linen and leaves

leaves and linen

photoshop drawing

Some losses can never be regained
Split drops of broken rain
Where sorrow seeps
Like an open wound
Leaving coppered stains
On linen and leaves.
 
In a Word: fescennine
In a Book: Lord Foul's Bane- Stephen R. Donaldson
In a Song: La Follia - Arcangelo Corelli

Untitled

Untitled

Charcoal pencil on canvas board

3" x 5"

Two
I
We
Midnight goats
Chew
Walk
Glare
Chew

In a Word: quidam
In a Book: The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
In a Song:  All the Big Trees - Riceboy Sleeps

pouring christs from tea

pouring christs from tea

tea stains on paper

4" x 6"

Sometimes he walks half-erect

Hunkered over and worn
Moist bones broke for the marrow
His mouth a drunken incision
Dropping ashes, bitter and torn
He pours christs from his tea
Staining both paper and cloth
Before jumping from his light switch
To bed and dreams shadowed dark
With the bleating of sheep
And syncopated chords of Joy Division

In a Word:jacitation
In a Book: Strange Pilgrims- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In a Song: Doodlin' - Horace Silver and the Jazz Mesengers

blood is thicker

blood is thicker

ink on primed canvas paper

2" x 6"

blood is thicker

but wine is fine

for drowning

in

In a Word: maieutic
In a Book: Anathem- Neal Stephenson
In a Song: Blood - The Middle East

hung up

hung up

ink on paper

5" x 2"

Somewhere here,
Scattered on the floor,
Are the remnants of childhood.

Somewhere there,
Bathed in amber light,
Our memory’s heart strings strumming

Somewhere here,
Laid bare to the bone,
Unopened letters once stood.

Somewhere there,
You await responses
That are no longer forthcoming.

Somewhere here,
On weary calf bone,
I always stand,
Less than anything you’ve ever known,
Like paper found in overcoats
Your grandfather used to own.

Lost and forgotten dreams,
Wracked in soaking moans,
You’ve already dreamt them,
And carried them home,
Somewhere there.

In a Word: velleity
In a Book: Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
In a Song: Svefn-g-englar - Sigur ros

after van gogh

after van gogh

ink on post-it note

4" x 3"

Van Gogh drawings
Arranged on post-it
Notes are as easy as
Grappling with moral
Obscurities or
Giving more than
Half your liver away

In a Word: titubation
In a Book: The Lost Books of the Odyssey - Zachary Mason
In a Song: Dry - William Elliot Whitmore

stone dust

stone dust

stone dust, charcoal and tea on laid paper

5" x 5"

the smell of stone

dusty, mineral, cool,

pungent, powdery bone

sits in my nose

an earthen concoction

inculcating

fulminating

one turgid explosion

chinese flower tea

chinese flower tea

ink, watercolor and coffee on cardboard

7" x 4"

the smell of grounds for a mistake
pungent chicory and cedar flake
sweet to the touch, sweet on the lip
poison gets you down the line at stake

hide in a mountain, or her hip
there is no way in to give the slip
bracketed hunger and desire
writing out punctuated flesh scrip

green leaves floating inside your tea
the fates have paced your grassy lea
clouding your vision with salt-fire
a honey-fly stinging like a bee

no water-world can quench the pyre
carnal thoughts quiver, shake and perspire
passing moments like tadpoles teem
beautific, haloed, stagnant and dire

you are caught in a rushing stream,
sapped of strength, you give in to ache.

In a Word: daddock
In a Book: Dark Matter- Philip Kerr
In a Song: Like it or Not- Architecture in Helsinki

asha

asha

charcoal on toned paper

4"x5"

how the corpse is dressed,

in taffeta or cold lace,

in silk, cotton or gauze,

says little about life

but, shown in light, blue-tinged, under porcelain sheen,

it falls into the place where driftwood is removed from beach by sea

where longing and regret cast sharp shadows

where lonliness is a wailing sound rippling a pond

where loss derives from being

here it resides by you, alone and full

in your book of remembrance

In a Word- obumbrate

In a Book- The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea Philip Hoare

In a Song- Beat the Devil's Tattoo Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

An Indeterminate Hiatus

Winter

Oil paint on Panel

(approx. 54”x 36”)

Autumn

Oil paint on Panel
(approx. 54”x 36”)

I have been unable to update this blog consistently over the last few months as I have been refocusing my energies away from sketches towards the development of more long-term projects (see most recent paintings above ) and frankly displaying multitudinous sketches of the same thing feels boring to me. So, until such time as I resume daily sketching activities that fit this blog I am suspending it. See you all whenever.

Eric in a Word: Whisternefet
Book of the Day: A Feast for Crows- George R.R. Martin
Song of the Day: Rugla -Amiina

Religious Figure of the Day: Susanoh

The Sketchbook Project - 8 (Symmetry)

Preparing to teach Basic Design this fall, I’ve been thinking about symmetry and equilibrium a bit lately, particularly from a system approach. Some systems are stabilized at equilibrium and thrive there- say for instance an atom or molecule. Some systems thrive in a state of flux, of asymmetry, where certain elements are more necessary for the system to continue to exist. And some systems are asymmetrically self maintaining. It’s this third type of system that I am interested in. The classic example is a candle flame- combustion occurs above a threshold temperature, combustion induces convection that brings in fresh oxygen and gets rid of waste. Combustion also melts wax so that it can climb the wick and vaporize more wax to make it available for combustion. But it can only self maintain within specific environmental conditions. How does this relate to creativity, the making of and the viewing of art?

Eric in a Word: quaquaversal

Book of the Day: Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity - Hugh MacLeod

Song of the Day: Sweet Thang- Shuggie Otis

Religious Figure of the Day: Perun

Medium: Masking tape, black tea, graphite on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 7 (Paths not taken)

I’ve been meditating on things planned but never culminated. In particular, I have been looking at the forks in my life where I have chosen one tine over another and wondering how life would be different if I had taken the planned route rather than the new opportunity. I don’t have any regrets, but I am curious about whom that other person could have been. A “for instance” is necessary - I’ll choose a good one. Near the middle of my first semester in art college I made a decision to finish that year and then take a year off to travel to Africa as a freelance photographer working in conflict zones and refuge camps around Liberia and Sierra Leone. But, a certain relationship (my wife) started to emerge and by February I had scrapped the plan. I often wonder who would have emerged from Africa, or if he’d emerge.

Eric in a Word: baragouin

Book of the Day: Labyrinths with Path of Thunder - Christopher Okigbo
Song of the Day: Buzzards of Green Hill - Les Claypool's Flying Frog Brigade
Religious Figure of the Day: Kinich Ahau
Medium: Hibiscus infusion, black tea, blue ink, black ink on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

Sketchbook Project - 6

The black box was rocking along the dusty rutted road, the sun bearing harsh upon the undulating surface of the land - rises covered in razor grass and topped by clumps of twisted bush, with their branches huddled against the sky as if cringing from a lash. The landscape was divided in two by the crushed shell streak of a road stretching in long loops, a river of snow crawling out of the scrub on its way to the sea. Humidity pressed down on the horses and the driver flattening time into a sweltered present, past and future to hard to cut from the thick fabric of atmosphere. Even the flies were grounded under the unusual weight of the cobalt oven. I listened, but no sounds could reach beyond the crunch of the hooves and wheels, except the chitinous vibration of cicadas. In silence born unto this present I came.

Eric in a Word: idolum

Book of the Day: Memories of My Melancholy Whores- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Song of the Day: L'oiseau de bois- Anouar Brahem

Religious Figure of the Day: Asgaya Gigagei

Medium: blue ink, white out, graphite on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 5

Struggling a bit lately with my sketchbook. I just don’t have the drive right now. It’s not a lack of ideas or subjects; in fact my mind is full of visions and concepts, my eye noticing beauty and balance in the everyday. But moving from internal to external has not been a step I’ve been able to take. The glut of ideas and observations, I think, are the cause for this block. Everything is vibrant and interesting; everything has been equalized in its vivacity. I find it hard to actualize without differentiation. In a reversal of my norm, it is easier to continue, and even finish, larger pieces than to capture something in a 30 second sketch. And the sketches I’ve managed to capture have been crap whereas every step I’ve made on more long-term work has been right even when it felt wrong. Thus is the flow of creation.

Eric in a Word: radiogenic
Book of the Day: Art Fundamentals: Theory and Practice
Song of the Day: Walk on Water - Otis Taylor
Religious Figure of the Day: Heitsi-eibib
Medium: permanent black ink, rooibos tea, green tea on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 4

Under torpid semi-sun profound drafts of humidity reach forth and morning echoes are stilled underneath a quilt of birdsong. I stumble in thoughts clouded by blurred perception as heavy-handed words are dropping like lead from The Shot Tower, sizzling to their destination where they cool in the medium below. It seems the impossible, yet I am reminded, by a refrain, of tactility, of solidity, of necessity: “Everything gonna be alright, yeah everything’s gonna be alright, everything’s gonna be alright”. The solidity of earth on my soles, the pressure of air on my skin consolidate the wisps dispersing in the fog. Grounded, I long for the sun and reach for lightening. I grope. I proceed. I fly a kite full of keys to spark my knuckles to action. Shuffled off, the gossamer ropes of sleep retreat and I begin again, the same as before, in my difference, from a day ago.

Eric in a Word: natable

Book of the Day: The Secret Life of Salvador Dali- Salvador Dali

Song of the Day: Big Man- Threatmantics
Religious Figure of the Day: Kydoimus
Medium: black ink, black tea, and white out on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 3 (Duns Scotus)

I have been contemplating Duns Scotus a bit lately. His Platonistic metaphysical universe is populated by objects made up of individual characteristics dependent on sensory and intellectually apprehendable universalities. In his concept the senses perceive a reality of universals. In other words, any sensed object is not really an individual object as “individual”; instead it is a reality common to all sensible objects of one type (i.e. the sweetness of all sweet things). So, there is no need for an abstractive process of the intellect to move from individual characteristics to constructed universals (i.e. a peach is perceived as that particular individual peach and must be rendered universal as a “sweet thing” in order to be known). When perceiving an object we are thus sensing and recognizing the universals (“sweet thing”, “round thing”, etc.) that combine to create an individual object rather than universalizing individual characteristics to create a category.

Eric in a Word: ingravescent

Book of the Day: Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel - Sena Jeter Naslund
Song of the Day: Song for Jeffrey - Jethro Tull

(crazy prophet style on the Rolling Stones: Rock'n'Roll Circus)

Religious Figure of the Day: Mercury

Medium: graphite, black ink, hibiscus tea, masking tape, and white out on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 2

My questions of religion are not about belief, but worship. My issues are of form, not function or substance. As we grow, we are taught the right and wrong form of worship and we are brought into conformity with beliefs established- it is spoon fed. Are those of us who are not in a position of religious power unable to cut and chew our own food without dogmatic guidelines and childhood hypnosis? Too often we lose the underlying power of religious experience in the trappings of control and become automatons of worship. Religions rarely ask their participants to explore truth outside of proscribed pathways. Is it the fear of false truths? Is it the fear of alternative truths being found? Is it a fear of diluted truth and the dissipation of the community as truths multiply? Or is it the fear of those in power losing their basis for power?

Eric in a Word: uloid

Book of the Day: Einstein's clocks, Poincaré's maps - Peter Galison

Song of the Day: Black Tambourine- Beck

Religious Figure of the Day: Ptah
Medium: white out, tea, graphite, and ink on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The Sketchbook Project - 1

I have become part of a larger artists’ project, Art House Co-op’s The Sketchbook Project: Library. I received my sketchbook yesterday with the guiding phrase. “Outside of myself” printed in small letters atop a barcode in back. I have decided to incorporate this moniker with my meditation exercises and shift their focus from within to without, recording the outcomes both here and there. This is my first entry:

If today were a man, he would be tall and slim with honey colored hair. Studious eyes would peer from under well maintained eyebrows. He would stand with the slightest of stoops, wear clothes clean but with the slightest rumpling. A smell of lightest lime would accompany his passing and the careful, yet casual, gesturing of his hands as he spoke. Memory of him would fade quick, as sister night rolled in, leaving only the impression of harmless awkwardness in their place

Eric in a Word: hagioscope
Book of the Day: The Doom that Came to Sarnath - H.P. Lovecraft
Song of the Day: Gimme Dat Harp Boy - Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band

Religious Figure of the Day: Tlazolteotl

Medium: graphite, white out, and ink on 8.25" x 5" sketchbook page

The mechanism

I was asked about the rules I set for my daily meditations, the genesis of this blog, by someone wanting to start one of their own.

The sketch: Fifteen minutes to use the materials on hand in my immediate vicinity; only that in arms length is usable. One sketch is allowed, what I start, I finish - for better or worse.

The text: Fifteen minutes to capture what is on my mind, but only fifteen minutes are allowed to type it up and make edits. I recently added a 150 word stricture, no more; no less. Once it’s done, it’s done and that text is linked to the sketch from that day. Both fiction and nonfiction allowed.

The connection: The sketch and the text ideally inform each other but are not necessarily directly related. Sometimes it’s illustrative, sometimes symbolic, and sometimes the connection so obscure as to boggle the mind.

Eric in a Word: corvine

Book of the Day: American Heroes - Edmund S. Morgan

Song of the Day: Moanin' - Charles Mingus

Religious Figure of the Day: Coronis
Medium: computer

The unicorn of indecision

It had become a struggle. Like mounting mountains in tea box tennis shoes. There weren’t as many obstacles as paralyzing arrays of opportunities falling about my head. I felt desiccated by decision so I drank four cans of inspiration and dashed away on the unicorn of indecision. My body left behind as I rose aloft. The world below bisected by a spiral golden horn I could see past and decipher the kernels from the nuts. The nuts dense, the kernels lights. One rich, imbued with a meaty flesh; the other golden and delicate readyto burst with potential. And I scream, “You fucking unicorn you just made things worse! Damn horny beast, no wonder you can only get virgins, they’re the only ones gullible enough to fall for this crap. Put me back in my body. Asshole.” In my body once again I choose the black ones, they go with everything.

Eric in a Word: ultrafidian

Book of the Day: Chagall: A Biography - Jackie Wullschläger
Song of the Day: I like Birds... - The Eels
Religious Figure of the Day: Haoma

Medium: ink, tea, and white out on irish breakfast tea box top