Visual arts from an ok writer. Alphabetized by a professional editor. Inspired by light and color and time and a dog. Over and under and in between explained by me.
Photography
My eye loves you, and: Bright, contrasting daytime colors; Subtler nighttime shades with spots of brightness (and/or a puppy); Compositions that make it wiggle and travel around before finding some type of balance that makes it feel comfortable like it’s wearing whatever an eyeball’s equivalent of a comfortable shirt is. It’s probably not a shirt.
Sometimes subjects demand center stage. Sometimes they deserve it. Really old ceramics deserve it. They bring their own colors and patterns from age, and the balance and composition is as easy as putting them alone in the middle. It would be rude not to. Our ancestors always tried their best to make them pleasing exactly there.
Digital Painting and Collage
With color handheld screens and their digital worlds, humanity stumbled on godlike control over, among other things, color saturation and voting patterns. We weren’t ready for either. Below, my own lack of preparedness for the former is on display with impressionist, abstract, and realist landscapes.
The simple variety and richness of colors on screens is what draws us in, like monkeys mesmerized with supernaturally bright fruit. And from this state, our emotions and beliefs and votes open up like BIOS settings.
Would our screens still entrance us if they were forever stuck in that 1980s black and green phase? What would George Washington think? I don’t know.
Here are excerpts from my 7 panel Comprehensive Timeline of American History called ’1776。。。等等‘ or in English ‘1776,,,etcetera.’
“Emaciated Stallion” early 1300s, China. By scholar/poet Gongkai in self-exile in southern China after Mongols conquered North. Horse shows sentiment. Stamps added by Qianlong emperor in 1700s denoting, mainly, his ownership.
Comics
Granny Matsu is an apolitical comic about China-Taiwan politics. Granny lives on an island between the two, and is just trying to mind her own business. Unnecessary Chinese saber-rattling keeps interfering with her day… But Granny always gets the last laugh!
