Not much to say, but groundbreaking :-)

Oh… haha Not groundbreaking too much. But I’m encouraged by art of the last 3+ years, and the blog and website are coming together well. I haven’t had such good feelings overall in quite a while.

First about my artwork itself. It’s coming together in some new ways for me. I see combinations and recombinations… and brand new, creative ideas appearing in the work. Well I couldn’t ask for more, really.

Not only in the work itself, I’m finding ways and means for it to leave the nest that feel more secure for me. And more open to experimentation. And more open to the wider world of creative expression. What am I trying to say? It’s too early to tell. I just fell more open to new expressions of art showing. And this is all important!! (two exclamation points here, for IMPORTANT 🙂 ) A naturally shy individual artist like me needs as much exposure as he, she, or they can make happen. When it doesn’t flow naturally and easy, it needs to flow just the same. Art needs to be seen, as a general consensus. Some artists don’t care too much. But i want my individual artworks to find homes and find their forever homes in the world.
Sometimes i have to go through a mental process to let them go, but still, I know their homes are for most pieces, out in the world, and ultimately, for all.

There it is. I simply needed to make a new post. The website, and blog, really, have new energy – in the design, and very soon, new art.

I have quite a few artworks to upload to the website and here on the blog. It won’t be too long, hopefully. I’m painting, and working on the website and blog every day. This with determination and goals.

New Paintings

I haven’t posted for a long time. I’ve been working on my art fairly steadily though. I made several paintings, acrylic paintings, on wood. Black and white they are & I really enjoyed the “process” as artists say, a lot!!

I’m going to keep this post rather short. My recent work of the last year and a half or so has been acrylic paintings on canvas. A couple of them were black and white and still very fulfilling as an artist.

But now I’m committed (for the time being anyway) to making large-ish acrylic paintings on canvas – almost all 4 by 5 feet in size.

So they’re not New York huge but they’re big enough to be able to stretch out and let the paint do fab things on its own and let me do fab things on my own. I don’t have any good photos at this point but I’ll get that done soon.

And I promise not to use the word Fab no mo. I suspect it fell into the slang junk heap many years ago. And I may be an age now where very few slang words stick to me properly. Yeah… I could be in the Teflon years linguistically. Oh Foo! 😆

 

Candle-lit (happy little shadow)

Candle-lit (happy little shadow)
digital image

This image was created on Photoshop in 1996. Actually it was probably 1995. Ok, let’s move on before the mouse clicking gets so loud!

It’s never been turned into a brix’n mortar artwork, except that the candle and rainbow flame culminating in the ha;;y li’l fire-head elf structure was used in my huge Heliodor wall sculpture. So that’s certainly like Pinocchio becoming a real boy of some sort.

For some reason I painted the fire-bridge in Heliodor purple. Not sure why. I did paint Heliodor THREE TIMES. That zig-zaggy fire-bridge was yellow the second time, for sure. I’ve forgotten what color I painted it the first.

And why three times? Oh, I’m just restless that way sometimes. It looked very good the first time. I invited an art school painting grad over to see it. He said it was a “handsome painting.” I think that made me want to repaint it. Can’t even deal with compliments!! Ha! Handsome sounded like pretty, to me. And I don’t like that word too much.

Little did I know that my little digital artwork, which I also worked for for quite a while, would work my a** off so much!! Heliodor is so big!! And heavy. It got transported to Houston for a show, and now moved about 4 times in my house. But no more. It’s a beautiful monster… that one is 🙂

Heliodor (gift of the sun) – 1996

Robert L Terrell Art Gallery

Here’s a favorite corner of my art gallery. It used to be my living room. But I’ve always been an artist, and why do I need a living room? I really answered this question for my own overly busy brain some art eons ago.

Per living arrangements, I need a certain level of of comfort and convenience. It’s a soft-target level low-ending at pup tent in the backyard (after my art has completely filled every home nook and all house crannies). The upper end of the target, scale (what have you) is, of course) would be to evict Generalissimo D from Mar-a-Lago.

But no eviction will be necessary … He’ll soon enough be on the big Vulcan Arc to Mars, with all the Red Staters! Y’all didn’t think I posted that photo of the biggie Haboob just for fun-sies did ya? I’m just getting people used to what their life will be like on MARS-a lago.

Ya see… I don’t want politics to interfere with my truly true love of making my art and website fun postings. And I think the big political tensions in the USA now seem to be possibly escalating into oppositional war. More and more, some folks seem to be turning  their politics into complete views of reality, philosophy, religion, etc.

I think the best solution to these building political and philosophical tensions may be to begin now to divide up by planetary political color!! The blue voters get Earth – the blue planet and the red voters get Mars – the red planet. I’m not sure who the independents and non-voters will get. They may finally HAVE to make a choice. It’s sort of a Sophie’s choice for some of them. But if I can make a suggestion, I believe that going with the blue voters and continuing to live on Earth (which has an atmosphere & water & food) might be something for the independents to consider 🙂 

Hey, I’m an artist, right? I think in color a lot, and it really only seems fair. If we separate the two opposing viewpoints by millions of miles, it’s sure to bring an era of Blue and Red Edens once again. Or, once…

What could be more fair than that??

And for now, please keep coming back to my blog! This is definitely not a political blog. I might go off on a political tear once in a blue moon is all. And by the way, the blue moons stay with the blue planet. Again, it’s my color thing. Don’t blame me for that! Yeah, also, we get Elvis’s version of Blue Moon of Kentucky (all versions of it by everybody). Singing Blue Moon of Kentucky will be absolutely FORBIDDEN on the Red Planet!!

But I didn’t answer the question really, did I? I mean about my soft-target art studio / living arrangement. That’s quite easy since I’ve been dreaming about it a day longer than forev-er 🙂

My Santa Fe Dream Studio & Artist’s Life

A wood floored studio in Santa Fe, with skylights, and all the classic architecture. About 30′ x 30′ should take care of my needs. Plus a woodshop out back. With heating in winter! Important – I want heating for Santa Fe winters. And an adjacent studio apartment. Of course I must have a gallery connection in Santa Fe, too. That’s an essential part of the Santa Fe package deal!

GALACTIC SNACK 3.006 (fiddle-faddle nebula)

Bas-relief painting – synthetic polymer paint on wood
15″ x 30″ – 2001

The Milky Way is hungry again. The super black hole in the middle of our galaxy is gobbling up … everything!!

 

The Four Seasons As Seen Through the Eyes of Jessica’s Sock Monkey

The Four Seasons As Seen Through the Eyes of Jessica’s Sock Monkey
Oil/Canvas
50 × 72 in – 127 × 182.9 cm
1997

No I certainly didn’t paint this fantastic painting. It’s a Robert Williams. I’ve been admiring it for years  🙂 Since it doesn’t belong to me, I could run afoul of copyright issues and be forced to remove it from my blog. I hope I won’t have to because my only intention is to get more people interested in Robert William’s paintings, show one of my art influences, and get to enjoy viewing this wonderful sock monkey painting (of course).

Yes he’s an infuence of mine, but a later career influence. I really began to study the lowbrow artists about 10 years after I graduated from art school, so that would be 1987. he painted this in 1997. So, that’s enough math. We’re not in high school here on my blog, so take a deep cleansing breath and… you know the routine. This is supposed to be a happy & fun blog. No pop quizzes. No punchin’ time clox.

No bosses ragin’ ‘n raggin’ on ya 🙂

Robert Williams began his career in Southern California – a Hot Rod artist, and enthusiast. His art definitely still reflects that interest. It’s still Hot Rod with an emphasis on HOT but not so much in this wonderful painting. He does intellectual, or pseudo-intellectual, depending upon your take. I’ll take it as it comes, myself.

And often his art comes a WHOLE lot edgier, weirder and more confrontational than this piece. Here’s another interesting Robert Williams painting to peruse and ponder:

The Waterhead that was Raised in a Box
144 Color Hand-pulled serigraph
26 x 30 in ~ 66 × 76.2 cm
1992

 

(the) Cave of Forgotten Snowmen

Charcoal & pastel painting on wood
2015 – 24″x60″

This is the Snowman charcoal drawing one. Yes, I blog-bloviated about it in my “Panoply” post. It’s my ode to the demise of snowmen 😦 Will they disappear forever? I’m not sure, but I hope not. Of course I don’t have to live way.. way up above the Arctic Circle. After I move there for a few decades I’ll repost. THEN we can see how nostalgic I remain about the Great White North with its ten feet of snow for months at a time. Or its soggy tundra and southern invaders fleeing fires, drought, floods, heat . . .

Maybe it’ll be a gentle warming, like chestnuts roasting on a open fire. This is Christmas Day <:>}

But I have a feeling I’d still feel the same, even if I didn’t, somehow. The earth’s climate seems to be a very flexible entity. It is wind after all. Wind and the windy people who get windy about it. Like I’m doing right now!! HA!

Oh, I make light of something that’s important to me. And worse, it’s important to my inner self, that eternally youthful self in me. Now that’s a sad thing to be doing. But it’s a protection from the coming waves of warm and warmer that I fear. More than cold.

More than cold.

I console myself by remembering one important fact about this charcoal-pastel drawing:

(the) Cave of Forgotten Snowmen is a visual experience

It’s reason #1 when I’m asked why I create them. I never set out to try to change, or save the world with my artwork,

 

 

Panoply (drop your guard)

wall sculpture-painting – synthetic polymer paint on wood
1998 – 20″x24x6″(deep)

Ah! Panoply! We hardly knew ye 😦 But you have a nice home with my friend an ex-coworker at TTUSOA. I guess that’s not the name of that art school now. Somebody, quick! Hand me an Acronymosaurus!! Ha! Well, don’t care to go there. I love this wall sculpture and I want to dream nostalgic about it.

Panoply has a lot going on, face to face. But it has as much or more going on around the corner(s). Unfortunately I let those photos get lost in the e-zone. My bad, really, e-bad on me!

I may not be able to repair that loss. Anyway, Panoply was the first appearance of “The Snowmen.” I am not sure I quite appreciated what they were all about at that time – almost ten years before I drew & painted “The Cave of Lost Snowmen.”

Did I know I was beginning to paint environmental “global warming” art? I don’t quite think so. But my deep soul did. And now it’s quite important with Generalissimo Bozo having hijacked the Oval Office and being all busy as a busted brain bumble bee trying to deny the reality of the death of “The Snowmen.”

I cannot sit back and do nothing at all. I know I can do little. So I must retrieve the edge photos of this artwork – they show the first appearance of King Snowman I …

The Snowmen help keep the earth on track and in its orbit!!

Cave of Forgotten Snowmen