"An Invitation You Can't Decline" - oil on paper, 18 x 27.5.   Available here, at Artfinder and at Bluethumb.

She keeps her Moët et Chandon
In her pretty cabinet
"Let them eat cake, " she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built-in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy
At anytime an invitation
You can't decline

- from KILLER QUEEN by QUEEN

Guess who is the new studio boss?  She's got the random rabbits hiding in the corners.  She's big, she's bad, and you can't argue with her.

​As the last month of the year nearly lands in my lap and demands an examination of all the months leading up to it, I realize this was the year I stopped trying to move mountains.  All the years leading up to this one, I pushed on things that were never going to move.  This year, I let go of those things and turned toward the very, very small pile of moveables, which really consists only of myself - my actions, my choices and my state of mind.  

What surprises me is how very full my hands are.  How on earth did I ever try to do any more than this?

Ultimately, as I attempt to do in my own life, I incorporated the event into the subject's own person and looked for the strength and resiliency (and, in the case of wings, freedom) that may come from having faced something and lived a life beyond it.

The Watts quote landed after the painting was completed, and gave me a fresh view of the piece independent of Leda's mythology.  She is transformed.  

​And once again the process of creating leaves me with goosebumps and gladness. :)

We're going diving into AI today.  How can we use it as a constructive tool?

It turns out the AI bot can be a pretty good art critique group.  It is willing to point you in a direction without apology or beating around the bush.  And then it will point you in a new direction without apologizing for the first one.  Ha ha!

Let's dive!

​​For the initial painting, I began with a photo from one of our forest wanders, and asked the AI bot to give me an abstracted landscape interpretation of it.  After wading through a few dozen images, I found one I liked pretty well and painted a version of it.

​I​t hung in the studio for a month - I looked at it in every light and just shrugged.  Ho hum, I thought.  I wanted something more abstracted, more textured and gritty.  Normally I would just attack it with paint, but I decided to ask the AI bot - what now?  And told it "textured, gritty, abstracted".  After a few dozen suggestions, it came up with this:   (grid lines added with PicSplit)

​Thoughts:  seeing the various versions suggested by the AI bot helped me really see what was working, what was not, and what could work much better - along with what would not work better, because the bot's suggestions can be kitschy and overly commercial looking sometimes.

I then attacked my original piece with paint.

Adding some grid lines to keep things organized, then blocking in the darks based on the revised composition.  

​Thoughts: the bot kept the composition fairly similar in the suggestions, which made transforming this piece pretty simple.  This helped me see how some minor adjustments could really make a good painting, without starting again from scratch.

The revised inspiration image was much softer, so most of my time was spent softening everything with layers of thinned paint, rubber wedges, brushes, paper towels and fingers.  Ghost images left behind from the original painting add depth and interest to the background.  Adding paint, then removing some to reveal hints of the past.

Thoughts:  the shapes suggested in the revised image were much simpler.  It was easier to see where things in the original painting had become fussy as I worked at whittling away many of the small shapes.

The suggested color pop was tricky - it appeared to lay upon the painting in parts, and was a part of the scene in others.  This took a few layers, with the final one added with brisk passes of a laden rubber wedge - resisting the urge to blend that final layer in.

After that, refining some of the shapes, adding warmth to the sky and texture with chopsticks and paint, dripping paint and flicks of a paper towel.

Thoughts: the final revised piece tics all of the boxes I was hoping for in the first piece. Things I should have known from experience (simpler shapes, softer transitions, hints and suggestions instead of obvious forms) were much easier to recognize when viewing a dozen variations of the original painting. 

AI causes many of us to wince, cringe, shrink, fear, feel disheartened (its product can be very, very good). For artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, game designers and so many other professions, it can feel overwhelming.  As with most new technology, I tend to try it and see if it fits anywhere in the toolbox.  

What are your thoughts on AI as a creative tool?  Leave a comment below.  One (or more) lucky commenter will be selected at random to win an original piece of art!

A double dose of malarkey today, as the last random rabbit and a new monster make their debut.  I can't seem to stay away from these youngsters and their monstrous playmates - it feels cheeky and slightly beyond the pale.

"Rabbit Fighter" - oil on canvas, 15 x 30 x .75 inches.  Ready to hang.  Available here, at Artfinder and at Blue Thumb.


Shady politician in my bed
Tying bolts of lightning to his head
Call me Rabbit Fighter you know its true
'Cause babe I'll Rabbit fight all over you

Tramp king of the city he's my friend
Moondog's just a prophet to the end
Call me Rabbit Fighter you know its true
'Cause babe I'll Rabbit fight all over you
- from RABBIT FIGHTER by T. REX

Random rabbits continue to multiply in the studio, including this guy, who surely can hold his own in any altercation.  I'm pretty sure he just clobbered a few villains down the road.  Rabbits as home security?

​For all of us who are feeling a bit feisty, prickly and provoked by the state of things in the news, it is a good idea to have a rabbit fighter in which to park our inner brawler.  Each morning I enter the studio, give him my growing stack of grievances and let him go to work.  He never reports back to me, so I'm not quite sure what he has done.   But I feel better and he doesn't seem to mind.  :)

​I can't swear to it, but it is entirely possible he has grown a bit larger each day.  Hmmmmmm.

"Syncopation of Grief and Gladness" - oil on paper, 21 x 21.5  Available here, at Artfinder and at Bluethumb.

​Autumn is the season of ambivalence and reconciliation, soft-carpeted training ground for the dissolution that awaits us all, low-lit chamber for hearing more intimately the syncopation of grief and gladness that scores our improbable and finite lives — each yellow burst in the canopy a reminder that everything beautiful is perishable, each falling leaf at once a requiem for our own mortality and a rhapsody for the unbidden gift of having lived at all - THE MARGINALIAN

The reign of the random rabbits continues in the studio, where a fluffle of white lagomorphs choreographs a dance tribute to fall.

Even as the world and an abundance of unsettling, angst-invoking events and news crowd my brain and press my spirit into little boxes of anxiety, the process of imagining and creating releases the pressure and allows a deep inhale and exhale.   The rabbit hole of information saturation takes a twist and turns into an expansive cavern of color and movement and paint.  Oh yes.

This piece was inspired by combining the worlds of Edgar Degas and Fritz Scholder, a mash-up that delights me in a similar way to how hearing a mash-up of songs makes my heart jump gleefully.

​After all, jumping is what rabbits do best. :)

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The reign of random rabbits in the studio begins.

They stomp their feet, elbow out the monsters and assert dominion over the paint.  Who am I to argue with assertive  lagomorphs?

​As it often happens, the painting revealed itself after completion.  As I absent-mindedly searched for words of rabbit inspiration, I happened upon many references to this book, The Constant Rabbit.  (I have not read it, but now I must!). The quote jumped out and grabbed me by the shoulders, and said LOLA! TO TRAVEL JOYOUSLY IS BETTER THAN TO ARRIVE!  Rabbit wisdom was just what I needed.

Tralala (or nhffnfnfifh) off I go, traveling joyously without worrying about where I am going or if I shall ever arrive.

​"A Preponderance of Pondering" - oil on Yupo, 19.75 x 25 inches. Available here, at Artfinder and at Bluethumb.

Tis the season for pondering.

​Brisk, blustery, overcast, drizzly and growing darker as the days shorten.  The monsters have left the studio to hang out at the pub, and here at Malarkey Central there remain some random rabbits and this painted lady, who claims to be the spokesperson for contemplation.

Ponderers of the world, do you feel the fall?   Are your thoughts deeper, richer, more velvety as winter approaches?  Are your reveries more reflective? Do you roll and ruminate, cerebrate and speculate?  

"Devouring Grief" - oil on canvas, 15 x 30 x .75 inches.  Ready to hang.  Available here, at Artfinder and at Bluethumb.


Crow, devouring grief,
grows broader feathers, wide wings,
strong to soar with hope. - MARY W. COX

Our crow family at home has welcomed back Nicola (we think he is a fledgling from an earlier season), who was shunned over this year's breeding season.  And the interloper (as we call a new crow) is being more and more tolerated by Rocky and Natasha.  The interloper doesn't have a name yet - we shall see if they let him stick around.

In the studio, this crow was waiting for a poet.  Insisting on pinks in his beak and a stark blue eye, despite my many attempts to make him fierce and monstrous.  Cox's poem arrived shortly after our Lilly departed, and just after this crow was completed.  I have goosebumps.  Her words, this painting - a little nod and nudge from the universe.  

Mary, you and the universe were in cahoots!

"The Werewolf Often Dines Alone" - oil on cradled panel, 18 x 24 x .75 inches. Ready to hang. Available here and at Unlimited IPA through the end of October.

​
He's not proud of his table manners. He can't help the mess at mealtime. If you're not particular about these things, there is a werewolf who would love your company at dinner.

October, the month of monsters, has arrived.

Here in the studio, the summer was overrun with the creation of monstrosities for this month's show at Unlimited IPA, where the owners asked me to show something a little...peculiar.  Oh yes.  Please and thank you.