[art_in_PDX] Dianna Ahearn, Creating In Powell's Coffee Room

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The Coffee Room at Powell's City of Books has become an addiction to us not merely because of the caffeine content and that you have to go through the rest of Powell's just to get there, though those are very powerful draws. No, I've seen art in its many manifestations there. The last missive is one good example. I've seen people doing art and people who are works of art themselves.

Tonight, this was hard to miss. Here, in the middle of an off-night session of Book Church, the easel on the long table against the 11th Avenue window was impossible to miss.

This portrait of Bernie Sanders on black-painted wood was done, I found, entirely in acrylics. Working in monochrome is challenging, in a different way, than working in color.

The deail is quite wonderful and shows a skillful hand.

Here's the owner of that hand, who graciously consented to allowing me a picture:

This is Dianna Ahearn, and she has a Facebook presence at https://www.facebook.com/ohtheplacesyoullgooo. I love anyone who puts the hard work on display in public. It's one of the thrills of visiting Powell's on a regular basis.

So it goes. 

[cartoonist] New Artist!: Jupiter Dragon And Her Blog

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Recent readers will remember that I've been a fan of J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison's writing for a while (Buy Fish Wielder on Amazon, yo) but what we've been aware of on Facebook is that his daughter is a budding artist which undoubted skill.

Human Lady Rainicorn (c) 2016, Jupiter Dragon

He's been sharing her art online. The illustration is just a clip out of one of her works in which she depicts the character Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time as a young, hip, stylish human lady.

There's more now, she's just starting out but she's got work that a strong manga influence but also hints at a firm grasp of drawing natural forms, inking, and a great familiarity with craft that a lot of us aspiring artists reach for.

The strength of the talent behind the "First Post", a stunning realistic picture of a rearing horse's head, must be acknowledged.

She is launching an art blog under her art nom de guerre: Jupiter Dragon, and ignition has happened at http://jupiterdragon.blogspot.com/. Impressive!

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park II: Y'lluria, The Faerie In Charge

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the second of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

Every group of seekers needs a guru, a leader, a teacher of some sort. There are many sorts of those. Some teachers are stern, demanding obedience and obeisance, others have a more gentle way of directing and guiding. It was the second type this group had in the inimitable Y'llura Watersong.

If you watched the news during the last heat wave, you saw her. April 20th, KGW's equally-inimitable Matt Zaffino had the interview-of-a-lifetime when he met her and her friend Una at Salmon Street Springs. This was not long before I would have the pleasure of her society.

Today, she was resplendent in blue and white, flowing skirts and pooka shells, and pure graciousness.

She was patient, encouraging, totally enabling, and kind throughout. And a ball of energy it was hard to keep up with. I'm no mind reader, but I'm sure she figured she'd get some like-minds together. I'll bet she was flattered and surprised by the final group … There were at least 100 people in that circle by the height of the ritual, and some had come from an hour-or-two's drive just to take part.

The moment that captured her splendidness is this next picture here. The young lady in foreground right is a young lady of special needs, for whom there was a small problem that was a big problem for her. The look of patience and human care on Y'lluria's face says a great deal about her generosity of spirit and character. To be totally there for that young girl is the story the face tells, and if I have no other memory of ever crossing paths with her, this would be the icon for it. 

There are some blithe souls that take the time to try to make the space near them one of kindness, in hopes that would spread out and go viral.

Y'lluria is one of those souls.

[comics] What We're Loving: They Call Me Black Fist

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The cover of the slender volume is most evocative and lets you know exactly where you stand with it.

Blaxploitation/Rockabilly/Fighting Manga? SHO'NUFF!

There are those of us … and you know who you were, don't be apologetic, because it was awesome … who would live for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, because that's when our local TV stations would fill those unprofitable hours with cheapass content. Like B-monster martial arts movies.

Especially those. 

Well, Pharoah Bolding has a treat for us, because in his hero's little debut adventure, They Call Me Black Fist, he's mashed up those so-bad-they're-good Saturday and Sunday afternoon adventures with a healthy dash of nostalgic affection for those styles, blaxploitation, and deserving of a soundtrack of Carl Douglas.

Everybody was Kung-fu fighting. The fallout is an affectionate satire and pop-culture deconstruction you'll take right to heart.

The story, while witty, is very straightforward; enigmatic, good-hearted but stern-valued martial artist with a pompadour that's on its own mission from God finds himself in a jive situation, which needs taken-care-of in short enough order when an absurd villain invades his local comic shop to steal all the free stuff on Free Comics Day with the idea of storing them and making money off them when he can sell them in 10 years time … without so much as even reading them.

The villain is evil … but at least he plays the long game.

Our hero, teaching a hard lesson, and teaching it hard.

But the gauntlet is totally thrown. The justice, as someone once said, is brought-en; on the way to that justice and a lesson in comic-shop etiquette, one rare, near-mint ninja three-pack gets severely downgraded, one comics shop gets seriously trashed, and one comic shop owner descends into near shell-shock. Furious action obtains, with specific moves hilariously called out.

The story is funny and enough just as it stands, but what really makes this little comic desirable is production values that put you back in the day; the weathered movie-poster style front cover is a bit of cosmic deftness that even comes complete with a price sticker straight from the spin rack at the supermarket and ad reproductions that include that back page Johnson Smith Co mail order mall … remember the X-Ray Glasses that sold for a dollar? That sort of thing.

And the inside back page? I never thought I'd see an ad for Chuck Norris Action Jeans ever again.

There's better news. I finally met Pharoah at Fanaticon (see that blog entry which is immediately before this one) and found that the affectionate humor in the work is only natural … in person he's just as affable and humorous as the jokes he tells in the story. And, as promised on the next-to-last page, Black Fist will return … we got to lay eyeballs on some blue-pencil sketches that got us very excited.

Black Fist will return … and we'll be there for him.

If you want to be there for him, dial your Stargate to http://www.pharoahbolding.com/.

[comic] The Modest Avengers

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Best five dollars I ever spent, here …

I love crossover spoofs, and this one is one of the best. The Modest Medusa cast as, of course, The Avengers.

From the left:

Modest herself as Tony Stark, a/k/a, IronMan, though Iron Monster Girl and Snakes is more appropriate … if awkward;
Marah as Captain America;
Charles as Thor:

One of the Carlos's as Hawkeye;
The Knight of Chains as Black Widow (interesting choice … and appropriately badass)
Deb the Bad Mermaid as Loki; (wrong ... I've been advised the mermaid is actually Nick Fury)

A. Snake as … okay, guys, I'll fess up, I don't know who that is. I'm guessing Ant Man. (I guessed wrong. This is Loki)
And, of course,
Jake himeself, as The Incredible Hulk.

It's fun being a born-again indie comics fan … even if I pull the occasional minor fail here and there. 

[comic] In Which We Visit Modest Medusa's House

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There's a lot to like about southeast Portland. The rents are (well, relatively speaking) still cheap there. There's a lot of old buildings that hold on to the longtime working-class character of Southeast and a lot of new stuff happening, too. There's a big interesting diagonal road … northeast Portland has Sandy Boulevard, but southeast Portland has the mighty Foster Road. And every year there's a street festival called Fun on Foster.

Curiously, this year, Fun on Foster seemed kind of MIA. But there was fun to be had on Foster Road. You just had to know where to look.

We knew where to look.

On the north side of SE Holgate Boulevard, just east of its' highly-acute crossing with Foster Road, and across the street from a wedge shaped green space called Laurelwood Park, is a strip of older storefronts. On the corner is a tango studio. Next to that, an old-school barber shop. And, next to that … SharedSpace. This is a storefront with a distinctive and unique sign and what appears to be a wonderful mission … desk space rental for those of us who want to run a creative practice but don't really feel ready to go for the whole office nine-yards. For a long time, going from here to there in Southeast, we've driven past it occasionally. The only thing I had to recommend it was that funky typography in the sign … until now.

When I got turned on to Modest Medusa over at The Spritely Bean more than a year ago, I had yet to meet or get to know the creator. Time and events have healed that breach, and I've since found that Jake Richmond is just as smart and witty as the comics he creates. In the void that was the apparent lack of Fun on Foster, he went ahead with a plan to have a table sale and a semi-open-house, and if only for that, this was put on our calendar. From noon there was a table of merch of many prices. Not only was there Modest Medusa, there was also a RPG that is crazy weird and brain-bending that you doubtless hadn't heard of called Tokyo Brain Pop! (Manga schoolgirls with superpowers), and Jake's two other comic creations (the superhero comic Ghost Kiss and his Legend of Korra fan comic Asami Loves Korra) as well as some posters (one of which I have, about which more perforce), and some giveaways (little Modest Medusa pins for the lapel, yes, thanks!)

The space itself is funky, filled with great posters and buzzing with ebullient fans on this fine day. In the above picture, that's Jake there on the left. The red-haired lady was a particularly delightful person, and was inspired in not only her fandom of Modest but in the funny and passionate fan art she produced, a few items of which were in an etagere to one side of the counter, and a couple of which she brought in. Colorful bead art:

… and a whimsical bit of preparedness:

You can never be too sure.

The chatter when you are in a scrum like this talking about a favorite comic with its creator is a little hard to classify and retain, but there were some high points. I'm late to the part on Modest, but learning about how much of Jake goes into the creation of Modest's world impressed me in the way that it's got to be a very brave thing to do, to take things from one's own life and recast them into a fictional realm. It's Proustian, in a certain way. Some great drama and story results. Jake's work, as the characters in Modest Medusa have come, gone, and evolved, and the reasons why, are axiomatic there.

The real high point of the conversation for me was where Jake and I disagreed on something. In speaking of of a certain work whose comic tropes didn't speak to him, I found a lot of value … I like what I like, but I don't require anyone else to like it. Attempting to view it from the point of view of someone who spends the majority of their time creating, especially when coming from the point of view of someone who mostly takes in those creations, throws an unexpected illumination on the subject. On a personal level, I like anyone who is going to be candid about whether or not they find something speaks to them. Art is personal, storytelling art even more so.

So, Jake is a sharp and witty creator … and I was grateful for the chance to have met him and talked to him a bit more.

Anybody reading this who didn't take the chance to go down … you missed out, my friends.

Also, free chocodiles. We shall brook no further argument there.

Chocodiles, and their bouncer.

[comics] Modest Medusa Merch from Artist Alley

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So in an earlier missive I promised I'd share some stuffs that I got from Artist Alley Comics Fest. Here's the first bit.

I've already declared my affection for Modest Medusa and so a big goal for me was to get something Modest. Jake Richmond was there (and I broke Chocodile bread with him, so that was pretty peak right there). He had a great deal of stuffs for sale, including all seasons of the story published so far (he breaks the narrative into TV-series-like 'seasons', which allows for story arcs and subplots which weave in and out of the world in that same way, which is very appealing). I was unable to purchase for now (his prices are wholly reasonable, it's my budget that isn't). But, as I said in an earlier post, there was all sorts of niftyness at all sorts of prices.

Here's what I scored from Jake:

Two 24-Hour Comic mini-comics and that spiffy promo card. The two mini-comics will hold me until I get his bigger books. They are two sweet and silly snake-girl stories that can't help but make me smile.

The first, simply titled 24-Hour Comic, is just that – 24 hour in the life of Modest and Jake, one hour per panel. She eats noodles for lunch, hangs out with Jake and his comicking buddies, plays with MLP figurines, has fun drawing, and eventually goes to bed (under protest) … only to start it all over again. Anyone who's ever loved a kid, this'll speak to you.

The second, Taco Tuesday, is another 24-Hour Comic, and reveals what happens when the day-person Modest negotiates the acquisition of taco components given that … well, she really doesn't know what a taco is … 

My favorite exchange comes earlier in the day, when a telemarketer tries calling the Jake household only to get Modest on the phone …

Modest: "Hello?"
Caller:"Hi, is your dad home?"
M:"No. What's a taco?"
C:"Excuse me?"
M:"Do you know what a taco is?"
C:"A taco? Like the food?"
M:"Is it a restaurant food?"
C:"Ummm … yes, you can get tacos at restaurants."
M:"Okay. Goodbye!"

Modest muses this new information and then the telemarker calls back:

M:"Hello?"
C:"Uhhh, hello again. Is your mother home?"
M:"My mom is a snake."

That is some tight comedy writing. Its economy is its beauty, and what makes it funny.

Anyway, there's only two left of that one, and I got one of those two. So that makes me lucky, too.

More in a future post.

[pdx_comix] Artist Alley Comic Fest I, The Haul, Group Picture

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We hit that Artist Alley Comics Fest I, last weekend, Sunday, August 2nd. If you didn't go, my friends, you missed out on a fine scene indeed.

I'll detail my favorite bits in subsequent missives, but for now, here's a group shot of the haul. There were things for every budget. Just because you didn't bring a pocket full of cash didn't mean you had to go away empty handed. Anyway, here's my stuff.

We'll take a little tour in a subsequent article.

All praise to +Spritely Bean.  Straight up.

[pdx_art] Bwana Spoons at Muse Art & Design, May, 2015

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I have been unfairly keeping this to myself. Bad on me.

Muse Art and Design, the splendid art and inspiration supply store at SE 42nd and Hawthorne, has been holding the occasional demo and seminar. And they get better and better. The one back in February stays in my memory banks, and the one I've dithered on reporting on, this one, in May, was simply fun.

Bwana Spoons, Muse Art and Design, May, 2015.

The bespectacled man in the picture above should need no introduction if you exist in any of the intersections of art and illustration worlds currently percolating around the Portland area, but if you do, this is Bwana Spoons, and he produces trippy illustrations, but he works in chaos.

But more on that anon. The subject of this visit was the release of a line of acrylic gouaches, Acryla Gouache. This, a line of utter vibrancy by Holbein, was something of a revelation. I hadn't imagined that gouache could be anything but a watercolor, but here it was, a gouache created of acrylic … a resin color.

The wet consistency is lovely, thick, rich, creamy, creamier even than water-based gouache. The colors are memorable, and, amusingly, the assembled salon was going in big on a color called Opera, a brilliant pink-orange that is to your eyes what strong citrus is to your mouth.

I make no judgements by saying this; oversaturating your color response just might be the object you're going for. I found a cosmic humor in the way such a color was getting such an overwhelming, gut-level response.

The event was intended to demonstrate the color, and demonstrate it did. But it was also given over to a sense of pleasantly-chaotic play where people just dabbled with mixing the colors or came up with chaotically-inspired pieces. My favorite amongst the group is possibly this one, done by Peter, who runs the place. It started out as clouds and an abstract sun-not-sun in the sky … but it evolved into the most delightful flying snail I've ever seen, riding the air on a trail of fabulous:

You know not where it goes, all you need knowis that Rainbow Flying Snail wants you to be
fabulous.

Me and The Wife™ of course, had some fun. I was a little dry on inspiration today so we got Supernatural Orange Cat and Red Superhero. Wife did Rainbow with Shazam Outline. It was fun.

But, as to Bwana Spoons and chaos? Let me put it this way. We all fancy we can take a few disconnected strokes, pencil marks, what-have-you, and evolve something interesting out of them. Bwana started playing in his sketchbook with just a big, serpentine wave of color. Little-by-little, a detail there, an extension there, an overpaint in another place, and the fabric of that painted space began to take on depth and meaning, as though it was evolving itself through him. 

Skill, he has. I was watching the changer changing the changed and the changed changing the changer, though. It was something on a higher level. And this …

… is the utterly amazing (and maybe a little disturbing) result. The original fat squiggle is on the verso side of the spread and, like a sort of strand of DNA, it gave birth to the rest. And the real reward for the viewer is that it looks so accomplished. That's the true polish of skill. 

Bwana Spoons' website is: http://www.bwanaspoons.com/

Muse Art & Design is, of course, http://museartanddesign.com

[pdx] The Napkin Flower Guy at Powell's City of Books

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Somehow, over time, the Coffee Room at Powell's City of Books has become a regular haunt for our Sunday evenings. It's started to feel like a part of our home; even if we don't plan on buying a book that day, we're there, drinking in the atmosphere, seeing the people, and enjoying the still-affordable Portland downtown sunset, which can be had in abundance through the newly-replaced and capacious windows.

Our home from home, late Sunday afternoon

The coffee there is excellent, I don't mind saying.

Occasionally, you'll see, if you're of the right timing, pale flowers left behind. If they seem to be made of the same material as the napkins, that's because they are; and though they seem to appear as if by magic, they're the product of this fellow:

He works patiently, sometimes conversing with people beside him, sometimes intently focussed. His technique is immaculate and precise and he never makes a bad move. All of his creations are beautiful, otherworldly, and somewhat haunting.

Sometimes he lingers 'till quite late and then leaves a few works behind. This particular Sunday, he packed up fairly early, lovingly placing each finished blossom inside a plastic box for protection in transportation, and left with the lot.

He wears a black cap with the legend WORLDFLOWERS upon the front.

I was happy to catch him in the moment of communication.

[PDX, Type] At Muse Art & Design, Hand-drawn Type Rules The Register

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Another visit to +Muse Art and Design, another few art supplies to satiate the jones for such things. Great visit with Peter and Vaughn, of course.

It was a busy day there. We got there on Sunday just before a sort of an afternoon rush, and I couldn't help but notice there almost everyone there was smiling and happy. I guess Muse has the same effect on just about everyone. It's just that way.

Something that made me happy is a hand-designed ad posted on the pillar near the register:

It's gone up during the last couple of months, and the Spring Sale verbiage is not by the original artist, who I understand is a newish employee there. But that's great design there … I love the classy art-deco-ness of it all

And there is a Spring Sale at Muse. You might want to check this out. Something else worth the checking out of is the other side of that column, which is all original artist…

Whether or not the idea of sugar-alcohol-based low-VOC spray paint is your deal, looking at this lovely hand drawn, highly-artistic type should be. 

[comic] What We're Liking: Modest Medusa

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This one is for all the mistfits out there, or anyone who loves one. I qualify two ways there, so I'm smitten, and it's not a modest thing.

It is a Modest thing, though, and as far as that goes, meet Modest:

Just your normal 5-year-old girl, really. Loves Pokemons, Nintendo, and is a confirmed Chocodile addict. She loves manga and when she finally goes to school, is bewildered at the lack of magical girls there.  She's apprehensive about the world around her, but takes it on because, when you're five years old, what else are you going to do? She's got a mother and a father from different worlds (Dad's a vampire, Mom's a giant snake), and she finds herself in an incidental family somewhere in a place that vaguely resembles southeast Portland.

She's also a medusa. Which explains the snakey hair.

The strip, eponymously named Modest Medusa, has been running for four years now, debuting in January 2011. It traces the perambulations (if a little girl with a snake-body can be said to have such things) of a 5-year-old medusa girl who stumbles from her world into ours, rooked over here by a pair of mean-girl mermaids, and enters the world of her accidental father figure - a comic version of the artist, Portlander Jake Richmond - through his toilet.

His apartment waterlogged, he moves to another room, and as Modest stays, a completely different life. It has to be seen to be believed. In the four short years of the comic's life, it has swung between adventures heroic, fantastic and fatal and dryly humorous and banal but always with the viewpoint of a little kid just trying to figure out where she's going to fit in. Just like other little kids, her arrival causes tragic disruption (though in ways at times quite hazardous for her new friends).

Where Modest Medusa really shines out, though, is in a subtheme that's quite unexpected … and that takes the form of the reaction of the world around her. Here, the comic operates on an evolved level, because while other characters in the world do see that she is, in fact, a snake girl with snakes for hair, they seem to be little bothered by it. Like the characters in the Pooh stories who accepted Eeyore for what he was and loved him without trying to change him, adults and kids regard her as a little girl - and with her particular talent for winning friends, she soon finds some sort of place.

Jake Richmond has made her a kind of a totem for those us who just don't feel like we belong exactly anywhere but won't let that stop us. She's a fully realized character who finds herself in a world she didn't make.

I don't know about anybody else, but that speaks to me. In Modest's world, the gaze of a medusa won't turn you to stone, but she might melt your heart just a little.

GET IT: The comic is available in toto for you to read at ModestMedusa.com, (Facebook for Jake Richmond so you can be updated every MWF) and can be found in bound, very well-done book format at The Sprightly Bean comic cafe (Facebook). Jake Richmond is also part of Patreon, the website that allows people to actively support comic artists by becoming regular patrons of the artist.

[PDX_art] Illustrator Vaughn Barker's Little Women

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Vaughn Barker is a Portland illustrator who I'm privileged to say I've met in the flesh. He can be found behind the register at +Muse Art and Design where we've betimes also found his art on display. He's one of those people who are the committed illustrator I should have been but I can't envy him his talent. I do think he should be much more widely-known than he is.

Of course, he may well be. I have a history of being somewhat late-to-the-party. But the art I've seen hung in the store is masterfully done and inspiring to look at. What has me feeling antic inside, though, are his little women.

Peep this, folks:

She's a mail courier fearlessly ascending a rope latter to her transportation. Fierce and adorable, she's letting nothing stop her. What is her mission? Hers and hers alone to know, but I'd trust her to complete that. That sort of confidence is stopped by nothing or nobody.

It's a scan of the central part of the print you see there to the right. The titles of it is Special Delivery and it speaks warmly of a dieselpunk, 1930s/1940s atmosphere, pulp stories, adventurers and daring exploits. I look at this and my mind flashes to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the 'gee-whiz' sort of story that young guys and gals would read from magazines made of rough, brown paper with covers decorated with dramatically-colored paintings.

There's a sort of theory I subscribe to about the transmission of taste and style down through the decades. To us in America, the 1930s and 1940s, despite a back drop of depression, misery and war, somehow remain the height of fashion and style with this stereotypical American dash … the fedora … the trenchcoat … the smartly-dressed tough noir fellow, in those stories, even the plain girls were glamorous, even the old matrons were stylish. As you went on into the 1950s, style renewed itself and could go any direction; but through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it just got more forgettable. So, even now, in the year 2015, if you want debonair style mixed with your adventure, you go back to the 1930s and 1940s.

Vaughn's art seems to be inflected with this sensibility. He has another series of beautiful works, in which warplanes fill the sky while a Valkyrie-like spirit seems to float amongst them. Those are dashing in and of themselves, and I highly recommend them. But, maybe it's my intensifying attraction toward all things 'toon, his little women really excite me. Built on an abbreviated canon, they exude fierceness, smarts, attitude, an unafraid personality, and are impossible not to fall in love with. Made of thick shapes and ovoid ovals, they are never the less as cute as they are formidable, and even a little bit sexy.

You just want to follow them, to see what happens to them next.

I should hope we see more of them.

You can visit Vaughn's website (and buy art prints) at http://www.vaughnbarker.com/. His alter-ego, Valentine Barker, she of the small women, holds court at her blog, http://www.chalkyheart.com. Vaughn's personal blog, The 'Stration Station, is http://strationstation.blogspot.com/. 

[pdx_legends] Working Kirk Reeves - Portland's Patron Saint, Now In Mural Form

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He's part of Portland's landscape now … on a permanent, full-time basis.

When Kirk Reeves passed from us, since two years ago as of November, more than one intersecting PDX artistic community gasped in shock, dismay and despair. I'm sure there are those around us trying to still come to terms with it. I, for one, can't hit the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge going east, either straight on from SW Madison Street or coming up the ramp from northbound Naito Parkway, without looking at that little pavement peninsula he sat on with his horn and his paraphernalia, busking in those absurd-but-oh-so-right white tails, sequined waistcoat, and Mickey Mouse ears, wishing that he could somehow come back and do an encore for a while.

Well, Kirk is back … in a way.

Of course, those of us who knew and loved having Kirk around were hoping for a tribute of some sort. You don't lose that sort of happiness without feeling generally betrayed by the world in general, but having a homage to someone who kept others' spirits so high helps us do what healing we have to do to move on.

We loved Kirk enough that we lobbied to have the Tilikum Crossing named for him; the learned heads on the commission decided on another name despite Working Kirk being the popular choice, because learned heads reasons.

But someone did finally come up with something, and it's smashing, and I fancy that Kirk might have approved. At 430 NE Lloyd Blvd – the corner of Lloyd and NE Grand Avenue … there is a small, plain building that was, for years, home to a business called Rich's Delicatessen. Like almost everything that thrived in the 80s, it's gone now, and the building has been remodeled and refreshed, at least on the outside (the inside remains unfinished, a large expanse of gravel taking up most of the middle of the floor. Oddest thing …).

Thanks to the preternaturally sensitive artist, Gwenn Seemel, there is now a firey-passionate mural on that wall …

The style of the painting, seeming to layer small abstract shapes over colors and making up forms from these shapes, conveys a lot of emotion. It depicts, as closely as possible, the quiet riot that was the passion of Kirk.

The permanent beatific smile, the immense personal warmth one felt when talking with the man … it's all there. The message is there too, and rendered in playful, hand-created type.

It's a thing of despair to see that Kirk now kind of iconically stands out in the city he spent his artistic passion in, but it's a hopeful thing too … the combination of the style, the likeliness gazing warmly out at everyone who may pass that way and the message above, kind of makes me think he's really gazing out there. Makes me think I can go by and say 'hi' and he will, somehow, hear me and listen and somehow respond.

He's a part of the fabric of the city now, a patron saint of all of us aspiring artists who are striving to overcome our own obstacles, made real by an artist with a very deft touch.

… watching over a city where food carts roam the streets between gigs …

… and where streetcar tracks bask in the warmth of a somewhat-too-warm late August Portland gloaming.

Being part of the Orycon family, I'd call him a friend; he had closer friends than I did. But I feel privileged that I knew him at all.

He was one of those people who are like that. The world was simply better that he was around at all; it's a bit lacklustre becase he's not here now, but you know you were lucky just to share the same planet with him, if only for a little while. 

[art] Meredith Dittmar At Muse: Creative Process From The Inside Out

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On Saturday, 17 May 2014, as the May offering in Muse Art and Design's Artist-to-Artist talks, Peter and the crew hosted an artist I'd not heard of before: Meredith Dittmar. This is Meredith:

Meredith Dittmar at Muse Art and Design.

She works in polymer clay: Fimo, if I remember correctly. She takes it and assembles it into the most enigmatic ways and shapes; view her website, the picaresquely-named CorporatePig.com. The splash page will give you a big ol' taste; click through to her homepage and thither to the portfolio. Cute characters cavort amidst abstract confections that are possessed of the hint of a mathematical reverence and resonance that is hard to put a finger on but tickles the imagination.

There's a reason for that. During her talk, she mentioned that her father was an engineer and her grandfather was a NASA rocket scientist. She didn't elaborate, but it's not hard to presume that she fairly swum in scientific verities as a youngster. Another anecdote seemed to suggest that she also has something of a suspicion of authorities; when learning vowels in school she was schooled up on the traditional five plus the sometimes-sixth, her father corrected this by saying that the sometimes-sixth was a full-fledged vowel, no sometimes about it, and furthermore there was a seventh*.

When relating this at school, this lowered the proverbial boom, and her father stuck up for her. I'm not sure of the eventual resolution, but bless that man, right?

Meredith struck me as a brilliant human who appreciated knowledge while at the same time rejecting the 'it has to be' structure that knowledge is sometimes unjustly straitjacketed into, at least by way of authority. She worked, by a sort of gestalt way, to cause me to come to the conclusion that while there is a great deal that is knowable, capital-E-Everything is unknowable, or at least not-quite-completely-knowable, which appealed to me on a Tao level. And my impression was that this was a tremendous informative data line on her own work.

She shared with us a lot of images of idea boards that she kept. Patterns, clippings, fractal patters, mathematical formulae scampered about on them in happy semi-anarchy. The genius expressed … the jelly somehow nailed to the wall and not nailed to the wall, all simultaneously, which is a heady experience for any armchair philosopher and aspiring artist trying to find direction.

In retrospect this formed a sort of base stratum for what was happening concurrently. Everytime I think of it, I get a little more impressed and in awe. See, she never showed off much of her work, but she showed off a great deal of her working, or at least her possibility. At the beginning  of the hour-long talk, she distributed small cut pieces of Fimo and invited us to play with them at will, but without taking our attention from her. She did her talk about her life and influences and work, and I kneaded my bit of Fimo about without taking it too seriously.

My bad there. A word on that presently.

At the end of the discussion about her and her work, she asked us to take part in two 'experiments'. They both involved yet another lump of Fimo, but we were to listen to two recordings of physicists discussing quite abstruse concepts: the first, from its discussion of spin and color was no doubt relating to quarks, and the second was completely beyond me, but I did recognize the word eigenvector, though about the only thing I currently know about that is how to spell it. The important part about working was to simply observe your hands working the clay into whatever shapes the environment moved you to create, to get into that zone, and if we slipped out and got too self-aware, to pause a moment and refocus on the process of molding.

This is the stuff she plays in the background when she creates and the idea, as it seemed, was to see what sorts of things her audience would create. Whether she was compiling any sort of result or even per se looking for one we weren't clear on, and I suspect that wasn't the point anyway. All we walked away from the experience with was the experience, left to do its subliminal work on us; photos of past exploits showed spirals, geometric patterns, interesting prettiness.

Just before she left I got the chance to chat for a few minutes and found her intellect quickly drew me into a sort of orbit in which I started actively applying the experience to where I hope my own artistic growth takes me. I know this sounds kind of crazy, but she would say something and it would start this whole intellectual cascade, or at least that's what it seemed from my point of view. At this point, it's hard to put it into any specific words (never mind how prolix I've gotten here) what effects this is having upon me. Every time I look over the experience, it opens up again like another level of a Matrioshka doll.

She did talk for a moment about fractals, come to think.

Crazy.

The experimental process that she took us through, though, suddenly gelled for what I think it was, and what it will forever mean to me: the most effective look at the fabled creative process that I've ever had and probably ever will. She, as nearly as possible, without excess motion, deconstructed her own creative process for us, let us in, then reconstructed it about us so that we were suddenly on the inside looking out. I can draw parallels between the way I create when I'm in the zone and what she does, and see where it's different, and I can't put any of that into any less than the most clumsy of ramblings, but it's there for me. Elegantly and economically, and it continues to have impact after the fact because it worked on so many levels that one can only see when in the rear-view.

She taught me something without actively teaching a thing. How rare is that?

Oh, and the 'bad' I was talking of? I realized, on review, that giving us the clay at the beginning was also an experiment, but with different terms. There's that Matrioshka doll opening, again. And every time I think I've come to a conclusion on a thought generated by this, no fewer than two paths shoot out.

Clay isn't my medium, but she just might be amongst the most important artists I'll ever sit in on.

And you'll please forgive the rambling; each time I go over the experience I am once again beMused. It's hard not to be distracted.

*The classic 5 vowels are, of course, A, E, I, O, and U. The sometimes-sixth would by Y, naturally. The unknown seventh was cited as W. It makes logical sense, when you think of the sound the Y makes, which is fluid like a vowel, not staccato like a consonant, and any Welshman or woman can tell you quite naturally that W is a vowel (consider that the Welsh spelling of the English house name Tudor is Twdwr). 

[art] You Can't Legislate A Man's Neck; or, Art in the Art Supply Store by the Employees

2997.

This is one reason why I love my favorite art stores, and one reason why we have to have more than one.

I have rhapsodized in past missives about my two beloved east-side art supply sources, I've Been Framed and Muse Art and Design. Today's IBF's turn for some sloppy love. They both have different characters, each unique from the other, both like sides of a whole.

Kind of like this taijitu here.

Both are friendly, both are crazy knowledgeable, both almost-unsanely-affordable, but where Muse is cool, ordered, and tailored to fit its location, IBF is kinda wild, kinda wooly and exuberantly unafraid of being what it is. And, today, what it is is a happenin', accidental gallery for its employees.  I wasn't looking for anything this day, The Wife™ was. I come out of the long corridor of decorative papers …(and tho IBF on Foster is in a small building, it seems to go on forever … like 'dis …)

… and I look at this, and can't stop giggling.

Flesh Beard. You can legislate a lot of things, but you can't legislate a man's neck … Well, yes and no. In American culture you certainly can't argue the point, but during the French Revolution they legislated a whole lot of men's necks, if I understand what goeth on thereth correctly. Turning about a quarter of the clock's turn to the right, we have a windowpane simply full of delight.

There is some connection between Nathan (whoever he is) and coffee (or, perhaps coffeee) that we will have to leave to more learned heads … Erich VanDaaniken, say, or Richard Hoagland, perhaps … to puzzle. At this time, I can only bask in the infinite power of such a connection.

Another incident where the inanimate speak. First, it was 'bacon bits'. Now …

I guess that colors having an off day. GEDDIT? OFF … COLOR!!! Let's try it with the bonus Commonwealth U: OFF COLOUR!!!! My God this is comedy gold!

A couple more for good measure, or least odd measure

It's the newest model, 70s cool, with all the options (as noted)

Stravinksky from the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain school.
And whooo's your Daddy? I guess we'll never know.
The illustration of the building façade? You know I'm in love with this.

Is it any reason a visit to IBF leaves me feeling kid-antic inside, and full of the idea of the possible?

My recommendation to you, dear artist friend, is to also adopt both IBF and Muse. Do it. Don't argue with me. Just go.

And don't forget to stop and smell the art along the way.