Midweek jazz


Churning on the whimsies of the holidays. Worried about getting off the blocks on this one...and somehow have jumped on the wheel and are getting someplace...phew! Working with the pentel and getting some nice scrubby lines...and going to put some stuff together with photoshop. Speaking of photoshop, I am psyched as I just ordered a new edition of Adobe CS3. Should be fun to see the new features especially in illustrator.

Am going to finish up on the first Memento Mori book this weekend. Am also thinking of doing some long output, and doing a few accordian paneled pieces to offer up for sale. I will have the complete book for sale as well. I have 3 cards that I will offer--all for the Art Trail. Am thinking of grouping all of the skull stuff from Syracuse and the complete Memento Mori (to date) in one space...kind of merchandising it all together. I will get my anatomic skull out and also offer a free postcard for taking.

Working on some borders and frames re MM. Also intrigued with the flipped image idea. Need to seriously design one prior to scaling up the sketch. Also, need more patterns (willow, basket, woven) to incorporate in the work. Need more cut shapes. Like whats happening with the urns. Was looking at a plaster mirror frame we have that is in black and old gold...very empire...could really work with this stuff.

I was thumbing through one of the many house magazines we had lying about and ran across a wonderful article on transferware (which I totally adore). There is a nice memento mori hook with this...and would be intrigued about taking a picture of some white china...and merging my illustrations with the shape...or applying illustration to it...as part of either the sketch process or part of the finalization. Let's think, china decoration, skateboards, tattoos, hooked rugs? The Memento Mori lifestyle? Must force orange, lime green and magenta into the designs...

More later.

Queen of Time


Inspired by the Queen of Hearts. New adds to the qcassetti.com website--a little Memento Mori grouping. Looks strong. Had a good chat with Jim Carson about possible work together, about Hartford and the SU program. He is a delight. It would be great to work together.

Had a nice lunch with a Tburg pal who seems to have the pulse on everything. She spoke eloquently about loons and their lifestyle...(the babies ride on their backs!) and the work she needs to engage in for a local project on loons.

Holiday cards in the works. I worry about just doing the work...there isnt a lot of heart in it...

more later

Another perfect plateau day


We watched the first segment of Ken Burns' Second World War production. I am dragging around this morning...but well worth the fatigue as Ken Burns' always can galvanize a topic whether you like it or not...and make it the most bittersweet, turbulent and fascinating topic imaginable. And this war doesnt need any help. Well worth the watching...plan it if you can.

Shady, regardless of her limping condition with a cast, was wildly chasing squirrels this morning. What a good sport.

Need to roll into some work...and will try and say something a little later. This is a new memento mori photoshop image...using all hand generated images and fused together...using the best "paste into" feature.

Huh!

Hilary, a new gal pal of mine, is an inspired fiber artist, teacher and mentor to many. She knows a lot of stuff about everything--and seems to have a beat on the right thing to do. She is very community driven and is beginning to be active with the positioning and thinking around her studio building (on our little old Main Street) and the visual arts community in Tburg. She wants to partner with the Art Trail Tburgers--and will be mounting a parallel show during those weekends around the idea of harvest and bounty (as evidenced in our fields and vineyards) this fall. We had lunch last week to chew the fat and both gripe about our experiences at Syracuse. Her roots go much deeper as her father was a professor, her brother involved in sports, and she got her undergraduate (and I think graduate) from SU. She has taught there--so she wears many, many hats. I was down on my thesis experience--and her response was for me to give her the paper and we would do our own review. Huh!

While we dug into lunch, she asked me some very pointed questions about where did my work come from, and from there, could we begin to peek into where it is going. Huh, again. I explained that my experience as a graphic designer was to create clean canvases, with ordered content and essentially creating windows to showcase visual content such as photography, graphics, or illustration. My job was to listen to what the client was really saying (not with their mouth) but often with things they point to or in the round about way that stories are told with messages and orientation. I view my presence as a designer essentially as the conductor. When one listens to a piece of music, one doesn't (unless you are very astute) immediately say, "Damn, what a conductor!". You are more likely to admire the showmanship or dexterity of the musicians, the interpretation of the music, or just hear the piece without question. I think this is true with my graphic design work. My clients don't immediately say "Damn, what a designer!". They are more likely to like how simple the piece is, easy to read, the type is elegant and legible, there is a flow with breaks and surprises, beautifully printed, gorgeous photography. But, as the conductor--I made all those choices--and put them together. Gorgeous photography badly printed or overlaid with a nasty palette of colors, horsy type or something over the top stylin' results in a collision, a visual car wreck. For me, not good design. So, I like to essentially be invisible--the silent one moving the needle, showcasing all the other talent--the copywriter, the client, the photographer--and making it all sing together as if it was intended to be.

I take great pleasure in that process, and gain a great deal in the relationships I build with my clients who become friends--and the synergy of a long term relationship grows as each project progresses. This is the best kind of work.

Now, along comes this illustration thing. I am no longer invisible. I am one of those folks that I like to create clean canvases for. It is my viewpoint, my image, my visual decisions that are out there...open for ridicule, open for critique, open to show really, truly what I think...not a processed version built on consensus with the client, the client's client and all the other parties that filter into the mix as a designer. I know that I can be quite outspoken as an individual...and I think there is a lot of fear in me to hide behind what's safe versus trying to put something more original, more me out there. It is a very brave thing. None of us like rejection--and that is the place I immediately go versus having the confidence to move forward. Why isn't my thinking and opinion as valid as the next guys?

perfect Sunday


High blue skies. No clouds. Wind is up giving us a little whitecap action on the water surges towards us with the wind being distinctly from the North. Same olive leaves. Tinges on color on the edges, but not much. It is very much the tail end of summer--with no autumn in sight.

Started in on the baskets of tomatoes this morning. Endless amounts of leeks, carrots, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, pepper, salt, parsley and basil stewing down to nothingness (or at least my hope). It should be a couple of days to get this going...but now thinking about it...a few pots on the stove versus one might help. The lady at the Kingtown Road apple stand says that this is the season that her Nesco (an enormous, church supper style slow cooker) comes in handy. I Now....can understand. I've always wanted to have a reason to own a Nesco....and it might be within our sights. We'll see.

Poor Shady with her cast was the talk of the cross country meet. Everyone had the universal opinion and remarks...with all of our hearts touched in her sweet demeanor, trying hard to be a good sport and amble along on three legs versus her full set. Lots of positive reinforcement for A. and his good time and placement. He is on top of the world. He is reading a book (!! not something that he often puts forth as an option) right now and is planning an afternoon with friends.

There is the lawn and some trumpet vine management for his parents. The fragrant hosta have died down. The second generation of day lilies are coming up.

Memento mori marches forward. It is interesting to look at William Morris more closely. He is very good at moving the forms into the foreground and background--forcing leaves to bend and have a plane in front and back. He has a little signature curly shape/tube that he uses as fill from the big plants he imposes on the canvas. The color is linear or blocked in...allowing overlap and shapes (a la the tiger teeth) to give the viewer another color in that transition. Color helps his illustrations, enlivens them--but relative to the composition, seems almost incidental. I am going to work with these ideas a bit. Maybe not Now, now. But soon.

So, the book finishing on October 1 will be all black and white. I think the next one will be the same...and then a slow introduction of color if it feels right. I like having these self-imposed guidelines on the work as there is so much in each space, that some constraints force me back into the image and hand without color, the sword of Damocles, hanging over my head. The work seems better/ tighter with limitations on topic , color and size. I will continue to use this wonderful Canson paper (Montval Field Sketch book) but will only use one side of the paper as R and I concurrently came to the conclusion that the work may want to be removed from the books without worrying about what's on the back. Using that think, it is a dilemma about what to show, what to remove etc. Though there are scans, there is a liveliness to the real ink on paper. The real thing.

Priced a 128 page book (black and white text, color color, perfect bound) with a limited quantity being 35 books, and it figured at $5.92. If I boost my quantity to 50--they figure in at $5.47. And at 100 pcs it goes to $4.93. So, even doing 50 will not break the bank. Full color doesnt cost much more than black and white.The other cost is the gorgeous epson print for the cover and ribbon...but even at $2. a pop...how bad is that for cost of goods? or cost of promotion?

Another thought, take the patterns that are evolving in this process and create a separate publication for them. The thing that would take this one step further is to include a cd of these files (in illustrator or in a vector format) and include the art as part of the pub. allowing whoever purchased the piece to have a library of scrap they can utilize. It goes against the exclusivity thing, but could be a nice extra particularly if it had borders and frames? Another way to get the work out there...and if the Roger DeMuth "I can easily do 700 of them in a week" holds true...there are plenty of patterns where they have come from... Thoughts?

More later>>

Image above:
William Morris, "Brer Rabbit" block printed furnishing cotton, manufactured by Morris & Co., 1882, England, Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC.

Keeping up


Just got back from Auburn because a big cross country event was there that A was in. He came in 7th of 75 kids--and this is his second week training and doing this sport. He looks very strong and solid as he runs...and between us, I think he is a natural.

Bought two huge wooden baskets of roma tomatoes ($4 @) and am gearing up to do the cooking down and freezing thing. R. has been in the thrall of a book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which details the ever present use of corn, and corn syrup thoughout our diets--something that is the demon. We try to eat simply--not processed--and our intent now is whenever possible, eat locally, buy from the farms things are grown--especially patronizing the amish here as it is totally low carbon--and about as organic as it gets. We are going to try to buy as much meat/poultry that we can get locally that is wild, or free range/grassfed as possible. This may change the mix on the plate, but so much the better for all of us. We will bend seasonally , as May-November here promises good things...but being eye to eye with another hubbard squash come February 28th is daunting. But, we will not buy asparagus and peaches that have been flown half way around the world to grace our tables during those dreary months. We are pretty much on track with this stuff--it just means tweaking the meat. And soda, we are stopping all soda except for those products with cane sugar (Jones for an instance)--as this is the biggest user of corn syrup and to be honest, where is it getting anyone? So, there is my puritanical rant.

Had a great chat with Carol about Hartford yesterday. So much so, I woke up at 2 a.m. and solved the world's problems, and mapped out some strategies for her that I am anxious to put on paper. I am looking forward to Hartford, but am happy I didn't double up this summer. First, my business would have suffered and second--I might not have gotten the learning in such a full measure if it was so much. Now, I can revel in my little projects, and think about the next chapter with a little more space.

Re: Memento Mori. The book is around 96 pps. I have come to an executive decision. I am going to finish the first book on my birthday, October 1. Seems somehow appropriate. I am going to fire it off to Lulu for one copy to check on the crossovers (its perfect bound), and how close they come with the trimming. If that is good, I am going to do an edition of somewhere between 35-50 (printing 25 now) and make it a limited edition. The limited edition of 50 is good as it squeeks me into the SOI show for the next year--as that is the minimum. I am going to output a lovely big cover on my epson...with a ribbon and have a few for the Ithaca Art Trail to sell, a few to sell from my blog and a few to use as self promotion to my clients and friends. This new progression with the floral images has been fun and probably will preoccupy me until the first. I am liking the black and white balance, the ability to crank up the volume either on the skull or on the flowers and obscure one with another...R. thinks there are tattoos and Georg Jensen style jewelry in the future. I am thinking skateboards and books. A gamely proposed if I designed a good tattoo, he might get one...That is enough to have me run for the hills.

Have been looking at William Morris and Will Bradley's illustrations for insight and inspiration on how they handle the black and white thing. Need to get a little closer to this. Their balance of black and white, their energy of line and pattern is extrordinary. I feel there is something relative to the use of line and in the case of Morris, how he handles color and type that could serve as an inspiration on this Memento Mori project.

Beautiful and warm here in Sheldrake. Low 80s. I am tired due to solving the world's problems but think a total submersion might do the trick--albeit it might be a bit brisk.

quick snap


Lots of stuff on the plate for today. Should be busy between my various clients, the finishing up of the second shot of a 90 pp book for Big Red, and the volunteer stuff (which I am always surprised is so time dependent). But if I chip away at the new stuff...at least there will be movement and I will begin to feel better about this stuff.

Community Dance this Sunday near the old telephone company building. Local bands and chicken barbeque promised. More later. I am up against it with our friend Mr. Time.

New spot above working the skull vegetation thing.

mid-week progress

Took poor Shady Grove to the vet to find out that she had broken a toe...and needed to have a splint for a month. So, now she is a three legged dog with a turquoise cast that she is trying to make the best of...albeit squirrels and blue jays are out of the picture for the meanwhile. She is very limpy and sad...but trying to put her sweet self into making us not feel so bad about her hurt. We all ache for her attempt to be jaunty albeit on three legs.

Beautiful day here on the plateau. Trees are promising to change though they havent. We have teensy yellow mushrooms growing in the hosta bed. The lawn is lush. Trees are still green. Perennial grasses also still green. Corn and tomatoes still abound. Bricks from the facade fell off of the Hazelnut Kitchen fascia. Tough going on this topic. Book sale coming up next week I think. The running race to celebrate the local inspired teacher and coach coming along. Society of Illustrators application coming on.

A. came in second in his first cross country meet. Big things there.

Actually did thumbnails for the new memento mori images. Still on the sinuous and florid. On fire about that. Too bad I need to work.

Back to square one on holiday cards for a client. I have big hours into this...and here we are again. Need to move on it. FIrst I need to sleep on it.

Later.

Inspiration


Working away on a bunch of images with skulls and flowers. On a roll. A very florid, flourishy look to these illos. The image (above) is from Shebbear (Devon, England) and is the spark for this new series of pictures. The ink keeps flowing--and I find that these images are contained decorative pieces that look to the work of the Mexican graphic/ comic artist, Jose Guadalupe Posada. Posada's work is far edgier and far more socio-political than the stuff that is flowing off my pen. But I do love his pen work, his thicks and thins, the whimsy his work embraces. The holy card with the wack typography makes me laugh.

A little on Posada:
José Guadalupe Posada was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico in 1851. He studied lihography in Trinidad Pedroso's Workshop of Popular Graphics, and became a contributor to the magazine El Jicote in 1871. He soon developed his famous sarcastic style, and it is possible that he was forced to move to Léon, Guanjato, where he taught lithography at a high school. In 1888, he moved to Mexico City, where his career as an illustrator really took off. He contributed his political drawings to numerous newspapers and magazines. He was especially known for his satires of the regime of dictator Porfirio Díaz, but he also created the famous "calaveras", the skeletons. Drawing on the Mexican cultural myth of the celebration of death, he depicted several stereotypes as skeletons, giving his work a sarcastic, joking touch.

Etching of St. Juan Diego by Jose Guadalupe Posada.
A calavera, which means "skull" in Spanish, is a type of traditional Latin American ornament or treat used on the Dia de Los Muertos ("Day of the Dead"). They are primarily made of sugar and are shaped in the image of skulls–usually with colorful designs. Many families have their own traditions in the calaveras. For example, in Mexican and Mexican American families it is traditional for each member of the family to have a sugar calavera with their name in it.

As I said before, no shortage of inspiration. To think it comes out of the kitchen too!

Start of a new week


Lots of little things to do today, do this week, tidy up the head, the piles of junk/papers and books, get the SOI entries done. K starts a pottery class today. A has his first cross country meet tomorrow. The Chris Bond image needs to be finalized. R. suggested the shoe was a bit morbid (with or without wings) and that maybe we should look at a "compass rose" approach instead...more about positive directions...and not about a fallen soldier.

Working with a nice piece of reference of a skull with flowers twining with the eye sockets. It is a bas relief, but feels very Will Bradley, William Morris-y. The idea of a floral image juxatosed with the skull is good...and evocative. Adams skull at the base of the cross. Growth from death. Regeneration kind of thing. There is a nice, huge thistle in the reference too...maybe I can work one in in the group that comes from this.

Work beckons. More later

Image above is one of yesterday's sketchbook pages. Corner skull is going to morph into a frame. the silhouettes of the urns are going to morp into a spread of sihouettes and also serve as photoshop fodder.

Sunday Sunday


We were invited to a lovely fall picnic complete with roasting pigs, delicious food, a gorgeous fire with a perfect stone fire circle, an interesting group of smart and cool people and then totally artful fireworks. The fireworks were designed and ignited by friends of one of our hostesses--IT/ Computer Science guys who are entertained by this in their spare time. There were screaming squiggles, large evocative puffs that hung in the air and the absolute best, a silver waterfall over a tall stone wall that R claimed all we needed was a heavy metal group to play along with it. Wagging tails and friendly dogs abounded--many of them grinning in their happiness. K. was delighted by the sheer biology and anatomical aspects of the pigs. She marveled at the beasts--pleased by the kidneys, of all things. And she is still happily a carnivore. We were honored to be included in the group as it was a fun time, beautiful time and a chance to be outside in the cold air.

R to paint the outline of the soon to be new driveway. A playing basketball with friends. More laundry to beat the band. I have groceries and cooking and getting ready for next week as my musts.

Memento mori continues. Everlife Memorials gets into the easy listening interpretation of symbols here>> with my favorite reference to dogs saying: "Modern dogs only imply that the master was worth loving." Sad. Nothing more to say about the deceased but that they were worth loving. Pathetic. It is nice that those colonial Americans didn't need to be marketed to. You had some choices, but simple ones unless you were very well to do, and could afford a portrait or something way over the top like the Susanna Jayne headstone/ footstone extravaganza in Marblehead. This baby is a total symbol blowout with a skeleton bust crowned with a laurel wreath, cupids, bats, hourglass and bones, and the cosmic sun and moon. And this is just the headstone. Whoa. The images are whimsical in their expression...friendly and very inviting. Not scary in the least bit. I love the abbreviation of the ribcage and spine...gets the point across without over complicating things.

Worked yesterday on the MM book--socking in copy, modifying some of the spreads. Looking with new eyes at some of the work. Am anxious to work on some frames and borders along with working more closely with the reference as the work is getting a little out there and losing some of the tightness that the earlier stuff had. Am also interested in working on some frames and borders using the imagery and meld it with my impression of hobo art/antiques. The thick shapes might be fun to mix in with it. Also need to cut some more paper. Is a great starting point with the slash interpretations coming out of the cannon.

Colorguard was selling chicken barbeque today with a few girls standing by the road doing cartwheels and twirling their white "guns". Feels like fall. The weatherman suggests there might be frost tonight. Seems a bit early. I hope not.

Notes to me


I was thinking about illustration--hand-drawn, computer generated pros and cons...where they bump up next to each other, where they don't and ways to make the hand-drawn maintain it's integrity once the rigors of the computer bumps up next to it. Arnold Bank's words of advice to keep one's illustration in the same hand and tool as the letterform still holds true--but against the idea that if you draw on paper with a brush, use those same brushes to amend the image in the computer (or at least where it is visible). It's okay to erase, clean up and fiddle with the contast in the computer, but if adding highlights, or adding detail, try and draw them, scan them in and sock them in where you need them because they just won't look or seem natural. The same idea holds when rendering (in my case) in illustrator--you can not comfortably (though with work I think this could be achieved) add a pencil drawing or some inky squiggle and have it work harmoniously in the image. Though for effect, this is a whole different thing. Case in point: I spent some time yesterday creating a track shoe in illustrator. Reduction illustration ( one color, plenty of tiger teeth, plenty of detail left out). Looks fine. However, the wings I want to attach look wierd as they are hand drawn--so the intent will be to bring the sketch into illustrator, render them in the same mode, add tiger teeth for highlight and see what happens. I am sure this is the solution. Another wing approach might be a calligraphic inspired set drawn on tissue, scanned in and then redrawn with the same illustrator tools. We'll see. Tuesday (the deadline) approaches.

I was also thinking about the Memento Mori work. I seem to be getting 3-4 images a day to add to the book. I have since last Monday, been adding them sequentially to the piece as it shows a train of thinking that may be only understood by me, but that works as the end purpose of this sketch process is to create 2-3 volumes that become the platform from which the HAS (Hartford Art School) thesis will be based. I've got 60 pps in the can and figure that we will be closer to 84 or so for the first blush of the first volume. It is strictly images right now...but I am thinking that since I have been writing stream of conscious stuff about my understanding about the topic, the images, technique, conversations with friends, I might cull aspects of the dated writing and cut them into the book as notes etc. Again, more part of the self-discussion--and there might be more there that I cannot see right now that either another reader or me with more time will see. Along with the images and copy, any patterns, shapes, bookplates, dingbats etc that are generated from the sketchbooks will be shoehorned in to add to the dimension. Right now, the process is draw all day, scan at five, sock it into the publicaton at 5:30 and if there is any time, work with the illustrations as scrap to create more images in the formerly "slash" style. So the work begets more work. The spinning prayer wheel of time. The willow sending out more shoots. Ad infinitum. Or at least until I get bored.

I particularly like the willow head of two days ago. I think I may translate it to a piece of crewel work at the same size as the picture. I think the whole texture that the shiny embroidery silks would do something interesting...and we could see if it takes the idea anywhere. Worth the try.

Another idea I need to put down is the lock of hair, hair jewelry and hair art that the victorians created as a way to memorializing those that had gone on. For me, the texture of hair and braids woven(urg) into the work is another element that could evolve with this work. I have been musing about frames and strands either as linear work or in the tigerteeth, lady and skull mode only more formalized. We'll see. I am just putting this down for the minute the well seems to run dry. Also, the brass rubbings have not been fully investigated.

The sketches are also a wonderful wealth of scrap for me. I used two of the illustrations (changed a bit) for wine label proposals for a client. Looks cool...and kind of new for me. I wonder where this illustrator came from?

High on the Plateau


I am "taken" with the willow during the past day. More to come. The willow skull was last night's picture. The willow and urn this morning. Plans to create a bunch of background patterns with the same willow--along with building some more pictures with this linear pattern to fill the space. Plus, I can use the jaggity pattern I used as the main pattern in avian flu as part of the roots... I love the willow as it's florid, leafy and linear and can be rendered graphically in a bunch of ways juxtposed to the root system which can be the counterpoint to what is above ground. I will be socking these into the Lulu book which now verges on 60 pages (not the assigned 8-12 pps). Oops! I cant be flunked for trying a litttle.

Working on some wine labels today. Also, some Cornell thises and thats. Got the LA illos out. Getting NYC out tomorrow (with some printing today). Perfect day. Cool and crisp. Blue skies, olive green leaves and lush grass. More rain expected.

Our friend and neighbor, Joel came over yesterday to tell me about this 5K race the Tburg Rotary is running on October 21st. He (along with those who knew, learned or loved) was mourning the passing of a significant community member, Chris Bond. Chris was a physics teacher in our high school, affecting many, many students--many moving on in their education becoming physicists and scientists due to the teaching, passion and interest their teacher sparked in them. He was instrumental in the soccer program touching other communities of students who might not have been the science types. When people talk about him, they begin to wax about his gifts and spirit in a poetic way.

Christopher H. Bond Obituary from the Ithaca Journal>>

Many tears have been shed as Chris has died from cancer. His memorial service will be at the High School on Saturday.It promised to be another sad day--yet in the same way enlightening as the community really turns out for these services--and the community embrace is something I have never experienced before. It is spiritual in the power of the love and care of our little town and village. To get back to Joel, his race has been renamed and dedicated to Chris Bond--by making it the Chris Bond Tburg Rotary, 5K Run and they need a mark/tee shirt graphic. No problem. Just a question of what. We are on a tight deadline...but that shouldn't stand in the way of getting something good. Happy. Not in the grim mode I am working in.

More later>>