Various/Sundry

In no particular order.

The Gabriel García Marquez excerpt, from One Hundred Years of Solitude, that I mentioned last week:

Don't talk to me about politics," the colonel would tell him. "Our business is selling little fishes." The rumor that he did not want to hear anything about the situation in the country because he was growing rich in his workshop make Ursula laugh when it reached her ears. With her terrible practical sense she could not understand the colonel's business as he exchanged little fishes for gold coins and then converted the coins into little fishes, and so on, with the result that he had to work all the harder with the more he sold in order to satisfy an exasperating vicious circle. Actually, what interested him was not the business but the work. He needed so much concentration to link scales, fit minute rubies into the eyes, laminate gills, and put on fins that there was not the smallest empty moment left for him to fill with his disillusionment of the war.

That's more or less exactly the relationship that I'd like to have with things I make. It would keep me fully occupied, so that life's annoyances could be held at bay. And, ideally, people would pay me directly with art supplies. All the better if it's pure gold!

Next: Go and see about Brandon Bird's art. He's *awesome*. In my opinion, his obsession with Christopher Walken only makes it better. Also, the Last Supper was, in fact, in desperate need of a good RoboCop. There's a good chance you'll recognize at least one or two of them, the one with David Hasselhoff and the cuttlefish has been around. The Law & Order coloring book and greeting cards, and Nobody Wants To Play Sega with Harrison Ford are some of my favorites. Also, Blood Sport would've been a much better film had it in fact starred Abraham Lincoln. There is a line drawing of the mythical, mystical creature known as the Wooly Norris, as well. Any time spent roaming around Bird's galleries is time well spent!

Next: Mr. Man took me over to the super-mega-god-shops-here art supply today for birthday goodies, and I got all manner of frivolous, silly stuff. Scented purple writing ink. (It was that or the invisible ink, but to be honest, most of my handwritten letters go to my 86 year old grandmother, who probably already has enough trouble reading my letters.) Copper flake brush ink. A nice smoke grey fountain ink in a fetishy little tin. I also picked up some starter materials for sculpting, and I'm itching to get back into some 3D work. So, hopefully you will see some of that here soon.

Finally, check out Little Robot, a Glasgow based paper/low relief artist whose work I first encountered on Etsy. I really dig her use of twilight color schemes, and the way anyone can have a beard, even a lady. Especially a lady. I think some of those gentlemen are ladies, anyway.

If you think of art as a bunch of cats, this is where René Lalique's Persian got over with Mark Ryden's moggy. Very stylish and nostalgic, but not in the maudlin way.



Of course, sensible people probably don't think of art as a bunch of cats. But I wasn't going to point fingers.