This post begins with a loud sigh. Due to the onset of a repetitive strain injury from too much mouse-action at work (let's hope it's not carpal tunnel syndrome -- the x-ray and ultrasound results shall be divulged to me on Monday), I will sadly be taking a break from sketching songs for a little while. There is ample bummerage on my end, I can tell you, as I've really been enjoying this project. The good news is that I am taking scheduled vacation time from work so hopefully my wrist will do a fair bit of healing over the next several days. Still, it's a bit of torture having sketching ideas and not being able to do anything about them. So until next time, whenever that may be, here are some work-in-progress drafts from sketches I've posted up to now. See you when I see you.
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985): track one, side one. Killer song. But I have to say this right up at the top: as a former English major and a current instructional designer, I can barely deal with the lack of appropriate punctuation in the song title. Apparently I'd better get used to it.
Gravity does seem to be pulling on me a bit harder than normal lately. In a way, I almost think that a gravity pull of *100% upon my corporeal being would be kind of a relief, at least in the short term. Terrifying, yes, but there would also a kind of serene surrender to it, don't you think? If you knew it wasn't permanent... if you knew that one day you could get up again, turn your head again, blink your eyes again. But in the meantime all you have to do -- all you CAN do -- is surrender to a force acting upon you that is stronger than any physical capability or will of the spirit. Just lay still, looking at the sky.
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See what I mean? Isn't that kind of nice? Sure, the city around you looms above, like strangers peering down over you. And sure, just like strangers, you don't know if they're concerned about you or judging you. It's not for you to know. It's none of your business.
With all your choices removed, you can take the time to focus on the feelings you've been ignoring. And, like having your choices taken away, it's scary at first. But after awhile, it's just as comforting as the pull of *100% gravity upon your body. Finally, you can live with the feelings. And you feel like gazing at the sky for the rest of your life might just be alright.
Until a few drops land cold and hard upon your face. Gravity, you bitch.
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{I made two versions of this sketch and couldn't decide which one I liked better. Hence the diptych.}
*A "gravity pull of 100%" is something I made up and has no basis in science whatsoever. It just means you can't move, like, at all.
This is probably on a lot of people's Most Beautiful Songs Ever list. I know it's on mine. We all have that memory. The one where you somehow entered a place where magic lived, fleeting, only for a few moments. The magic attached itself to that place in your brain where that memory now lives. And now it's not so much the actual event that you treasure, it's the memory of it. The memory is more magical and more important than that day, or that night, or that time ever was in reality.
For me, it was about water, too. The first time I saw the ocean, in Australia, in 2004. It was the middle of the day, and I was exploring the coastal beaches of Sydney with new friends I had made. I didn't have a bathing suit. I stood at the place where the ocean licked the beach. I rolled my jeans up so I could walk out a bit, get some of the salt water on my skin. I was watching the surfers in the distance. I was so transfixed by them that I didn't notice the massive wave heading in my direction. By the time I realized, it was too late -- I didn't have enough time to run back to the shore. I tried anyway, and the wave knocked me down into the water. I was drenched from head to toe, and I laughed with a joy that I had never felt before, so much, until my eyes watered their own ocean onto my cheeks.
Soaking wet, I proudly carried on exploring the city with my friends. In the Australian heat it didn't take long to dry off, but I never wanted to wash that ocean off my skin, out of my hair. It would be like washing off the happiest moment of my life. I have a picture that was taken just as I was walking out into the water, moments before the wave took me down. I'll have to dig it out and relive that moment again soon.
Black Friday. Cook-from-frozen turkeys are 30% off. While you're out, better get a new HDTV. You know you want one. The money you're saving on the turkey justifies it. Try saying no to this face.
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It's what I want, hurry and buy
All has been tried, follow reason and buy
Cannot shuffle in this heat, it's all wrong
Try to put that on your sleeve it's all wrong, it's all wrong
He's got pretty persuasion
She's got pretty persuasion
God damn, pure confusion
She's got pretty persuasion
It's what I want, hurry and buy
All has been tried, follow reason and buy
And I put that in this heat, it's all wrong
Try to wear that on my sleeve, it's all wrong, all wrong
He's got pretty persuasion
She's got pretty persuasion
God damn, pure confusion
He's got pretty persuasion
In the light I saw quite a scene in there
It's what I want, hurry and buy
all has been tried, follow reason and buy
Try to put that in this heat, it's all wrong
Cannot wear that on your sleeve, it's all wrong, all wrong
Have you ever known anyone who never went out and tried? Someone who was so rooted in her own sense of self-entitlement that she balked at the idea of working for something. You know, that person who dropped out of school and then never started anything, never started anywhere. Because she's too good for that. Holding out for management position.
Then maybe she fell on hard times when, well into adulthood, her parents made her move out. Maybe she shoplifted her clothes. She had to. It wasn't her fault. Shitty parents. They didn't want her to have nice things.
In reality, the parents thought this would be the push that made her start something, start somewhere. But they were wrong. All it did was cement the idea into her head that the world was against her.
Maybe her parents said she could come back, but she wouldn't. She had her pride. She'd rather sleep on the street. Her time would come. Until then, she had her iPhone. Her parents kept paying for that. They're not total assholes.
As the years fell away, this poor, hard-done-by girl endured much at the hands of the universe. How long would she have to wait? How long would it be until her ship came in? She was ready, after all. Ready to take what's rightfully hers, whatever it was. Unfairly, yet patiently, she waited in the harbour for that ship. She waited relentlessly to start.
Maybe she's still there.
Have you ever known anyone who was so completely rooted in her own sense of self-entitlement that it led her to her downfall?
You don't know anyone like that? Funny, neither do I.
I started listening to Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) today. Driver 8 revealed itself to me immediately.
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Trains kind of scare me. Not riding trains. I'm fine riding trains. But trains going by. The train that runs near my house. The train that runs behind my parents' house. The tragedy in Lac Megantic in the summer of 2013 really got me. The irresponsibility. The trickle-down culpability. That town. Those people. I checked the news every day until everyone was accounted for. Not everyone was accounted for. But we know what happened to them. It's crazy enough driving a car, when you think about it. I have drive-o-phobia. Trying to get my license has been an ongoin, 20-year ordeal. That big, heavy, gasoline-filled hunk of metal in my hands, under my control. Sometimes when I practice driving the anxiety gets so bad I leave my body. That's the worst. The basis of my fear. And yet people drive cars like it's nothing, no big deal. Some of those people fall asleep at the wheel. Some people drive trains. Like it's nothing. No big deal.
I seem to have jumped ahead in time. Well, I never did declare that I was going to be moving in chronological order. While I have primarily been listening to Murmur (1983) and Reckoning (1984), All the Way to Reno (Reveal, 2001) shuffled its way into my head during an afternoon walk today, and the images flooded my imagination so quickly that I had to shortcut my way back to work and jot them down before they vanished.
The result is a little bit more girly and whimsical than I had intended, but I think that probably comes from my own girlhood dreams of fame, running away to join a band and sing... or play the tambourine. I could have been a tambourine girl. My uncle bought me a red star-shaped tambourine when I was 16. It never made it out of my bedroom.
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This is a sketched-over foot selfie (sans tri-star tattoo) taken more years ago than I care to admit. Those were my favourite dancing shoes. I still have them. My sapphire slippers. There's no place like anyplace else.
I don't know what is happening with these location sketches. It's not planned... but I guess I just have to let the theme run its course. I kind of like it though... nothing wrong with doing a series.
Credits
Reproduction, altered: Google Map; Southwestern USA.
I can't get enough of this song. I don't think my interpretation of it is all that unexpected, given the ongoing timeliness and relevance of the subject matter. Without meaning to, I've gone and done two "geographical location sketches" in a row (SKETCH! That's a way better word than "piece"!).
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In case it's not apparent, I had a lot of fun with this one. Digital painting using various applications which shall remain nameless due to their lack of industry importance. But It's late and I don't have much more in the way of words right now, so here are The Words instead. Enjoy!
Decide yourself if radio's gonna stay
Reason: it could polish up the gray
Put that, put that, put that on your wall
That this isn't Country at all
Radio station: decide yourself
Keep me out of Country and the word Wheel of fortune's leading us: absurd Push that, push that, push that to the hull That this isn't nothing at all Straight off the boat, where to go Calling out in transit
Calling out in transit Radio Free Europe (radio) Decide: defy the media too fast
Instead of pushing palaces to fall
Put that, put that, put that up your wall
That this isn't fortunate at all
Radio station: decide yourself
We're calling out in transit
Calling out in transit
Radio Free Europe (radio)
Decide yourself: come in on a boat
Media's too fast
Keep me out of Country and the word
Disappointment into us: absurd
Straight off the boat, where to go?
Calling out in transit
Calling out in transit
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Calling out in transit
Calling out in transit
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Credits
Partial reproduction, altered: The Scream, Edvard Munch.
Hiya. Right. I haven't found my groove yet. So this post is going to be awkward. First posts are always like that, all "Hi, nice to meetcha, do you like things of an enjoyable nature, too?". You're here, so I assume we have at least one thing in common. So let me get right to it. Oh, did you read the Inspiration for this blog? Do you care? No? Okay. On with the show, this is it! This piece... ugh. I'm referring to my own art as a "piece". I hate that. It sounds so pretentious. Nevertheless, I suppose that's the official term. A-hem. This piece is inspired by the song West of the Fields, the final track from R.E.M.'s first full-length album, Murmur (1983).
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The lyric "West of the fields" is repeated multiple times in the song's chorus, but to my ears, it sounds like "West of Steeles". I'm putting this down to the fact that, for a year and a half, I lived at the intersection of Kipling Avenue and Steeles Avenue West in North Etobicoke, Ontario. That's fairly recent history to me, and so a map of that area always flashes through my mind when I listen to the song.
I had actually intended to create this piece in the real live physical world, using paint, and a map, and ink and paper stressing techniques, but I'm moving house in 2 weeks and I already packed all my art supplies. So instead, I arted over a Google map using Pixlr Express and MS Paint. The overlayed transparencies are photographs I took of the Rosedale Station tiles and a close up of my craptacularly cute Crosley turntable case. Visual inspiration for this piece has come from the work of Stephen Andrews, who has a spectularly beautiful exhibit going on at the Art Gallery of Ontario, right now, right right now, go go go see it!
Credits
Reproduction, altered: Google Map; intersection of Steeles Avenue West and Kipling Avenue, Etobicoke, Ontario.
