Resistance v2: 2020

I made an image a week for the first year Donald Trump was president. One image a week—which gave me a little space to think about the significant image/idea and make an illustration from it. It was not easy to pick sometimes, but more often than not, the idea bubbled up with a degree of clarity that I really did not have to think too hard. Those images became a show at Exhibit A Gallery in Corning and were also the fodder for my “guerilla” resistance. I printed each card and placed them in literature racks around town and made them available for free for postcard writers and others interested in protesting the obscenity that this administration represented. Here are the images for your review. A few got published in national shows—and they were a good release for me.

However, as things began to wind up, I couldn’t focus on the one crystalline idea a week. It was all too much, too fast, too overlapping—-and I was (and still am) trying to drink from the firehose of information, media, stories, web of people, past and paperwork to really stay abreast of making an image. I had to let it settle and see if the inspiration would hit again. After a prompt from a graduate school friend and the coaxing of my family, I have climbed back on and started making images starting in mid August of this year. There are some themes (need themes to give me a hook and a push)—1. Saints and Sinners; 2. 10,000 Novel Coronavirus 19. The first is what it is, Saints and Sinners…not just those who are malicious, but those people who hearten and raise our spirits, the Saints. The second is to recognize every 10,000. people killed by the virus. I started at 180,000, 190,000 and have 200,000 in the offing. The coronavirus is apolitical and is busy being the best virus it can be—and I figured instead of hating it, I would embrace it, honor it and depict it not as a threat, but something that is here and needs to be regarded in awe and frankly, wonder at it’s ability to expand it’s reach. In giving it color and texture and adding the virus to everyday things—it might help me to be less fearful but still be cautious around it.

I will be posting on Facebook, on Instagram and here—and when a new one happens, I will post here just to give it a little space before it is cojoined with the group.

02.05.2020

It’s the beginning of the year (alright, its a month in) and the beginning of another decade. Another decade!! What happened? I am so worn down from the “drinking from the firehose” that I have been doing since this heinous man was elected that I really have lost touch of much else It’s been a rollercoaster ride of hope and agony, of assumed beliefs and the true seediness, greed and grift that so many politicians, lobbyists, and oligarchs engage in— to keep most of us in line, eating the scripted pablum and moving forward to keep them rich, in power and in control. It has been a horror to discover that the bottom always has a bottom, and in this world— there is no bottom, just freeflight which seems to be getting faster and faster to what end? To our end? to the end of an idea, an idea called “America”?

I used to do a picture a week to focus on resistance around this administration and their sycophants and that was well and good until I could not decide which horror was the worst—as the words, the chaos, the horrors, the mis-steps, the sniping and backbiting, the 7/24 need to tend to the news just to make sure no one was dead, or we were on the brink of war. At that point, art seemed irrelevant. It wasnt speaking to me, but became, to some degree, a talking point with my friends—but something that really did not drive change in the lovely liberal bubble I float in.

I have to get my images back. I have to get back to making things. I have to gather myself back up and have a voice. It used to give me strength even in the frivolity that I could chat with you.

So, to that, I am going to start to write— the tip of the brain to the tip of the cyber pen, just to begin to exercise the old brain—and as a small diversion from the tragedy that has befallen and continues to strike our America. I may start ranting. I may give you my book list. I may tell you some tales. Or we might crack open the jolly book of ideas and pictures and have a few laughs together. That might be nice?

Talk to you tomorrow.

Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Two

Sugar Coated Advent 2012, Candy Corn Roof, Day Two, Q. Cassetti, 2012, vectorHere we go! Day two with 23 more to happen! Illustration with a bow, just for you.

The brooches, pins, pendants, bracelets and goodies are selling well along with cards (the holiday cards cleaned out…with the need for me to restock tomorrow). We will be showing the same goods to another store and possibly interesting a third in valentines cards. So this crazy scheme of going retail is moving albeit slowly, but I am learning a lot about cost of goods and living it…versus the talking that I am so good at.

I need to jump off to get back of picture making. I am a bit obsessive and on fire.

See you tomorrow!

Back in the Saddle.

Kitty and Tucker, Q. Cassetti, 2011It was full tilt through Christmas. We had a nice day together with everyone loving their presents and loving being together. It was food food and food. The best, to my thinking, was the smoked salmon I opened for lunch…but the cooking and food for dinner was good. I would have changed some things but that is past tense. We had a delightful time with our friends with lots of laughs, ideas, and even Alex and a guest playing music together.

Yesterday, we had lunch at Moosewood (the famous vegetarian restaurant) which we have not graced for a decade at least. They had the BEST ginger tea concoction that Kitty and I happily had. I swapped a book for the Mark Bittman 

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food— so thematically we had a vegetarian date with Kitty, Alex and Elly.  We were at the wonderful, handpicked and edited selection of books at Buffalo Street Books. I bought Kitty a pocket moleskine calendar and a wall calendar featuring treehouses that she was squealing about. I splurged and bought an inspiring, Provensen zone illustrator/ artist, Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life  I got to see a ton of his work at the Lab of Ornithology at Cornell (his birds) and was struck by his simplicity and graphic quality of his illustration. A kick in the pants for this chick. Here is a google search on his work>> I mean…look at Harper’s work and compare it to the ever famous, ever visible Eric Carle. Similar? (I would go so far as to be better..better design, better style though I love Carle).

Bassett, Charley Harper“I don’t think there was much resistance to the way I simplified things. I think everybody understood that. Some people liked it and others didn’t care for it. There’s some who want to count all the feathers in the wings and then others who never think about counting the feathers, like me.” Charley Harper

Don’t you love him? Check out his site>>

We picked up Kitty’s Christmas ring (resized). And then, on our way home, Elly invited us to see Tucker, her hawk…which we did along with seeing how she works with him to fly and return to her. Kitty gave it a shot (picture above). It was a real treat with this brilliant bird swooping down out of the tall trees to land gracefully on Elly’s glove (for fun and a big meaty treat).

Today, I am back in the saddle at the office. I am hoping to get on the small farm brand I have committed to. I have knocked down several ouchies on my list that kept sliding off…so there is hope.  Tonight we hear the Stringbusters at Maxis with hopefully movies afterward (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

More later.

A charmer

Jean Tuttle is a charmer, an inspiration. She is a lovely person inside and out and an illustrator—and her grace and wit spills into the work happily. I love her professional work. Hope Katz Gibbs writes about her on her “Truly Amazing Women who are changing the world and how you can, too!” site, here> but just getting to know her and see how she brings her sense of fun, imagination and thinking of others into her life with images —weaving them into her day to day. Jean has done the most thoughtful thing and is sharing it with all  of her fans (moi included)—which is that she leaves her dad a picture at the breakfast table every morning featuring their three cats engaged in some cute thing having to do with current family life. The cats raising an alarm that there wasn’t much to eat in the kitchen and that Jean should get to the store is here>> The cats and mice going on vacation>>  Every detail is smart and fun—from the personalities of the individual cats (Charlotte in her Ralph Lauren coat—all fashion forward) to Blackie taking charge), to the little greek chorus of mice who fill in the story, add flourishes to the story (the way Jean does visually) and little cute quips and sidebars. Such loving, sweet images that just make my day (and I am sure Jean’s dad)—that burst with cleverness. It would be great if this impromptu work could suggest a book (which I would be first in line for). I thought you would enjoy Jean, her imagination and how she shares her talent with all of us.

Fatline Experiments, Q .Cassetti, 2011 pen and inkI am still on the fatline project. The notebooks are too small for the line width, so the sketchbook is going up in size to see how this evolves. I spent some time this weekend reading one of my great Fraktur books, Bucks County Fraktur from the Pennsylvania German Society, edited by Cory M. Amsler (1999). I love how the neighborhood, the itinerant schoolmasters, the religious and musical culture were so prescribed, and yet drove this remarkable body of original work. Many of the bookplates and hymnbook covers were done essentially as Pennsylvania German “atta boys” for students that performed or who helped tutor the less strong students. The Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates were a way for these artist teachers to make a little extra money on the side— Many of these itinerant artists were first or second generation German (with German being their main language), bringing over German/Bavarian inspiration and visual language, combined with visual reference being woodcuts (many very primitive). Throw all of that in an active mind in the countryside…churn and see what evolves. Many of these works on paper were created with blank spaces designed into the piece so they could be filled out on the fly as they were peddled from door to door.

Am busy with interesting work on my desktop.  The art folks have their deck. I need to get on the Museum for their projects. There were some nice name progression projects. I am close on a few…the horizon is something I can see.

There is some nice traction around the Library poster (to the right)  and the nice event planned for this Saturday. Heather H. has worked her magic and pulled her props (candy store, lemonade stand), ordered cakes, called musicians. There was talk of theatricals (which I think didn’t make it) but perhaps an impromptu tableau vivant? Two hundred years of books is quite an accomplishment for our little village. There is a lot to toast!

It is dreary and raining though the trees are gold. Gold and grey. The trees are beginning to dump their leaves a bit so that wonderful fall light can dapple and change our environment as the season begins to move into full fledged autumn.

IF: Mysterious

Mystery, Q. Cassetti, 2006, Adobe Illustrator CS3

lab work : v.3

Lab illustration, Q. Cassetti, 2010, digitalClient loves dogs. I love dogs. Here is the second holiday animal card due this eek. There is a bit more tweaking with the dog, but this gets us close enough for conversation. 

Lots of work around color palettes for the other client along with some mini meetings on covers of brochures and on newsletters. I have a 1 hr meeting about a masthead I can fully wait for…as this dy seems to be back to back with little time to do anything…So, I wanted to post this just to say hey… and get back to you later with any news that is fit to be printed.

Tburg is sucking up the leaves by the side of the road today. Shady Grove is snoring…and Mr. white has snuggled down inbetween my papers and is  making all sorts of throaty sounds trying to steer clear of the Emperor of the Cats and the fights he likes to draw poor Mr. White into.

More later.

Black and White

I have been looking at antique silhouettes and Pennsylvania scherenschnitte. I am surprised and happy as they have a relationship to some of the inked flopped illustrations and patterns I have spinning out..and feel that the narrative aspects of this artwork (example above) I can learn from. I am delighted by the rambling lines, the erratic trees and buildings with tons of detail but still staying as bold and graphic that they are. I am thinking of trying to draw some of these (maybe using the example as a place to start). I discovered a few illustrators that seem to be working in this same vein. One, Rob Ryan, who Daniel Schwartz from the illustration program at the University of Hartford pointed me to. I love his whimsey and fun along with incorporating a whackdoodle font/type into his image. Drawn, the illustration and cartooning blog tips their hat to Mr Ryan>> Here's another great one from the blog, "I heart art heart illustration" Ryan has a shop in London of his work>>. The Creativity Blog has a great article (with a picture of Rob Ryan) here>>. I am inspired by him, his work, his vision and his entrepeneurism. Big old kick in the booty for me.

Thrilled. The Hangar likes the posters. One down. Three more volunteer jobs to go. Am making progress on the other images too....it just takes time. Am enjoying the stuff on the desk. The folks at Zazzle's ArtProjekt are developing a new product that I am thrilled about. They contacted a bunch of designers and illustrators to help customize this thing...which was very fun for me (albeit its quick) and I am pumped about. This is going to be a real star. As soon as I can tell you about it, I will as its something we all will want!

More later>>