whose acerbic leader is working to create an elite force of clockwork-powered individuals to overthrow The Spire and their enforcers, but even within the clockmen, agendas differ. 13 was originally made to fight and kill rogue clockmen, but so objected to this that he fled, searching for his memories and what freedom could be found.

Jake and 13 eventually find themselves under the auspices of The Northwest, an underground worker-owned coop parts workshop that takes them in and offers them succor in their time of need. In the relative safety of The Northwest's hidden workshop, Jake and 13 get the time they need to perform the sizable number of repairs needed, and perhaps ask the question of what they are becoming to each other and what comes next.

The current status of the project at the moment is going through the old rewrite and editing wringers. I'm currently having the thing beta read and I'll make whatever changes I need after that before attempting to hook an agent to help me get the thing published. In the meantime, I post about it a lot. If you want to be up-to-date on the most recent rambles in the setting, check out the tag list post here

My final goal with this project is to somehow get it published and, provided I am not met with immediate scorn and ridicule, get started on writing one or more sequels. I don't have the entire series planned out or anything, but I have several stories in this universe planned, and I know where and how I want it to end.

His Impossible Brushstrokes

My 2023 NaNoWriMo entry and occasional Lagrange point of my life. Continuing the trend from last year of writing novels that I wish someone else had written already so I could read it, Brushstrokes is a male-led queer horror with a mspec protagonist, exploring the shared points between love and fear, admiration and obsession, and art and madness.

The story follows Oscar Skerry, an obsessive San Fran art critic who goes to progressively more extreme measures to understand the works of his favorite artist, a pan-European enfant terrible by the name Tomasz Gildebrant. Gildebrant is an obscure artist, whose paintings nevertheless go for exorbitant prices on account of his cult appeal.

Following the thread of an art patron going berserk and attempting to destroy a Gildebrant painting by eating it, Tomasz unravels the urban legend of Gildebrant Psychosis. This sickness allegedly drives some who see a Gildebrant painting into acts of brutality, depravity, or the profoundly absurd, and Oscar starts to suspect there is something deeper and darker going on than repeated failures of the mental health system.

Seemingly out of the blue, Oscar gets an invitation to join Gildebrant in his home in the southern Carpathian Mountains. Eager to get to the bottom of things, and share his theories with Gildebrant, Oscar accepts.

Once there, two things become readily apparent. One, Gildebrant is incredibly charming, so much so that Oscar finds himself doubting that Gildebrant could be the man behind the dark, disturbing paintings he obsesses over. Two, there are way too many things not adding up, like how the doors to his guestroom in the Gildebrant household lock automatically at midnight, and how many pairs of shoes fill Gildebrant's hallway.

Per April 2024, the first draft for His Impossible Brushstrokes is complete. The plan remains to seek tradpub or indie publishing once I've edited the thing.

Thereafter

My first self-released project. The first chapters of Thereafter is slated to be released via buttondown starting May 1st 2024. This story follows Michael, a man in his 30s who traveled to, and saved, a magical cave-world populated by kindly molefolk at the tender age of twelve (and a half.) Now, 20 years later, Michael struggles in life and finds himself wishing for those simpler days of adventure again. Life is not without a sense of cruel irony, as the phenomenon that spirited him away all those years ago reoccur. Michael doesn't find himself in the serene caves of the molefolk, however, but in a desperately ramshackle city built from the flotsam and jetsam of thousands upon thousands of worlds.

This strange town goes by the name of Thereafter, and it was the surviving population of the cave world, as well as many other worlds, built with what they could salvage after The Calamity. Few who saw the world-destroying catastrophe lived to tell the tale, and the few who have, tell conflicting and surely nonsensical tales of it. Either way, the few that survived being flung into the void between worlds found their way to this nexus of the dispossessed, where the despair of dispossession percolated under the pressure of resource insecurity and a general sense of the world quite literally coming to an end.

To assuage some of these fears, The Council of Thereafter, a hastily assembled collection of wizards, wise men and the occasional cryptic hermit, decided to summon heroes of the old to their side. Due to the way time flows differently in the realms of magic, centuries and even millennia have passed since Michael saved the Molefolk, and the tales of his exploits have only grown in his absence.

Fortunately, Michael will not be alone in his task of portraying a heroic figure far beyond what he is able to actually be. Unfortunately, his colleagues in this endeavor are all messed up to an equal degree to him. Lex, the Polish enby scientist, is cynical on a level that borders on the parodic and worryingly horny. Felipe, the Mexican pro athlete archer, is arrogant, flighty and seems physically unable to take anything seriously. Finally, Alicia, the New York-based fitness influencer, seems restless in a way that either speaks to undiagnosed ADHD or truly world-shaking rage contained under the athletic facade.

Together, this rag-tag band of 30-somethings must unite in their quest to portray the heroes that history have made them, all the while grappling with what it means to be a hero in a desperately imperfect world. The city of Thereafter is full of crime born of desperation, hatred born of fear, and runaway magic, but that is not all. After all, the only thing anyone can agree on about the Calamity is that it is still out there and may one day turn its destruction upon Thereafter.

With Thereafter, I plan to work more with character and group dynamics than I have in my earlier works. The dysfunctional found family of the Heroes is supposed to be a big draw of the story, alongside the mystery of The Calamity and more pressing concerns about survival. As usual for a Peebs story, there will also be rumination, politics and philosophy involved, tigers don't usually change their stripes after all, but we're also getting a fantasy post-apocalyptic tale of love, bravery, and the many obscure pains of growing up.

Thereafter will, as mentioned above, be released on a chapter by chapter basis via Buttondown, with an archive also being kept on Cohost. To subscribe to the release of Thereafter chapters, please see the introductory post or just go straight to my Buttondown site to subscribe.

[lifepiner]

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[discordantwords]

hi 🥺 do you have any recs or an existing list of long fics with a good plot and a decent amount of smut too? thank you!!

Hi!

I’m not sure if you’re looking for canon-compliant fics or AUs, but here are a few long fics with excellent plots that come to mind:

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.”  The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” 

A River Without Banks by Chryse "You love this, being Sherlock Holmes. "He had once. When had it all gone so wrong?

The Case of the Green Gown by Splix ...Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone. ---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

A Vintage Exceptionally to Your Liking by EmmyAngua Sherlock and John met seven years earlier than canon and fell in love. When John dies, Sherlock is introduced to the concept of alternate dimensions and given the opportunity to visit a different universe where he can have a second chance with a new John Watson. A love story across alternate dimensions.

Transports by ancientreader How to become a consulting detective.

In The Deep, Where Dark Things Sleep by HardlyFair The closer time crawls to November, the more water horses the Scorpio Sea spits out. The colder Thisby becomes. Sherlock Holmes is an islander - completely surrounded by the water. John Watson, he knows, comes from the mainland and lives for the Races. On the first of November, Sherlock will race. The man holding steady by his side is someone he never expects.  

The Illustrious Client by ArabellaStrange We’re a couple!' John burst out, bluntly. His face was nearly twitching with rage. He hadn’t even meant to say anything, to anybody, because he wanted what they had for himself just a bit longer, for a million reasons half-romantic and half-defensive, and yet here he was, gripping Chez Francine’s thick cream tablecloth with enough force to tear it in half, suddenly wanting nothing more than to tell everyone within earshot that Sherlock was absolutely infuriating, surprisingly good at blowjobs, and probably in love with him. 

Every Lover in the Form of Stars by esplanade "John had never really given a damn about art, before Afghanistan.  It had always seemed like something that only certain people were allowed to appreciate, people who had studied for years and been trained to pick it apart and understand it.  But he had begun to find comfort in it himself, even if he knew next to nothing about brushstrokes and art styles, oil paint versus acrylic, traditional or mixed media.  It wasn't that he had suddenly developed a great appreciation for the classics, the art school standbys like Michelangelo or Picasso.  Instead, what it boiled down to, the real reason behind his fixation was much simpler: quiet." 

Parhelion by tripodion The darkness is coming again, and when you've lived as a member of the undead for over five hundred years together, you know a thing or two about handling it. Forever is a long way to fall.

Be Here Now by todesfuge John Watson was already fighting demons when he and Sherlock met. With Sherlock's suicide, it all comes flooding back, forcing Sherlock to intervene before he's solved the persistent riddles of Jim Moriarty and his game. Together they find that something darker lurks behind Moriarty, forcing Sherlock, John, and Irene Adler into an even deadlier game with a much more dangerous foe.

Masters of Ink by indybaggins  John has a triple-coiled tattoo machine in his hand and a row of inks at the ready. He has gloves on, a willing client in front of him, and a detailed stencil. He is ready to win this bloody competition. Except he’s competing against Sherlock Holmes... First-meeting-on-a-reality-show AU, Ink Master edition! There is expert tattooing, slightly less expert flirting, and two men falling hard. But John is married, and they can’t all win.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by weeesi After Mycroft terminated his exile but before Sherlock could escape from the infuriating plane, John and Mary were whisked away by car to an unknown location. Sherlock hasn't seen them for an entire year. He doesn't know when he'll see John again -- until one day, he does. But, of course, nothing is simple.

Watches ‘Verse by bendingsignpost First, he is shot in Afghanistan. Second, he wakes to a phone call in Chelmsford, Essex. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the eighth, he's lost track. (John-centric AU)

You Go to My Head Series by J_Baillier and 7PercentSolution Doctor Sherlock Holmes is the hospital's new neurosurgical star. He performs miracles with his scalpel, but his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. The task to address the issue falls on Doctor John Watson, one of King's College Hospital's senior neuroanaesthetists. 

Gimme Shelter by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John All John Watson wants is the feeling of a freshly waxed surfboard under his feet and the hot California sun baking down onto his back. To finally go pro in the newly formed world of professional surfing and leave the dark memories of his past behind him as he rips across the face of a towering blue barrel. To lounge beside the beach bonfire every evening with an ice cold beer tucked into the cool sand beside him and listen to Pink Floyd and the Doors while the saltwater dries in his sun bleached hair. That's all he wants, that is, until the hot young phenom taking Oahu and the Hawaiian shores by storm steps up next to him in the sand in the second round of the 1976 International Surf Competition.

As always, be sure to heed the tags on each individual fic.

There are SO many wonderful fics out there and I can’t possibly link them all. If anyone else sees this and wants to add a rec for a long plotty fic, please feel free to do so!

[chiseler]

Peleshian: Life & Nothing Less

For over sixty years, Artavazd Peleshian—Артавазд Пелешян; Արտավազդ Փելեշյան—has been slowly sifting through the mountain of debris that has built up around the cinema. His films seem to intrude upon a present which smugly believes that it has solved all the old problems from a static horizon, that all is over and done with, that everything has been settled. What is left is merely the production of ghosts.

In Kyanq (“Life”), made in 1993, Peleshian ignores the diegetic revolution which followed the discovery of the power of cutting within a single sequence. Cross cutting has become another prison, and making a film seems almost unimaginable without recourse to its seductive shifts and its promises of infinite simultaneity. But passing through Eisenstein and Dovzhenko, starting again after the hard-won miracles and defeats of the past, Peleshian has come out from the other side. He has made a second beginning for cinema by rearranging ideas of the past.

The film opens with a beautiful woman in close-up profile, apparently in the throes of ecstasy. Soon, an arm in scrubs enters the frame and we see that she is actually in a medical theater (the hand is a doctor or relative’s; blurred vertical planes are parts of the metal delivery bed; a glowing orb is hospital lighting). She is in labor, which is a mundane and sentimental subject for a film. The use of the close-up in film, crowding the screen with sweat and ‘emotion’, is an easy manipulation of the viewer’s emotions. It also bares the chill of forensic pathology, which seizes the living as if the body were a puzzle useful only for illustrating hazard or solving its own crime. The soundtrack is music by Verdi, which stops and starts fitfully until it is finally freed from the film’s editing, adding a skipping unreality to the formal ‘realism’ of Life. The only other sound is a heartbeat amplified over the beginning (and note, not the electronic blip of a monitor), which remains slightly audible under the requiem mass. 

Though the film follows the simple timeline of a woman giving birth, the editing follows the inward time of a mother. The use of extreme close-up is now clear: in the epochal scheme of a general, universal time, the close-up is used to make myths into statues or it captures momentary passions as if these passions or myths were the only ones in the world. But through a subtle use of jump-cuts, the viewer starts to feel an odd remove from the girl’s lovely features. She begins to resemble a landscape, as in those old enigmatic Dutch paintings where hills and rivers form a great human face. We have returned to painting, the first inspiration of filmmakers, but the laws of perspective and the order of objects are far less important than the alternation of internal and external time. Filming and watching take time, are revealed in time, try to trick time by poking it full of holes (visible first in the sprockets of exposed film, as it feeds and moves in light projection). Life is made of different times, a fact which seduces us into believing that time is all that governs life and that all time is reducible to the power of a dominant course. 

Rembrandt said: Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses, or kindnesses. 

Do not children kill their mothers in childbirth, all or in part, with the violence of birth, with the all the terrible duties that child-rearing demands? And one of the last taboos—maybe also the first, if we accept that the horror of incest is inseparable from it—the link between orgasm and birth is also the possibility of dual death and the ruthless affirmation of Life over death which dictates that the life of the child is a supreme right against its mother. Life at all costs—the greatest of tyrannies, a monstrous physical drive which unleashes a tsunami of living over the earth: the atrocious flood of total creation. Life as something that equals what is most terrifying within it—of it—the blank face of a genetic machine wanting itself and nothing else, consuming itself via the temptation-engines of a chattering god of sheer velocity (this is also the god of information, beloved of the tech wizards). It is not the phantom of Death that haunts the living, but the phantom of Life. And the individual life strives to fool this specter, to shock it in its own wild onrush by producing a single life in the monolithic barrage of limitless coming-to-be. Bearing witness against this crude biological nihilism which William Blake identified as The Beast, the machine mills of the slavers’ empire, one single life then occurs as many—each without repeat, yet each one the selfsame in the body of the swarm.

Against this omnivorous shadow—a cellular destiny which rises out of the solitary reflections given us by our vague notions of science, by a primary education that teaches biology as fate and terror only—Peleshian projects a woman in contortions, giving birth down by the walls of the hegemon. Things get smaller in the film. Life shrinks down to a mouth, a hand, a slight bewitching smile, ringlets of hair and beads of sweat. And here we realize that exaltation—accompanied by an Italian death mass and the heart’s regular drum—is always done alone, and that its joys must be betrayed by the world from which each ecstasy severs it time and again. Entering back into the crowd (via the film, via an audience she cannot know), what is unique returns in this disorder of movement and gesture—which is everyone’s autobiography. Just as when ‘something strikes you’, striking the eye with an immense force: a face on the bus, corner stoop faces, faces and faces from whose vast gallery one singular expression comes into clarity for an instant and then returns—on the verge of life or leaving life, there is nothing else at this hypothetical moment—almost caught at the corner of the eye. 

It is strange that in extreme close-ups, faces seem at their most indistinguishable but also at their most familiar (you mistake someone for someone else and stare at them to be sure, staring ever more intently until you are far more than unsure—you are lost in that other face). The film’s other close-ups are of hands. The human hand is midway between the features of the face and the wild movements of the limbs. Hands riddle and grasp, make knots, then relax for a split second; they curl like mites, tree branches, or Chinese brushstrokes; hands touching, climbing, cradling, joining. Think of those famous handprints in red ochre found on cave walls—and finding that which is before art in these images, we still foolishly call this act which far outstrips any cultic or imaginative art, just as erroneously as we do the images made with hands, an ‘expression!’—palms measuring breadth, and not just the span of vital time but the time of an imprint that will remain for an accidental 80,000 years. The Peleshian-captured hands clench and constrict life, that nothing be left undone. It does not matter whose hand the woman in the film clasps—anyone, someone, for a moment the only one (perhaps all together, all those she has met, summed up in a stranger’s hand). Dark supposition: that everyone only knows life by their separation from life, lives peering at Life across an impenetrable gulf. But life is also the work of hands. 

She raises a finger to the corner of her mouth with its intricate sloping shadow, touching the ghost of a smile. The woman is lost in some reverie and giving birth would seem a strange time for letting the mind wander. But from the jump cuts, we know that Peleshian has edited this sequence internally, so it is far from certain when moments like this actually occurred (I counted 15 cuts in a sequence which accounts for about 5 minutes of the film’s 7-minute running time). At the end, the child is tossed to her mother like a bag of apples, after being bathed in torrents of spurting water (there is no afterbirth or blood, another conscious omission). The young woman and her child then stare at the camera in freeze-frame. I can think of a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t have, but you did, despite all—and I now understand why in the flood of existence you added one more as if you were adding nothing at all. This is Peleshian’s only film in color, which ads credence to the rumor it was to have been his last (Happily, it was not). Color is the first sight of a guileless world seen by guileless eyes, eyes soon to fall upon the architecture of black and white and the gridlines of working rooms.

“Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam…” Verdi’s Requiem Mass, 1874: deliverance (and delivery, “Libera animas omnium…”) and liberation (from life, from hell, the lion’s jaws), faithful souls, holy light, deepest pits. “Grant O Lord that they might pass from life death…” Thus is the    connection between life and the  freeing from life, death and multiple birth sealed (Verdi’s Offertorio is cut and partially repeated on the soundtrack). Now the hand at her mouth, in her hair, rack of contractions. Take and in taking, receive, “Tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus.” The others—all souls—hostias, “we offer...” 

Endnote/ Links:

Artavazd Peleshian’s entire completed work takes about two hours to view (his longest is his latest, the 63-minute La Nature, 2019).  Kyanq and many others can be seen here: https://www.ubu.com/film/peleshian.html  

Peleshian and Godard: https://kinoslang.blogspot.com/2013/07/before-babel.html

Peleshian speaks: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/going-the-distance-20120106

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2019 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest Results! [Part 2 - K/DA Akane]

In part deux of this year’s summer contest results, I threw Akane in the title due to the inspiration for the theme, and as I fully expected, nobody actually drew a K/DA-styled Akane. Yet that didn’t stop entrants in this category from trying to bribe me by including Mrs. Stelar in their submissions. Such an artistic temptation didn’t work on my strong will, despite entrants best attempts, in the previous category. Will it for this one? Find out after the break!

Thank you again to all who participated! This set of entries certainly was varied in scope, and definitely had me reconsidering placements over and over in my head, before I finally settled on them. I will be contacting all winners today, after these posts go live.

For the (mostly) full gallery with images at their actual resolution, in case you have issues viewing on tumblr, head here: http://imgbox.com/g/2sbxl6nX4C

I will also include a direct link after each entrant’s name, if the images won’t load for you.

Category 2 - K/DA Akane (this category focused on Mega Man characters in a pop group music scene, with a minimum of 3 members in their group. Scenes could range from stage performance to day-in-the-life to album covers, etc.)  1.) @inanehipsterslang: [ENTRY...is seriously 33 pages! I will avoid uploading every page into this post, so the rest of the entries don’t get buried. This one gets it’s own separate full gallery link instead.]

Every year, someone gets more and more ambitious with massive comics for these contests, and it truly is hard for me to not reward those who put in that time and effort for my silly little contests, as I try to objectively judge everything. And in so many ways, this entry from inane is so different from the rest, as well. It focuses on the lyrics of an actual song that you’ll see on most pages, while telling it’s own separate story in a very different way, to create a pop group.  And once again, your tale does such a beautiful job mixing a deeply serious mood with humor interjected; with moving dialogue from the heart, that feels personal, and hits home in a lot of ways. You certainly thought outside the box with the theme, and can craft a great story! 

2.) @iandimas: [ENTRY]

As always, Ian’s crisp colors draw my eye in, but I think one of these mama’s slightly more revealing stage outfits was intentionally designed to do the same thing...Akane missed the memo about ties being required for this gig. 

It was definitely a surprise to see characters who rarely ever get drawn by anyone (Misora’s mom, Veil, and Emilia) in your piece. It certainly gives off the pop idol vibe with the flashy stage lights, video board and excessive fog machine use, that Veil could use less of. Cute, and well done!

3.) @ask-the-half-enlightened-one: [ENTRY]

A private concert for the Servbot army, featuring Miss Tron, Marino and Meddy. I really liked the subtle purple glow from the lights in this one, that even without full color, gave off a great vibe to fit the scene. Unique outfits for all of the ladies, that still fit their personalities well. 

And did you all catch the little subtle W-I-L on Tron’s belt? Or notice how each of the ladies are flashing a specific hand gesture? Or how the second Servbot from the left sure does seem to be throwing up his hands in the air like he doesn’t care, in a Y...MCA...pose. Even the Bonne speaker machine sort of forms a giant W with a skull on it. Hmmm...I think there’s a hidden message in this pic.. XD

_______

Just came up a little short, but here are the other great entries for this category, in alphabetical order by alias -

@bracedshark​: [ENTRY]

Oh no, the hunter trio have finally become Maver-X!! I bet it’s the fault of their producer, $igma. Bracedshark bring us the timeless tradition of boy bands fleeing the paparazzi and adoring fans. Some want the attention, others just want to haul it out of there! It might not quite be Neon Tiger Beat Magazine, but I love the Beat on the mag cover! ;D Their relaxed, sporty outfits retain a lot of the basic design of their normal armor, and honestly, I’d kinda love to see/wear in real life. 

@dahlia-the-nurd​: [ENTRY] [Solo Tundra] [Solo Jewel] [Solo Star] [Solo Gemini]

Dahlia based her entry off of actual group Fifth Harmony, but even not knowing that, you have to love the flair of the clothing design for each of the Robot Masters here. While I am refraining from directly adding each individual pic in this post to keep it shorter, you can see each one linked above. 

I certainly love Gemini’s popped collar and glam rock attitude the most, but it’s also neat seeing Tundra’s ice crystal braid all done up like that. That was some nice creative thinking. Certainly a great group shot!

@hyperbole1729​: [ENTRY]

Hyperbole’s entry was a very clever parody on the Elite Beat Agents game, using Commander Beef and his Net Agents in the titular role. Their singing and cheering on people in need is meant to help, even if they seem to show up in situations that, you know, don’t really seem to be the most appropriate time for singing and dancing. 

Like, say, when Navi babies are sleeping, or a woman finds out her husband is likely dead in space and her son doesn’t get why daddy’s not coming home. XD It’s one of those things that shouldn’t be so funny, but I loved where you were going with it, as a parody!

@janitorbot: [ENTRY] (*RAFFLE PRIZE WINNER - Archie Issue 33 Pg. 19*)

Prancing dads who think it’s hip to be square. Well, to everyone but Bass, they look cool. Janitorbot’s pic has the doctor trinity working together again to achieve their Ph.D in synchronized pop dance moves and finger *pew pew pew*-ing. I’m only imagining them singing Kaze yo Tsutaete, and you can’t tell me otherwise. The facial expressions for each character here makes this pic so wonderful! 

@larytello​: [ENTRY]

Reploids of the world, spice up your life! Lary’s pic reimagines the Spice Girls with a single representative from 5 different series. Nice job getting them to fit each Spice Girl’s unique look. Although I would have figured Misora the better option for Ginger Spice, rather than Baby, with her hair color. XD But I’d assume she is the youngest of the group here, too. 

I’m sure the glittery background was partially created by the battlechip obtained from a Mushy virus. The sparkles and your shading all turned out really well here!

@prar-draws​: [ENTRY]

Prar’s beautiful piece features Ciel, X and Zero as Kpop idols, with a glamorous angelic vibe. Gosh, those feather adornments around each of their heads turned out so pretty, and unique for each character. I mean, just in general, each of their outfits are really gorgeous. The definition and texture you create with your brushstrokes will always wow me!

roninapprentice: [ENTRY]

Ronin’s pop group is known as Claw, based off of the cat-like appearance of Cinnamon’s strongest weapon, and Axl’s helmet, giving him that pointy, cat ear look. With those connections, why not have an album cover where they all adopt cat-like looks? Their eyes even glow within the dark scene! Certainly a cute idea, with a background that even almost feels like a cat tower playground for the trio, even though you mentioned it was a laser tag arena. I can only imagine how distracted these 3 would be, pawing at the lasers all around! XD

[caveartfair]

7 Zines That Helped People Work through Mental Health Issues

For the uninitiated, a “zine” is often defined as a self-published, small-circulation magazine that documents the happenings of a subculture or a niche topic. But in practice, the art of the zine is governed by “non-rules.” A zine can be consist of 40 pages, or just one. It can be entirely made up of pictures or feature no pictures at all. It can make sense, but it doesn’t have to.

During the 1980s, zine-making often involved taking a pile of collages, poems, essays, images, or doodles; lining them up, just so, over the glass of a Xerox machine; then making copies, and stapling together a series of printed pages like this. Copies might be shared with friends or left in a stack at a local record store. Today, publishing a zine can be as simple as one person creating a web page or as elaborate as a small editorial team collaborating on a printed periodical with a cover star. But the non-rules haven’t changed: If you make it and publish it yourself, and it has text, images, or both, you can probably call it a zine.

Perhaps because of this flexibility, artists and other creatives have found in zines a judgment-free space, and for some, it’s a prime medium for discussing serious, personal issues, like mental health. This point was made late last month when an art exhibition in India, organized by one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, Dr. Vikram Patel, illustrated how zines can help break down the stigma surrounding mental health. To explore the topic further, we share below seven examples of such zines, with insights from their creators on how these creative projects helped them navigate their own experiences with mental health.

For Girls Who Cry Often (2016)

Excerpt from Lina Wu, For Girls Who Cry Often, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

Excerpt from Lina Wu, For Girls Who Cry Often, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

Lina Wu, a Toronto-based artist and illustrator, collected stories and testimonies from over 20 contributors to create the 40-page zine For Girls Who Cry Often. “It’s a nice feeling to be a part of something bigger,” she said of the collaborative creation process.

For the zine, Wu focused on exploring mental health through a femme lens and let her own experiences inform her process. “For much of my life, I noticed that ‘getting emotional’ was seen as a girly or feminine thing—meaning it is often dismissed as dramatic and frivolous,” she explained.

Wu created a dreamy pink atmosphere to backdrop the contributors’ candid and sometimes dark confessions. The zine’s adolescent tone is a nod to the fanzines of the 1990s that gave teenage girls a voice. In fact, Wu points out that zines are accessible art objects because people can easily share and buy them (readers buying copies of For Girls Who Cry Often are encouraged to pay what they can afford).

An interdisciplinary artist, Wu experiments with poetry, illustrations, comics, photography, and design in her zines. And while she doesn’t bring For Girls Who Cry Often to zine fairs anymore, she noted that making it has helped her grow as an artist.

Fuck This Life (2005–present)

Excerpt from Dave Sander, Fuck This Life, 2018. Courtesy of 8ball Community.

Excerpt from Dave Sander, Fuck This Life, 2018. Courtesy of 8ball Community.

Today, Dave Sander (a.k.a. “Weirdo Dave”) is a visual artist known for collaborations with Vans and Supreme. But back in 2005, Sander was cramming newspaper and magazine clippings into his desk drawer almost out of habit. “After I got a lot,” Sander said, “I thought it would be time to make a zine.”

Flipping through the pages of any issue of Fuck This Life is like witnessing the end-of-life montage people describe after a near-death experience. For Sander, zine-making can be an aggressively cathartic process: “You get to kill shit in your own way,” he offered.

Fuck This Life is a stream-of-consciousness compilation of found imagery—like the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb or porn stars mid-orgasm—the result of Sander channeling his pain to “create a beautiful, loud, brutal fantasyland.” He refers to the zine ashis deepest, darkest best friend. “It was my reason for living, so I guess it saved me,” he said.

Grief Poems (2017)

Excerpt from Chloe Zelkha, Grief Poems, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Excerpt from Chloe Zelkha, Grief Poems, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Chloe Zelkha describes her father’s death as a “sudden, heartbreaking shock.” Within months, she’d printed out a collection of poems she found in books or discovered through teachers and grieving groups, then spread them out on her kitchen table. There, the Berkeley-based Zelkha began painting onto the pages, cranking out one after another in succession, without drafting or revising. As she found more poems, she created more pages. The result was Grief Poems, a 26-page exercise in letting go.

Zelkha’s introduction to zines was Project NIA’s The Prison Industrial Complex Is… (2010–11), a straightforward explainer zine with minimal text and simple black-and-white illustrations. She sees zines are an inherently raw medium. “That permission that’s kind of baked into the form,” she said, “is liberating.”

Poems by everyone from Kobayashi Issa to W.S. Merwin are coated in Zelkha’s uninhibited brushstrokes. She compared her process with child’s play or dreaming: “If you watch a kid play on their own for long enough, you’ll see lots of fears, feelings, ideas eeking their way into their game, and then transforming in real time. Or when we dream, and different people, places, concerns visit us in weird ways.”

Identity Crisis (2017)

Librarian–slash–zine-maker Poliana Irizarry is probably better known for their autobiographical black-and-white zines, like My Left Foot (2016) and Training Wheels (2013). But with Identity Crisis, the San Jose–based artist seemed the most vulnerable they’ve ever been. “My abuela suffered many miscarriages at the hands of American doctors, and her surviving offspring also struggle with reproductive issues,” Irizarry wrote. “Many Puerto Ricans do.”

Before the birth control pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, nearly 1,500 Puerto Rican women were unknowingly part of one of the earliest human trials for the pill. Between the 1930s and ’70s, nearly one-third of Puerto Rico’s female population of childbearing age had undergone “the operation,” often without being properly educated on its effects.

Irizarry made Identity Crisis,their first full-color art zine,during a South Bay DIY Zine Collective workshop. Personal and family histories intersect across fragmented pictures of succulents and Southwestern landscapes in a half-prose, half-verse journey through Irizarry’s identity. In just a few pages, Irizarry wrestles with intergenerational trauma and their own post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Irizarry speaks directly to their oppressors, defiant and resolute: “I live in spite of you.”

Shit I Made When I Was Sad (a.k.a. sad zine)(2018)

Excerpt from Shit I Made When I Was Sad a.k.a. sad zine, 2018. Courtesy of Malin Rantzer and Anna Persmark.

Excerpt from Shit I Made When I Was Sad a.k.a. sad zine, 2018. Courtesy of Malin Rantzer and Anna Persmark.

It started when Swedish friends Malin Rantzer and Anna Persmark were showing each other drawings and writing in journals they’d made while they were feeling low. “I noticed that some of the stuff we’d drawn resembled the other’s drawing,” Malin remembered, “and I think at that point we realized we should make a zine about being sad.” Rantzer turned to social media and put out a “swenglish/svengelska” (Swedish-English) call for submissions.

The then–Sweden-based duo (Persmark has since relocated to Portland, Oregon) made sad zine by cutting out and taping or pasting their artworks onto new pages, then scanning them and folding them into a booklet. Persmark sees zine-making as one of the most intimate ways of sharing her feelings; she goes out in person to share copies with her community.

“Even if all the submitters did not know each other,” Malin explained, “they were all friends’ friends or friends’ friends’ friends, and maybe that also can contribute to an atmosphere where it is safe to be vulnerable.” While making the individual works helped them heal, Persmack noted that the process of compiling the zine proved to be revelatory: “Sadness is both intensely personal and universal,” she said.

Sula Collective Issue 3: Mental Health (2015)

Oyinda Yemi-Omowum, An Emotional Response to Colours, 2015. Excerpt from Sula Collective Issue 3: Mental Health, 2015. Courtesy of Sula Collective.

Sula Collective calls itself an online “[maga]zine for and by people of colour.” Initially an exclusively online zine—different from a blog in name and ethos—it reflected its Gen-Y creators and their new ideas of what a zine could be. It’s one of the more visible new zines, among many, with the purpose of turning an online network into an IRL community. Ever since they founded it in 2015, co-creators Kassandra Piñero and Sophia Yuet See knew they wanted to dedicate an issue to mental health.

Sula Collective Issue 3: Mental Health sheds light on how teenagers of color navigate their parents’ more conservative understanding of mental health issues. “We wanted to discuss the things we kept hidden from our parents or couldn’t talk about with friends,” Piñero and Yuet See explained.

The issue was published in November 2015 and serves as a record of how today’s young artists are taking intersectional approaches to dealing with mental health issues. For example, Oyinda, a then–16-year-old Nigerian girl living in London, submitted a color-coded collage of self-portraits and textures called An Emotional Response to Colours. The literary submissions are paired with original artworks, sourced from Sula Collective’ssubmissions inbox, which range from digital art to watercolors. When asked about what makes zines a unique medium, Piñero and Yuet See answered, simply, “control.”

Shrinks: A Retrospective (2018)

Excerpt from Karla Keffer, Shrinks: A Retrospective, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Excerpt from Karla Keffer, Shrinks: A Retrospective, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Shrinks is part of Karla Keffer’s zine series “The Real Ramona,” where she discusses being diagnosed with and treated for PTSD after almost 30 years in therapy. The Mississippi-based artist found a sense of direction for her work, and Shrinks in particular, through learning about the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.

This phenomenon (which gave daytime television hosts the ratings of their dreams) involved psychologists across America fueling a nationwide hysteria by diagnosing patients with satanic ritual abuse (SRA) and sending them off to tough-love camps.

“Shrinks are human and fallible,” Keffer explained. “I had put a great deal of trust in their infallibility.” In Shrinks, Keffer created profiles of every therapist she’s ever had—like Julie the gaslighter and Jill the racist. Survivors of abuse are often—and paradoxically—burdened with the task of seeing through the abuse and saving themselves. “One of the things I found difficult was sorting out what had happened with each therapist—like, did she/he really say that outlandish thing?” Keffer recalled.

So much of zine-making is about reclaiming—reclaiming the freedom of expression, reclaiming space, reclaiming the past. And, as Keffer put it, “you’ve made your own book, which is not something you experience when you’re writing short stories and sending them to lit mags.” If any one thing can define zines as a medium, it’s the unbridled control it gives artists.

from Artsy News

[ellebeebee]

There Thou Goest Also

Part 4 of 4: Culling Knife

One | Two | Three

First PoE work, and I wanted to examine my Watcher’s spiritual growth over the game’s events.  Sharp, a folk death godlike from Vailia, has a complicated relationship with Berath.  Expect self-indulgent backstory and vigilante world building.

2086 words, f!Watcher & All The Friends She Made Along The Way, (no pairing), teen rating by AO3

On AO3

-

She dreamed dreams not her own.

She dreams through decades of quiet heat in this quiet, hot, and harsh land with its black sea.  Of leaving, finally, to find the last part of herself.  She returns from the city with a husband and a seed in her belly, and she is more content than she has ever been.  She has seen the departures of these people of the yellow pastures in their white shrouds, and seen their arrivals in their bloody cauls.  She dreams dreams of her warm mahogany skin and her husband’s rich twilight.  Their mingling, and what they can bring forth.

She dreams of bed pains, of unimaginable pain between her thighs, and dizziness that spins the world until it is unmade.  She can see the individual threads of her husband’s sleeve gripped between her fingers.  She sees beyond him the strange eyes of a sheep-headed woman, the vertical pupils full of galaxies and adra gleam and a threshold-- the final threshold, and the very first.  The culling knife glows dull bronze in the candlelight.

Her daughter’s skin is purple, not brown.  Her head is not covered in black fuzz, but hard cartilage.  But she has never known such beauty, and she has never felt so content.

She dreamed that she fulfils her portion, and the next life is--

-

When she woke, Mother knelt beside her.

“Your mind called to me, Watcher.  The way they used to when they needed me at the Bell.”

Sharp pushed up on her elbows from her bedroll.  It was still mostly dark.  The emerald foliage radiated cold and damp all around them.

“No,” Sharp said. “It was my mother.  I do not know how, but I felt some sort of… trace of her soul.”

The adra chimes rang far away and very close all at once. “Her body struggled but her soul did not.”

“That is what my father tells me often.  Did you-- did you see the culling knife?”

She was quiet. “I have felt it enough to know it.  Even all the molding of her mind could still fail to save a mother in the end.” She paused. “The child was protected first.  Always.”

“But you did not… Nevermind,” she turned and studied her. “Did you ever… bring forth one like me?”

Mother’s hands weaved ringing with a harder melody than usual.  The white adra awash in blood-- too much blood.  Small embers you could touch but not feel.

“Once,” Mother said. “The babe fell into my hands like an ashen spark.  Precious and mewling and healthy.  A perfect light in the deep dawn.”

“And the mother?”

Her hands slowed in their circles, and the chimes sang a mourning knell.

Sharp looked out and watched the leaves go translucent against the tenuous light.  Their veins of yesterday’s sun spread into jade lace.  When she finally looked back, Mother had drifted away unseen.

-

She fell to her knees with the heavens beneath her, limitless stars and brushstrokes of divine color.  She did not fall or fly or float.  She just existed.  And the words spoke to her; true speaking that had nothing to with sound or expression or language.  She had not known truth before.  She’d come close to it, tried to create it herself from the scraps of shadows in the world.  But she’d been blind to the obvious.

She realized she’d already known it, all along.

The glittering expanse of Teir Evron revolved around her.

-

Edér tamped down on the fill in his pipe’s bowl.  He hummed vaguely to himself, sticking it in the corner of his mouth for a cold draw.  His hands patted down the pockets of his breeches and his waistcoat for a light.  As he found his little tin of matches, a breeze rushed through the Celestial Sapling’s enormous tree.  Thin switches ran and whipped against each other, and an ominous lament groaned somewhere deep within the trunk.

He waited a moment until the wind passed and struck his match.  The light burned against the night, fragile and small.  Some campfires burned in the district below, and watchfires dotted along the walls and in the hands of patrolling guards.

Edér leaned against the railing and nursed his pipe into fine smoking form; he took so long fiddling with it the guard changed once and a ruckus had broken out down in the bar and been smoothed over.

He drew on the deep acrid taste spilling from his bowl and breathed white tendrils into the dark.

“You are not asleep.”

Despite himself, he jumped.  Sharp stood behind him.  She’d come from the group’s rooms out onto the platform and its exterior rope ladder to the forest floor, conveniently away from the eyes and ears inside the inn.

“I’m bettin’ you already knew that,” he said.

She shrugged, and gave him a look.  Well, not really a look, because, you know-- the whole no eyes thing.  But sometimes she got this certain set to how she faced you, a certain tiny tilt.  There was the ‘Edér, shut up!’ tilt, the ‘Hiravias, shut up!,’ the ‘Durance, shut up before I shut you up!,’ and of course the ‘Eh, Pallegina, what is this word in their pigshit language, eh?’

This tilt was more along the lines of… What are you really doing here?

Edér shrugged. “I had a feeling.”

The dark blanket on the huts and paths flicked with the indistinct forms of hunters and merchants returning to their homes, climbing the hillocks to the other districts.  He felt the air shift as she leaned against the railing, too.  He offered her his pipe.  She accepted, and took a long and slow pull on it.

She breathed smoke into the night, and then turned the pipe around in her hand. “You laced this with whiteleaf?”

He nodded. “Just a touch.”

Sharp handed it back to him, shaking her head. “Not tonight.”

“You still up for that powdered snowcap when this is all done?” he said, patting his hip where he usually carried it on his absent belt.

“Yes.”

Her tone didn’t curl up in amusement, though.  She stared down at Twin Elms.  Edér took a few bitter drags and let the silence expand around them.

“I guess you’re decided then, huh?” he said.

She turned to him.  His eyes had long adapted to the murky darkness, and he could see she was all geared up in her leathers and softest boots, gloves tucked into her belt.  Her blades hung silent at her sides.

“So you know?” she said.

“I think we’ve all figured on it for a while now.”

“And what do you think of it?”

Edér tapped a boot quietly. “Well.  I’m not gonna say anything about that hat of yours.  I kinda fancy keeping my own head not bit off.  But I don’t think you should go getting yourself tied to one cart your whole life just because some tree ladies and Hiravias say you should.”

“But you are saying something about it then,” she said

He shrugged, and felt her watching him.

“On this, my thought has not changed,” Sharp said. “What I do has nothing to do with being-- godlike.” She bit around the word like a sour fruit.  She tapped her head-growth. “This is some trick of nature.  You think the gods, who control the heavens and the seas, death and life-- you think they spare more than a passing sneeze of thought for a single kith?  Even if I say, I serve this god now, it will make no difference to them beyond their vast plans.  It does not make me special.”

Edér nodded. “That’s the thing about faith, huh?  Sometimes don’t feel like ‘faith.’  At all.  Sometimes it feels like dog-paddlin’ in a big ocean of mud, all alone.  Doin’ your best to keep your head up.  And you wonder if you’re going the right direction.  If you’re strong enough to keep fightin’ the doubt.”

He nursed the pipe again.  Sharp remained quiet.

“And there’s no knowing,” Edér said. “There’s just… a feeling.”

And she had a tilt that he didn’t know too well: a release of tension and rounding of her straight shoulders and a near stillness in the constant whirl of her smoky tendrils.  He didn’t have to hear it from her to understand; he didn’t even know if she had the words to say.  Heck, he didn’t really either.  She believed in this.

Sharp stepped back from the railing and him.  That predator’s stance was back in her shoulders and limbs, and she pulled her gloves on.

“I have done bad things in my life,” she said. “I do not know if I can atone.  And I do not know if what I do in the future will be more of the same.  But I have to believe it.  I have to believe the path and the guide I follow is the right one.”

She flexed her gloved fist thoughtfully.  Edér’s thumb ran over the smooth wood of the pipe bowl.  She turned to him.

“I am going,” she said. “I will be back in the morning.”

“Alone?  You don’t want some help?”

“No,” she turned and a curl pulled at her lips. “I want to do it myself.  Beside, do not insult me.  Two little assassinations?  It is piece of cake.”

“Hey, look at you!  Getting your sayin’s right.”

“Hey, Edér.  Go fuck yourself.  Did I get that right, too?”

He laughed, a little too loud, and she shushed him before disappearing into the night.

-

She made it through Breith Eaman and through Iovara’s teachings without slipping under its tide.  She cut down Thaos, and squeezed her “answers” from his soul without succumbing.  She faced the machine-- a neat and symmetrical ending to how this whole clusterfuck began-- and she felt the weight of thousands enslaved to the enormous mechanical fruit of a dead people’s avarice and gluttony and vanity.  She nearly drowned in all of those souls, and she wondered if she was already overwhelmed by such a small drop of the cycle, then how was it the gods carried all that had been, all that are, and all that would be.  A vast and utterly incomprehensible sea.

She did it, even with Iovara’s words, and it felt right.  And she tried to remember Edér’s words: a feeling.

That was all she needed.  And she felt it, until the greatest relief washed over her and weakened her to sleep’s beguile.

She made it up to the surface, and out of Twin Elms.  She made it through the goodbye's to the handful of companions departing directly after her great mission’s success.  She even made it all the way back to Caed Nua without falling to it.

But when she found a quiet and empty spot at the top of the tallest tower, an unseen bolt struck Sharp, clear through her heart.

She gasped and leaned into the stone wall, clutching at its coolness.  She shuddered and did what she hadn’t in a long time-- she can not cry, exactly.  Whatever was the mechanism for her sight, it did not function the same as others’ eyes.  It was a rhythmic spasming of the muscles that crushed her lungs and her throat, making her gasp and piercing her again and again and again with pain.

She felt naked.  Stupid and foolish that she had so quickly bent the knee to a god-- a, a thing that had never been real.

But what was real?  She hated Aloth for his quick acceptance of it and his high-ground rejection of a make-believe authority.  She hated Edér for tempering his constantancy.  If even he…

She tried to remember her mother, covered in birthing sweat and lying in her deathbed, and how she had so clearly seen the glean of the culling knife.  She tried to remember the suspension in the heavens and the certainty she’d felt each time a soul slipped like silk between her fingers to be spun again on the Wheel.  She tried to remember that feeling in Sun in Shadow.

She pulled herself together.  The remainder of her companions departed.  She lingered in the library more, read more.  Petitioners and visitors came and went, coin passed through her hands.  Time continued on, even if she had uncovered a great revelation.  But if she commissioned a new cloak embroidered with a stylized skull and ewe horns tangled with a common farm knife and a wheel-- well.  It was something.

She would never know.  She could only feel.

[brianaonline]

A Rich Famous Artist Ripped Off One of My Paintings

At the Armory Show last spring I quickly noticed that the most popular aspects of the fair appealed to the sensibility of everyday consumers, such as the hot pink Jeffrey Deitch booth that looked disturbingly similar to a Victoria’s Secret, and the installation Art Vending Machine by Sadaharu Horio, which was actually pretty cool despite the nausea I felt wading through the crowd of bewildered art tourists that wanted to interact with the piece. I couldn’t help but feel a little despair as I realized that my art is, by these standards, boring. Realizing I lack the drive to make internet art, video works, installations, or incorporate virtual reality into my process, I aimlessly glossed over the art fair with a sense of guilt and hopelessness. I felt like I was betraying my generation by expressing my ideas through the antiquated medium of paint instead of making art that reflects our current age of technology and instant gratification. Two competing thoughts pulled at me: the first would start, “I want to be relevant. I want to be part of what is new in the world.” Then, the second would respond (and prevail), “But you really fucking love painting.”

In a culture that has normalized the process of waiting in line to have an experience, and where everything else is compressed by the pressure to be convenient, a love for painting could be considered irrational. I’ll be honest... in the art world, most of the time I’m not sure what I’m looking at, the people around me are either taking a selfie or theorizing about some distant concept, and the panel discussions are droning. It’s taken me years to build a foundation that allows me to barely engage with this world. I am convinced that developing the capacity to look at and react to art with sophistication takes a lifetime.

Suddenly, out of the periphery, something catches my eye at the Armory Show. I am struck by a seven foot tall painting in a narrow corridor between two booths. I hover around the canvas, investigating with animalistic curiosity. Then, I press myself up against the opposite wall to take in the work from as far as possible. A little cramped, but the distance is just enough for a good view.

The Hunter Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2016

I was only halfway through touring the art fair, but I couldn’t look at anything else after I saw this painting by Enrique Martinez Celaya, titled The Hunter. When I saw it again at the artist’s solo show the following week in Chelsea, I had a similar experience. The Hunter is still one of my favorite paintings. However, against all expectations, I wasn't moved by anything else on view in this exhibition, titled The Gypsy Camp at Jack Shainman.

In his book On Art and Mindfulness, Martinez Celaya writes, “You can probably find passages and ideas you admire in artworks you dislike, but these will not be enough. The spirit of an artwork is what runs underneath and also what binds all surface activity, and it is that spirit that convinces you about an artist’s work.”

I wanted to find this spirit in Enrique’s other paintings, so I battled my growing concern that The Hunter was a fluke by buying three of EMC’s books. Within these pages I did ultimately fall in love with much of this artist’s earlier work. His writing became a profound source of advice and inspiration for me. And most excitingly, I started to understand what made The Hunter such a special painting.  

Martinez Celaya often discusses how he has no interest in making illusionistic paintings. The press release for The Gypsy Camp explains that Enrique’s work “resists identification with any specific narrative. Rather, the works refer to their own making and particular emphasis is given to the canvas’ surface and the physicality of paint...Martínez Celaya, describing the ineffable quality of his work, stresses presence over referent: ‘The conviction of the scenes is put in question by the way the paint doesn’t reach the edges...my paintings are not windows to a world but all that there is.’ ”

Enrique emphasized this position at the talk he gave for The Gypsy Camp, reminding the audience that the imagery in his paintings doesn’t exist outside the parameters of the canvas and that painting is an object of the mind. As promised, canvas edges in this exhibit are unpainted (or outlined as if to break up the scene). But even more interestingly, Martinez Celaya also engages (or disengages) light sources in order to make even more clear his intention to isolate his paintings.

Oftentimes light isn’t much of a factor in Martinez Celaya’s paintings; shadows are painted to demonstrate volume or texture, not to articulate luminosity. When the activity in one of EMC’s paintings is affected by a sense of light, the source is always depicted as originating within the canvas, as if the work is an autonomous unit.

The Tunnel and the Light Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2012

The Little Paradise Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2016

In works like The Tunnel and The Light and The Little Paradise, the imagined glow of both paintings is easily understood. Contrast between dark and light, as well as the works’ compositions, create barriers that reinforce the canvas. As a viewer, I am not curious about what else may exist in either tunnel, as my imagination is not stirred to imagine a world beyond the scope of the frame. Many other works can be understood similarly.

The Other Shore Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2017

The only exception to this approach that I have seen in Martinez Celaya’s work is The Hunter. One of the things that makes this painting so strange is how differently the artist uses light here, compared to in all his other works. In The Hunter, the light creating a red reflection across the water is cut off---its origin is unknown and exists somewhere beyond the scene. The ominous presence of this red glow is compounded by the figure’s placement with his back to the source, as if to shield the goose from it. This creates an unresolvable mystery and mood in The Hunter, which still haunts me to this day.

Mixed with my admiration for this painting is a strange sense of jealousy. As I looked at the tenderness and elegance depicted in The Hunter… each brushstroke on this canvas seemed perfect to me. And it felt weird. Never before had I longed to paint another artist’s work, but there I was wishing I had been the one to create this strange goose painting. I wanted to possess this painting--not in the sense of buying it and owning it, but I wished badly that this profound work of art had emanated from my hand and soul, and not from any other human being.

The Hunter (details) Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2016

I started paying closer attention to the technical aspects of this painting, thinking that I’d secretly make a replica in my studio so that I could learn from it. EMC advises to “get rid of the abstract/figurative duality. It will not serve your work because it comes from an over simplistic way of looking at art. Form/content is also a tiresome polarity. Instead, consider the friction between hand/distance, sublime/earthly, reference/presence, concept/object” (On Art and Mindfulness, 46).

I was very interested in studying hand/distance, and all other relationships between the artist’s body and his canvas, because this information was crucial if I was to create a reproduction. Eventually I concluded that The Hunter was choreographed not by the artist, but by chance. Paint splatters fall at random, revealing the deft speed with which this painting was formed. I’m familiar with the instability of working with wet paint. I know many of my favorite moments in this painting, like the small waves breaking against rocks, and the airy feathers perfectly molded to the body of the goose, were painted with quick, light maneuvers that I would never be able to capture just right. 

My jealousy disturbed me, so I put aside my desire to remake EMC’s goose painting. I reached a deeper level of appreciation for The Hunter, understanding that the work is irreplicable. Never did I imagine that Enrique would one day look at my work and feel a similar desire to make one of my paintings.

Enrique and I talked briefly in New York at his show, and I gave him my business card hoping to continue a correspondence. Much to my excitement, I received an email from Martinez Celaya shortly after. I quickly responded, but never heard from him again. I was puzzled why EMC kept tabs on my Instagram account in the months that followed. Occasionally I would receive notifications that he had liked some of my images.

Now I know why.

Three days ago EMC revealed a painting on his Instagram account that knocked the air out of me. I felt my blood freeze. Insecurity rippled across my skin like a heat rash.

Burning River Briana Navarro, 2017

Untitled Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2017

Was I going crazy? I quickly called one of my painting mentors and explained the situation.

On the phone, my friend was quiet, hesitant to speak because he knew I was upset. But then, much to my gratitude, I received some excellent and unexpected advice.

First my mentor reminded me of how impatient I am and that I need to give myself time. My paintings need a lot of work. We talked about the way I handle paint and explore the medium. He also addressed my strengths and talents.

But as my mentor pointed out, anyone can make a dark fire painting. The key to becoming a great painter is to make work that can never be made by someone else. Only art that visually represents one’s experience and individuality is strong enough to withstand imitation. No matter how desperate and numerous are the attempts to copy, authenticity always prevails.

He’s right. My burning river painting is political in a way that is deliberately generic. It speaks to problems in society without me, the artist, ever having to get involved. My painting tells a story without a storyteller. I rendered my identity as its creator as something nondescript and nonessential to the understanding and appreciation of my work. I somewhat understood this when I was making Burning River---I have allowed this painting (and others) to become walls for me to disappear behind. But what I realized when Martinez Celaya posted his burning river, was that I had made myself completely irrelevant to my own work. I failed to anticipate is that this approach to art-making made my work very easy to commodify and replicate.

“Don’t worry, eventually painters like Enrique aren’t going to appear at all in your imagination when you think about painting,” says my mentor.  I appreciate greatly the consolation and the invaluable new perspective I’ve gained on my work, but I’m not so sure I agree with my friend.

My painting meant more to me. I valued the biblical undertones I had imputed into my imagery. I identified with its loneliness and the fire’s glow brought me comfort. I had plans to make many more paintings on this theme in the new year---my studio full of burning rivers. I knew there was more to be explored and that I could learn a lot by turning this subject into a series. But now I don’t think I can make more burning rivers with Enrique’s version floating in my head. Now that his version exists, I can’t imagine it not affecting how I paint another river on fire. I already foresee the inevitable and constant negotiation between avoiding his work and competing with it. My space to explore and grow as an artist has been invaded. The concept is ruined.

There is no doubt that EMC is an incredibly intelligent and insightful man. I find it almost impossible to understand the dense texts that accompany his work, considering most of the philosophy and poetry Martinez Celaya references is unknown to me and as indecipherable as a foreign language. In fact, EMC’s extensive education was once a point of intimidation. In the year I was born, Martinez Celaya received a master’s degree in painting. Since then his career has been prolific and is supported by top-tier gallery representation. The Hunter painting that I love so much is rumored to have sold to a collector in Miami for over $100,000.

I know Enrique has worked very hard to reach a prestigious position in the art world. I still admire many of his attributes and will continue to celebrate his accomplishments because he has undeniably earned them. I don’t intend to be dismissive of his talents or individual efforts, but I can’t help wonder how many more of his beautiful paintings profit from the hard work of others like me. I am confident that if Enrique hadn’t seen my painting first, he would have never made the one he turned out 9 months later.

At the Armory Show, The Hunter didn’t have its name yet and was displayed untitled. Since the moment I became aware of this painting’s new name, it has been of much curiosity to me. I’ve wondered for months what it means. Perhaps The Hunter refers to how EMC feels about himself sometimes. Maybe he saw my painting and thought to himself, “I can make that better.” 

Of course I am familiar with tropes like, “great artists steal” and “imitation is the highest form of flattery.” In fact, I have supported these attitudes in my other writings. But what really bothers me about this situation is the fact that Enrique never wrote back to me; never offered me support or encouragement. I wanted to learn from Enrique, but was rejected. I assumed my favorite artist thought my paintings were trash, but then I watched my idea become his most popular post on Instagram.  At least now I know EMC saw something in my work. Unfortunately, his vision turned out to be one that took advantage of my own.  

[thisdaynews]

Trump’s plan for the Dem debates: Make it about him

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trumps-plan-for-the-dem-debates-make-it-about-him/

Trump’s plan for the Dem debates: Make it about him

President Donald Trump wants to stay the focus of attention as 2020 Democratic hopefuls duke it out for their party’s nomination. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

2020 elections

The president aims to suck up as much oxygen as possible from the 20 Democratic presidential contenders debating in Miami.

Donald Trump wants his Democratic competitors for the White House to introduce themselves to the American public next week on his terms.

Ahead of the first two Democratic presidential primary debates next Wednesday and Thursday, the president and his political team are angling to dominate the news cycle with carefully released tidbits meant to keep the public hooked on the machinations of the commander in chief. This will range from the president sitting down for an extended interview with an anchor fromNoticias Telemundo, who is also a moderator of the Democratic debates, to an announcement by the vice president next Tuesday in Miami — where the Democrats are holding their debates — that unveils a list of prominent Latino and Hispanic supporters. And on the night of the first debate, Trump himself might live-tweet the debates as he flies on Air Force One to Japan for the G-20.

Story Continued Below

Just as Trump has dictated so much of the political narrative over the last four years, the president’s team is hoping the two Democratic debates simply morph into liberal candidates reacting to the president instead of putting forward their own visions for the country, policy proposals or personal stories. The blunt reality, Trump’s allies say, is that a Trump tweet can quickly overtake most actions by any one Democratic presidential candidate — an exasperating scenario for Democrats.

“Donald Trump knows how to dominate the media landscape like no other candidate in history, whether he’s bringing up a new issue or branding an opponent or adversary. The media can’t help but react to his statements and tweets,” said Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary and communications director.

In particular, the Trump campaign wants to illustrate the president’s support among Hispanic voters in Florida, a key swing state where the Democratic debates will be held and where both parties are vying for votes.

To that end, Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to speak Tuesday at an event in Miami where he will unveil a coalition of top Hispanic supporters and business executives, according to four people familiar with the schedule. The campaign is still finalizing the exact list, assembled by campaign staffer Sandra Benitez, but it is expected to include Houston businessman Rick Figueroa and Orange County entrepreneur Mario Rodriguez, among others.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign declined to comment.

The goal, those close to Trump say, is to show top Trump officials actively courting a key demographic group just two days before Democrats take the stage to spar with one another, said one Republican close to the campaign.

Locking down Hispanic votes could also help the Trump campaign expand the electoral map in 2020, said one Trump supporter.

“Hispanics massively outperformed expectations in the 2016 election for Trump, and will likely prove even more critical in 2020,” said Steve Cortes, president of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council. “Rising Hispanic pro-Trump sentiment can solidify key Trump states, especially Florida and Arizona, and potentially flip other blue states like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.”

That same day, Trump is slated to speak to a long-planned fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., for the Republican National Committee — an event intended to bolster the campaign’s preferred image that Trump is far ahead of any individual Democratic candidates in terms of fundraising.

The RNC announced Wednesday — just after his reelection launch rally Tuesday night in Orlando, Fla. — that Trump had raised $24.8 million in a 24-hour period, without specifying the exact timing for raking in that specific figure. That haul far exceeds the fundraising dollars any Democratic candidates raised following their own campaign launches.

The two-part Democratic debates kick off Wednesday night, an event that all of Trump’s political advisers expect him to watch closely and offer up reaction.

Several of Trump’s top political advisers would like the president to sit out live-tweeting the debates, according to two Republicans close to the White House, yet they are also realistic enough to realize Trump will do whatever he wants.

And Trump has shown that his in-the-moment tweets can even change the direction of high-profile events.

During a House hearing in March 2017, Trump’s Twitter account shared a misleading clip from then-FBI chief James Comey and former NSA head Mike Rogers, indicating that they had said Russia “did not influence [the] electoral process.” Within minutes, a Democratic congressman was reading the tweet aloud, asking Comey to reaffirm that the intelligence community reached no conclusion on whether a widespread Russian meddling campaign affected the outcome of the 2016 election.

“It certainly was not our intention to say that today, because we do not have any information on that subject,” Comey said. “That’s not something that was looked at.”

Trump’s allies said the president’s tweets could lead to a similar situation during the Democratic debates, yet again making the narrative about Trump and not the Democrats.

“It would not shock me if one of the moderators of the debate asked a Democrat about one of the president’s tweets and somehow then Trump became an even bigger part of the night,” said one Republican close to the White House.

Top campaign and political advisers have been urging the president instead to cast the wide field of Democrats in broad brushstrokes as socialists. They want him to brand the Democrats as uniform supporters of sweeping policies like Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal — progressive ideas that could pull more centrist Democrats to the left.

They’ve also tried and failed to convince Trump to avoid calling out specific candidates, like former Vice President Joe Biden, to mixed results.

There’s a prevailing view among top advisers that the president should save that specific name-calling and verbal ammunition for the general election, or once the Democratic nominee becomes clear.

“Everyone says, ‘Get him off Twitter,’ but the president seems to know when to push things and when he goes too far, how to use Twitter to get things back on track,” the Republican close to the White House added.

Read More

[micaramel]

Artist: Ulrich Wulff

Venue: Nino Mier, Los Angeles

Exhibition Title: Black Elk Speaks

Date: May 11 – June 22, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of the artist and Nino Mier, Los Angeles

Press Release:

Nino Mier Gallery is pleased to present its first exhibition of new works by Ulrich Wulff, titled Black Elk Speaks. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 11th from 6 to 8:30 pm at the 1107 Greenacre Avenue, Los Angeles location.

In my upcoming exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery, I am showing a full circle of four large oil paintings, accompanied by ten small pencil drawings.

All of these artworks are figurative, more precisely portraits. The painted heads are hovering on monochrome backdrops, assembled in three confrontations and one individual portrait. The heads are each composed of distinctively modified color fields, and the energetic, yet thinly applied repetition of brushstrokes flattens the background and creates a smooth, at times specular surface, surrounding the humanoids like the sea, in which we all reflect, yet never fully identify.

The set of paintings in this exhibition is marked by acute color-form-contrasts and simplified figurative elements, that partly resemble comic strip images. The clown- type appears again – an old acquaintance, who inconsistently lingers in my imagery since the turn of the millennium. The clown is not only a metaphor for the artist and the social outsider (see e.g.: Heinrich Böll: Ansichten eines Clowns [The Clown]) but at the same time an image of the “real” man. Paradoxically it needs masking and role-playing to expose the “true” man in the context of an abstraction process. Thereby the distinctive marks of the clown become independent as autonomous elements. His round nose appears in the image space as a “free- floating” ball, his extended eyelashes stretch like feelers or antennae to an intensified perception.

Within the varied subjects a duality always appears: usually two figurations stand opposite each other, meeting and watching each other with the potential of contact. Or it is a matter of a “mutiple I” that communicates with itself. The stereotyped figurations shown in profile view leave the viewer outside – he is just a witness of what is happening.

The title of this exhibition is borrowed from a book of interviews with a Holy Clown of the Oglala Lakota, named Black Elk, who was active during the Ghost Dance Movement, and beyond. The characteristic of these clowns, the so-called Heyoka, was to behave contrary to everyone’s everyday practice. Thus, every situation is rebound to its original potential, the source of all that is, where the Wakinyan, the Thunderbeings of the West, dwell, and that only the holy man can perceive and translate.

By questioning the rules of a society through humor, they redefine the purpose of life in a group, from merely being organized as a secular machine towards happier goals, maybe even towards fulfillment.

Ulrich Wulff

Ulrich Wulff (b. 1975) has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at venues that include  Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck (2018); Freddy, Harris, NY (2017); and Truth and Consequences, Geneva (2017). Among his group exhibitions are Peanuts, Eighteenth Gallery, Copenhagen (2019); It Ain’t Though, Ortloff Artspace, Leipzig (2019); You Have Everything To Learn, Truth and Consequences, Geneva (2018); Lob Des Schattens, Marc Straus, NYC (2017); Back to the Shack, Meliksetian Briggs, Los Angeles (2017); and A Shape That Stands Up, Hammer Museum (Off-Site), (2016). Wulff lives and works in Berlin.

Link: Ulrich Wulff at Nino Mier

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2Ki4xO0

[mredwinsmith]

Mighty, Miniature Paintings

We’ve all been in situations where we have to dig in and endure hardships and setbacks in order to continue doing what we love. We do it because humans are driven to create, to express, to do that one thing that we know in our hearts we were born to do. For many of us, creative expression is that thing. It certainly is for Joyce Washor, author of Think Big, Paint Small, a book dedicated to the art of miniature paintings.

Painting small: “Self Portrait” (oil on board, 3.75×2.75) by Joyce Washor

Joyce didn’t start out working on tiny substrates, but a developing problem in her shoulder left her unable to lift her arm to paint as she had in the past. Of course, that didn’t stop her from making art. She simply began working with more manageable, even miniature, boards and canvases, and with positive results.

“Many of the painting principles that I learned throughout the years didn’t make sense to me until I started painting on a smaller scale,” Joyce says. “Working small gives me more time and energy to devote to each painting, from mixing the right colors to paying attention to the brushwork and composition … The small paintings have all the same attention to detail that my larger paintings had. I don’t need to choose different objects to paint, but how I paint them has changed. I need to be more decisive with color choices and concentrate on using brushstrokes to define space and forms concisely. This has made my paintings stronger.”

Curious to try painting small yourself? In the following excerpt, you’ll learn how to arrange a composition for a miniature painting. Discover the rest of Joyce’s tips and lessons when you get your copy of Think Big, Paint Small today.

  Featured: Still Life with Orange Vase (oil on board, 3×4) by Joyce Washor. Article contributions from Cherie Haas.

Scaling Down Your Compositions for Miniature Paintings

On painting small: Create a Small Composition. You can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard to help you see how much you can fit within a small format. Photo by Paul Saltzman

One of the hardest things to get used to when painting small is scaling down your composition to fit within a sight size of 2.5×3.5. Obviously, whatever reference you’re painting from is probably not that small, and it can seem like an overwhelming challenge to scale things down. When I was first struggling with this concept, I came across a postcard from a two-person show I was in that featured an image of my 11×14 painting at about 3×4. Seeing this visual was a great help to me–it was a realization that I don’t have to sacrifice anything to paint on a small scale.

While setting up your still life or contemplating a landscape, you can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard (fits together to form a frame) to block in a composition at the size you want it. This way, you can see exactly how much you can comfortably fit within your format at the very beginning of the process.

If your resulting drawing is still too large for this smaller format, you can use a photocopy machine or computer to scale it down. If you usually paint at 16×20, try going from an 8×10 to a 5×7 and on down until you reach the small format that you’d like to paint.

After I spent a couple of months painting at the 2.5×2.5 format, it began to feel the same as an 11×14 or a 16×20. It’s a little hard to explain, but the paintings feel so large and complete to me it’s as if I can walk around in them.

Shrinking Your References for Miniature Paintings

One of the best things you can do to render what you see as life-sized into a small format is to draw the composition as a single unit, not as individual items. 

Draw the Basic Outline

Start by blocking in the outermost edges of the objects—but as just one shape, not individual shapes.

Fill in the Outline

Draw the edges of the shape made by the objects, and add the table top.

Finish the Sketch

Now you can look at each object individually and add in each distinct shape.

    The post Mighty, Miniature Paintings appeared first on Artist's Network.

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[agosnesrerose]

Mighty, Miniature Paintings

We’ve all heard stories about amazing people who overcome a hardship in order to continue doing what they love. That’s because humans are driven to create, to express, to do that one thing that we know in our hearts we were born to do. For many of us, creative expression is that thing. It certainly is for Joyce Washor, author of Think Big, Paint Small, a book dedicated to the art of miniature paintings.

Painting small: “Self Portrait” (oil on board, 3.75×2.75) by Joyce Washor

Joyce didn’t start out working on tiny substrates, but a developing problem in her shoulder left her unable to lift her arm to paint as she had in the past. Of course, that didn’t stop her from making art. She simply began working with more manageable, even miniature, boards and canvases, and with positive results.

“Many of the painting principles that I learned throughout the years didn’t make sense to me until I started painting on a smaller scale,” Joyce says. “Working small gives me more time and energy to devote to each painting, from mixing the right colors to paying attention to the brushwork and composition … The small paintings have all the same attention to detail that my larger paintings had. I don’t need to choose different objects to paint, but how I paint them has changed. I need to be more decisive with color choices and concentrate on using brushstrokes to define space and forms concisely. This has made my paintings stronger.”

Curious to try painting small yourself? In the following excerpt, you’ll learn how to arrange a composition for a miniature painting. Discover the rest of Joyce’s tips and lessons when you get your copy of Think Big, Paint Small today.

Keep painting, Cherie

Featured: Still Life with Orange Vase (oil on board, 3×4) by Joyce Washor

Scaling Down Your Compositions for Miniature Paintings

by Joyce Washor

On painting small: Create a Small Composition. You can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard to help you see how much you can fit within a small format. Photo by Paul Saltzman

One of the hardest things to get used to when painting small is scaling down your composition to fit within a sight size of 2.5×3.5. Obviously, whatever reference you’re painting from is probably not that small, and it can seem like an overwhelming challenge to scale things down. When I was first struggling with this concept, I came across a postcard from a two-person show I was in that featured an image of my 11×14 painting at about 3×4. Seeing this visual was a great help to me–it was a realization that I don’t have to sacrifice anything to paint on a small scale.

While setting up your still life or contemplating a landscape, you can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard (fits together to form a frame) to block in a composition at the size you want it. This way, you can see exactly how much you can comfortably fit within your format at the very beginning of the process.

If your resulting drawing is still too large for this smaller format, you can use a photocopy machine or computer to scale it down. If you usually paint at 16×20, try going from an 8×10 to a 5×7 and on down until you reach the small format that you’d like to paint.

After I spent a couple of months painting at the 2.5×2.5 format, it began to feel the same as an 11×14 or a 16×20. It’s a little hard to explain, but the paintings feel so large and complete to me it’s as if I can walk around in them.

Shrinking Your References for Miniature Paintings

One of the best things you can do to render what you see as life-sized into a small format is to draw the composition as a single unit, not as individual items. 

Draw the Basic Outline

Start by blocking in the outermost edges of the objects—but as just one shape, not individual shapes.

Fill in the Outline

Draw the edges of the shape made by the objects, and add the table top.

Finish the Sketch

Now you can look at each object individually and add in each distinct shape.

  The post Mighty, Miniature Paintings appeared first on Artist's Network.

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http://ift.tt/2mLwaiv

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Studio Visit That Wasn’t Exactly A Studio Visit: Dan Devening, Mie Kongo, Peter Shear

Dan Devening, “Yellow Table” (2003), oil on canvas, 25 x 33 inches (all images courtesy Devening Projects + Editions)

I met Dan Devening when I curated an exhibition, Broken/Window/Plane, for Tracy Williams (February 16 – March 17, 2012). Sadly, the gallery recently closed. Devening had come to the opening in support of Gary Stephan, whose work he shows in his gallery, Devening Projects + Editions, in an industrial building surrounded by brick houses in Chicago. I later learned from Stephan that Devening is an artist, which intrigued me. My curiosity only grew when Stephan said that he likes Devening’s work.

The first time I went to Devening Projects + Editions was to have a public talk with Gary Stephan about a show of his that Dan had mounted. I also saw a show of different artists’ work that he mounted at EXPO CHICAGO 2016 (September 22 – 25, 2016). In the latter show I discovered the work of Sean Sullivan, Alain Biltereyst, and Alison Wade. During a conversation with Dan I learned that he found Sullivan on Instagram. It seems that Dan looks at lots of social media forums and keeps up with the world of art in many different ways. I did not get around to asking him how he found Biltereyst, who lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Dan Devening, “Untitled” (2016), acrylic on Yupo paper on panel, 20 x 16 inches

Recently, while I was in Chicago to meet with some MFA students at the University of Chicago and give a talk about Robert Grosvenor at The Renaissance Society, I put aside enough time to get together with Dan, partly to see what he had up in his gallery, but also to see if I could get him to show me some of his own work, which he had not done in all the time that I have known him. It is not every day that you meet a self-effacing artist who makes no attempt to get you to see his work, but, in fact, points you to the work of others, only a few of which he shows.

I knew that Dan was exhibiting paintings by Peter Shear and ceramic sculpture by Mie Kongo, and that the show closed on February 11th, but that I could see it on the morning of 12th, before I went to the airport. I was not disappointed.

Shear, a self-taught painter who lives in Bloomington, Indiana, showed around thirty abstract paintings that measure ten by eight inches. Some were graphically strong, while others were conglomerations of distinct brushstrokes. Every painting had something going for it. The title of his exhibition, Editions of You, seemed apt. I liked Shear’s love for paint and painting. He seemed to want to make every kind of abstraction, and yet his work never looked derivative. Something of his — call it a feeling — emerged in every work I saw.  This was enough for me to want to see more. I believe Shear also posts his work on Instagram, but as I have not plugged into that yet, they were new to me.

Installation view of “Peter Shear, Editions of You” (2017), Devening Projects + Editions, Chicago

For her exhibition, Unknown Game Series, Mie Kongo showed sculptures made of porcelain, wood, earthenware, Plexiglas, and other materials. Each “untitled” sculpture was a stack of different geometric shapes, from triangles to semi-circles to cylinders and cubes. Every now and then she tucked a section of lathed wood or some other object or material within a stack. There was a castle-like structure assembled of different white geometric forms standing on a used wooden chair (the pedestal) in the center of the gallery, which I kept looking at. Did the floor slant slightly or was it the seat on which the sculpture sat? Both the overall structure and the individual pieces brought to mind the large, primary colored, soft blocks made of some kind of foam that young children play with. Kongo’s pristine porcelain structure seemed both sturdy and precarious — and the chair became an unapproachable mountain upon which this castle rose. I wished I had more to experience Kongo’s work, some of which are quite small.

Installation view of work by Peter Shear and Mie Kongo, Devening Projects + Editions, Chicago

And yet, as much as I wanted to see this show — and I was very happy that I did— I also wanted to see Devening’s own work. In the end, I did not see as much I wanted to, but I got a sense of it, and, for the time being, that will have to do. While he was bringing out work — moving it from his studio, which was down the hall, to the gallery — he talked about being both an artist and a curator, and wanting to bring these two activities closer together. Here I should interject, whenever I mentioned an artist that I thought might be of interest to Dan — the two I remember bringing up are Klaus Merkel and John Dilg – he already knew of the work, and, in the case of Dilg, planned on showing it.

I admire Devening’s voraciousness, especially since it comes from him, rather than from a commercial sense of the pre-approved. It is not what an artwork sold for elsewhere that interested him. But, as much as I like what Dan is up to, I had become really curious about his work. So seeing it this time satisfied something that had gnawed at me.

I saw about twenty works done over the last eighteen or nineteen years, from paintings to collages. One thing that I both want to hear and do not want to hear is the artist’s reasoning, why he or she works in a particular way. I cannot explain the push-pull this has on me, though I think it has to do with my reluctance to talk about why I write poetry, because any reason I come up with sounds pretentious. Let us return to Devening’s work. In some works, Devening started by rolling the paint onto the canvas — one color — until a thin sticky skin was formed. Depending upon the surface on which he laid the canvas, the paint’s sticky, monochrome skin might be interrupted by something on the surface. Using a rubber eraser — a kind of surrogate finger — he drew back into the paint. At times, the structures he hinted at seemed to be cousins to the machines Marcel Duchamp embedded in “The Large Glass” (1915-1923). In others, the looping lines evoked a visceral contact through erasure.

Installation view of work by Peter Shear and Mie Kongo, Devening Projects + Editions, Chicago

In the more recent work, he made collages on Yupo paper, which is made of polyester fiber. Sometimes, he folded the sheet so that it became a grid of creases. The combination of a loosely brushed monochrome ground and cut circles and semi-circles reminded me of the white circles you see on film leader. Bringing together optical fields and forms with clean edges, brushy grounds and geometric forms, print and paint could easily lead to disaster, but Devening finds his way through to what he calls an archive, a gathering together of his interests as an artist and organizer of exhibitions. While I am not sure that Devening has quite figured out how to put all these different possibilities together, it was also apparent to me that he was getting there.

After leaving Dan, and on my way to the airport to catch my flight home, these lines by Ezra Pound came to me:

What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage

Devening’s care for art and artists is exemplary. His work is an important part of that equation.

The post The Studio Visit That Wasn’t Exactly A Studio Visit: Dan Devening, Mie Kongo, Peter Shear appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[micaramel]

Artist: Vladimir Kokolia

Venue: Fait, Brno

Exhibition Title: The Essential Kokolia

Curated by: Miroslav Ambroz

Date: October 17, 2018 – January 12, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Fait, Brno

Press Release:

To see nothing For Vladimír Kokolia painting is an opportunity to reach things that one wouldn’t be able to get at well enough in any other way. Kokolia is the type of painter who wants to really see his subject.

Seeing It might seem that Kokolia wants to be considered primarily as an impressionist, in the original derogatory sense of the term. He deliberately aims for the impossible: to be, as was quipped about Monet, “only an eye”. He does not, however, believe in a prepared innocent gaze — that would be a great affectation — but relies on an acceptance of the full torrent of visual sensations, or direct visual waste, when one doesn’t have the tools (and perhaps not even a reason) to distinguish illusion from the “overwhelming disorder of the real world”.[1]  He quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to this kind of view of the ordinary world is the knowledge about seen things that one carries in one’s head. Even the names of things are disruptive for the naked eye. Kokolia declares that information inhibits the image.

Seeing the seeing Nonetheless, a painter wants to “see this seeing”. When seeing, how does a person notice that they are looking? According to Kokolia, this can happen only when we sacrifice meaning and simply let our view float. “I have the distinct impression that precisely such blank looking is the default setting of our vision. It is the most fundamental state, the ‘container’, the womb, the landscape, the pilot frequency, the Tao of seeing, only on account of which individual forms arise”, adds Kokolia.[2]  He believes that a lack of information brings astonishment. Truly, a lack of information? We know, after all, how James Joyce’s characters marvel at a sudden recognition of very fragile and evanescent moments, when a character experiences a sudden revelation about the “whatness” of a thing.

Similarly, for the nameless heroes in the hundreds of drawings from Kokolia’s Big Cycle, the inescapable mechanism of their actions is suddenly revealed to them at a single moment. Here, the vehicle of wonderment is an unexpected recognition of meaning. However, wonderment that is purely visual in origin is, in contrast to narrative epiphany, lacking in substance. The one who is experiencing wonderment just stares and does not actually know anything. Here, the intensity of not knowing shows the depth of wonder. It is as if the one in wonderment sees only one thing, so emptied that it can be considered null. For Kokolia, an example of such views momentarily without content are the squares and rectangles in Mondrian’s paintings. Here, they also have roots in Kokolia’s individualistic theory about cubism and in his thinking about the picture plane and “paintings within a painting”. For Kokolia, the view gradually became an independent entity in which it is possible to study only the visible content and to eliminate for the given moment both the observer and the observed thing.

Painting seeing Why would the one in wonderment even paint at all? Isn’t it enough just to have the experience? A painter’s embodiment of what is seen is a passage from one world to another, and what was true in one world is not necessarily true in the other one. It is a completely new situation that presumes “the picture has the logical form of representation in common with what it pictures”. [3] A painting may be able to adapt to the form of depiction, but it also has its own special demands as a physical object covered with paint as well as an object with the aim of controlling how the viewer will see it. It must remain adequate, even if it has done away with the function of depiction. The same brushstroke is both a physical trace and also creates the ideal of an image that arises only with the viewer’s gaze.

Kokolia describes the realisation he had in the Hermitage Museum in 1980 while standing before one of Matisse’s paintings: “… something tells me that this is the genuine space, not the three dimensions out there; at the same time, it really and truly is on the surface, literally just oil paints on a canvas. I am looking directly at the union of the greatest abstraction and the greatest materiality…”[4]  For Kokolia, the idea of transferring images across different worlds might have its origin in printmaking. He has dedicated himself to this medium for almost as long as he has to painting (originally to be able to disseminate his drawings under the previous regime, when copy machines were under supervision). Since 1992 he has led the Studio of Experimental Graphics at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. The themes of a matrix, an imprint and a reversal of the image appear repeatedly in his written musings. He similarly incorporates his experience with Tai Chi in his painting. Both of his Chinese teachers, Gene Chen and Zhu Jiancai, taught Tai Chi to him in a completely matter-of-fact manner, without a pseudo-spiritual overlay, and Kokolia likewise leads his brushstrokes with a consideration for the precise transfer of strength.

Seeing painting The concentration on direct, unprejudiced seeing and effort to see seeing was followed by the materialization of seeing in an artefact. Apart from this, Kokolia certainly does not underestimate the special moment when a viewer turns up in front of a picture. This is confirmed by the fact that at his exhibitions he examines in detail the distance between the viewer and the picture, their movement around it, viewing angles and orientation of the view, as well as the time spent before the picture. For the sake of interaction, Kokolia occasionally resorts to popular or “discredited” forms. He styled one of his shows as a commercial sale in the course of which he lived, cooked and worked in the gallery. Another time he displayed “healing pictures” to which visitors were to “expose themselves”.

These and other strategies sought to provide viewers with sufficient time in front of pictures. Kokolia believes that the spent time itself causes that the mode of perception switches from a simple registration of visual information to abidance in a field of vision. The viewer, at least for a while, does not perceive a picture as a separate object, and the distance in the field of vision disappears. This situation can be generated, for example, by the induction of afterimages on the retina or by a view into the visual space of autostereoscopic pictures, as manifested by some of Kokolia’s exhibitions.

The image-in-itself In interviews and texts, Kokolia speaks ironically about such common and seemingly problem-free terms as “communication”, “opinion” and “expression”. And he doesn’t even have the word “art” in his lexicon. So, if he isn’t just taking a position, what would he offer instead? I suspect that Kokolia has own sect (of which he is the only member) that believes in the “image-in-itself”. Meaning that images exist, even if they are independent of observation. Even if nobody has seen them yet. Perhaps it is this belief that helps him not to be perilously captive to changes in the contemporary context.

[1] Borges, Jorge Luis, The Cambridge Companion to Jorge Luis Borges, p. 209 [2] Kokolia Vladimír, Úžas, habilitační přednáška, 1996, Akademie výtvarných umění [3] Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus logico-philosophicus 2.2 [4] S.M. Blumfeld, Prozření Vladimíra Kokolii, Vokno monthly, 1993, no. 27

Link: Vladimir Kokolia at Fait

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[mredwinsmith]

Mighty, Miniature Paintings

We’ve all heard stories about amazing people who overcome a hardship in order to continue doing what they love. That’s because humans are driven to create, to express, to do that one thing that we know in our hearts we were born to do. For many of us, creative expression is that thing. It certainly is for Joyce Washor, author of Think Big, Paint Small, a book dedicated to the art of miniature paintings.

Painting small: “Self Portrait” (oil on board, 3.75×2.75) by Joyce Washor

Joyce didn’t start out working on tiny substrates, but a developing problem in her shoulder left her unable to lift her arm to paint as she had in the past. Of course, that didn’t stop her from making art. She simply began working with more manageable, even miniature, boards and canvases, and with positive results.

“Many of the painting principles that I learned throughout the years didn’t make sense to me until I started painting on a smaller scale,” Joyce says. “Working small gives me more time and energy to devote to each painting, from mixing the right colors to paying attention to the brushwork and composition … The small paintings have all the same attention to detail that my larger paintings had. I don’t need to choose different objects to paint, but how I paint them has changed. I need to be more decisive with color choices and concentrate on using brushstrokes to define space and forms concisely. This has made my paintings stronger.”

Curious to try painting small yourself? In the following excerpt, you’ll learn how to arrange a composition for a miniature painting. Discover the rest of Joyce’s tips and lessons when you get your copy of Think Big, Paint Small today.

Keep painting, Cherie

Featured: Still Life with Orange Vase (oil on board, 3×4) by Joyce Washor

Scaling Down Your Compositions for Miniature Paintings

by Joyce Washor

On painting small: Create a Small Composition. You can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard to help you see how much you can fit within a small format. Photo by Paul Saltzman

One of the hardest things to get used to when painting small is scaling down your composition to fit within a sight size of 2.5×3.5. Obviously, whatever reference you’re painting from is probably not that small, and it can seem like an overwhelming challenge to scale things down. When I was first struggling with this concept, I came across a postcard from a two-person show I was in that featured an image of my 11×14 painting at about 3×4. Seeing this visual was a great help to me–it was a realization that I don’t have to sacrifice anything to paint on a small scale.

While setting up your still life or contemplating a landscape, you can use your hands or two L-shaped pieces of cardboard (fits together to form a frame) to block in a composition at the size you want it. This way, you can see exactly how much you can comfortably fit within your format at the very beginning of the process.

If your resulting drawing is still too large for this smaller format, you can use a photocopy machine or computer to scale it down. If you usually paint at 16×20, try going from an 8×10 to a 5×7 and on down until you reach the small format that you’d like to paint.

After I spent a couple of months painting at the 2.5×2.5 format, it began to feel the same as an 11×14 or a 16×20. It’s a little hard to explain, but the paintings feel so large and complete to me it’s as if I can walk around in them.

Shrinking Your References for Miniature Paintings

One of the best things you can do to render what you see as life-sized into a small format is to draw the composition as a single unit, not as individual items. 

Draw the Basic Outline

Start by blocking in the outermost edges of the objects—but as just one shape, not individual shapes.

Fill in the Outline

Draw the edges of the shape made by the objects, and add the table top.

Finish the Sketch

Now you can look at each object individually and add in each distinct shape.

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