drawpaintwritemakethings

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

draw things paint things write things make things, number 310 … not some broken thing

The end of the year is not the end of you. 

And once again a big NO THANKYOU to Christmas. It remains, in my mind, the most un-magical time of year. But at least it marks the *end* of the year, and these final weeks of grey, denuded non-time provide some wonderful cover for all sorts of perhaps-next-year-might-be-better fantasies. And in that spirit of yet-to-be-pulverized hope, here are some things I'd like to see the back of in 2025:

• Performers in their seventies still performing. Still prancing around some stage in Winnipeg or Kansas City. Does the *idea* of seeing an icon such as Iggy Pop in concert have some kind of currency? Perhaps. That is, until you realize that the man is seventy-seven years old. Still with the long hair. Still performing shirtless. I mean, his abdomen looks like a cat trying to escape a wet sack. When does this kind of atrocity stop? The concept of a graceful exit seems to have lost all traction (this not-letting-go seems to have infected the political class as well, but at least they're not trying to choreograph "Real Wild Child"). Even when that person, take Bruce Springsteen for example, is already wealthy beyond imagining (Forbes says Springsteen is a billionaire, which he disputes). Still singing about blue-collar problems. About rusted cities. Still needing the stage. When do we finally turn off the tap on the nostalgia machine? When will we allow the future to start happening again? But __________ is a legend, you might say. Okay. So how much are you willing to pay to see Nadia Comaneci squeeze herself into some leotards and fling herself at the uneven bars? Or maybe she can have a role in the next Marvel Universe movie?

• Media speculation as to what Trump will do in his second term. I can tell you the answer right now: everything and nothing, with ambient but relentless grift and random cruelty along the way. Otherwise, trying to predict what Trump will do is like trying to imagine what your recently paroled neighbour is building in his garage at three a.m. now that he's stopped taking his meds. Hammer, scream, repeat. Look, everyone has someone in their extended family, friend circle or neighbourhood that has gone completely Deep Space Nine. You stay away, as best you can, or at least keep things in large groups, and try not to look at whatever plastic surgery has done to their face. And never leave them alone with your kids. 

• Office Christmas parties. I don't dislike the people I work with. They're fine. I'd just rather not have lunch or drinks with them. To celebrate a holiday we're automatically assuming that I care about. Which I don't. Does this mean I am not a team player? Sure, if that's how you want to interpret it. But nowhere in my job description or collective agreement can I find the phrase "team player". What I can find is a list of duties and responsibilities, which is what I am paid for and prepared to do. No problem. These things have nothing to do with eggnog or Santa hats. 

• The celebrity oligarchy. Whatever happened to the shadowy billionaire, the cackling, behind-the-curtain type? Putting yourself at the front of the parade seems like a shortsighted strategy, especially in countries like America, which has about four hundred million guns kicking around. I get it that we just live in an oligarchy now, that end-stage capitalism is all about grotesque distortions of wealth and the absolute abandonment of fairness, but you don't need to be celebrated as well. You can pay people to do that. On your private island. Be the wizard, but stay behind the curtain. 

• Strikes that are only allowed to continue long enough that the workers get to miss a few paycheques. As someone who had to close his shop over Christmas, I did not enjoy the Canada Post strike. But I respect the right to strike. A strike is a lever that needs to get pulled when management floats the question, What happens if we just fuck around? Allowing a strike to proceed just long enough to start causing pain before ordering/legislating employees back to work is not really respecting the process. If you're always going to send the thing to arbitration, then just do so from the get go. Otherwise you're just undermining the collective bargaining process.

• My Gen Z kid yelling at me all the time. I don't know if you remember the fable about the grasshopper and the ant, but it tells the story of a grasshopper who fucks around all summer while the ant works to store food and prepare for winter (spoiler alert: things don't end well for the grasshopper). Well, you can guess who plays who in my house. Except in this version the grasshopper goes around yelling about how nothing is her fault and you can't tell me what to do and la la la I can't hear you leave me alone I can't take this stress I have a headache all my friends have a prescription I probably need one, too. Also tomorrow is pajama day at school. Again. And I need $40 for pizza. I saw some clip the other day about how parents are accompanying their Gen Z kids to job interviews and all I could do was nod and think, Yep, that's the logical end point of this thing. 

• Attempts at humour over fuck-ups. As a graphic designer I probably get more of my fair share of these, and I should be used to it, if not dead inside, but it still feels like a hot needle when the client emails something along the lines of, Bad news, good news! There's a tiny typo in the third paragraph of that poster you printed two hundred copies of last week, so we'll need to redo it. Again. Probably my bad. Sorry! The good news is that my cat has a very colourful, glossy bottom layer for his litter box now! LOL!

•  Gambling being everywhere now. Was there a vote on this? Did we decide, at some point, that we needed more gambling? Because I thought we had done the research and realized that gambling was a net negative for society. Addiction, bankruptcy, crime, psychological disfigurement, social alienation, domestic abuse, homelessness, suicide ... 

• Alcohol being everywhere now. Do I really need buy beer at the gas station? I understand this completes the smokes/beer daily double, but this feels very 1977. Again, who asked for this, exactly? I mean, the seventies were fun, in a certain shag-carpeted van kind of way, but they were also very dark, with most guys tapping out at sixty eight. 

• Grey Kingston. Can we just turn on the fucking sun already? Jesus it's like Dickens meets The Mist around here. 

• Professional football players celebrating every play like they just won the lottery or cured cancer. You're grown men, stop it. Stop acting like you're Captain America. It's gross. Especially if your team is 3-10, or 2-11, and you just ran for eight yards. Stop it. 

• The POV post. POV is point-of-view, meaning the perspective of that character. Which is almost always pretty obvious. Because the viewer can make that kind of mental leap. More of a small hop, actually. Using the POV captioning is like using voiceover in a movie, which most directors hate, because it means they didn't tell the story very well, or that some studio executive is worried that the audience won't be able to follow. 

• Etsy becoming bullshit. Or Etsy becoming a corporate shell of its former self. When I see Instagram posts from 'Etsy Trend Experts', talking about their Holiday Trend Guide and how to make everything in pastoral prints (read: cow patterns), or Drew Barrymore acting as Etsy's 'Chief Gifting Officer', I get pretty fucking angry. Because Etsy used to be a place where some talented weirdo in Sault Ste. Marie could sell handmade dolls she made in the likeness of the Golden Girls. It was a place for people with unique, original things. Not pastoral fucking prints. Not the fucking Pottery Barn. 

Alright, my apologies if this post was a bit expletive-heavy. I can get a bit Angry Elmo sometimes. Which seems to be going around. The fear/sadness/emptiness trifecta coming out in different ways. The other morning I watched a giant moustache bug going down my basement steps like a hideous Slinky. Later that day I had to swerve around a sea gull eating a pile of pancakes dumped on the street. These things act like glitches in the matrix. 

And it's easy, by the end of a very long year, to wonder what is left, what the damage is, not just out there in darkening world but for the defeated programs within. Just how much has been compromised within yourself. But you are not a broken thing. Certainly, anyone with a basic working knowledge of what is required for human utility (never mind flourishing) is exhausted and diminished from trying to function within the confines of failing and maladjusted systems adjudicated by professionally incompetent managers. Yet this is not an infection. I used to know someone who would not watch horror movies because, as she explained, "I don't want those bad things to get into my head." But she was wrong. They don't have to. So much of life is Plato's cave. The real world is your own, and you have carried it this far. You are not a broken thing. Just keep going.

Have a good holiday, everyone,  djb  

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.  — Flannery O'Connor

This Tinyletter (yes, I’m still calling it that) has been brought to you by the vanity license plates …  

MANGXT RV RND B ALI GORR HIM8NCEB SILVRJET WARWICK LDR O PCK BART O BOBBYQUE BCLARKEY XXL PAL TAKE TWO OHPRETTY

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Art Gift Box Number 1

Making an art gift box — a collage painting on wood panel, two cigar-tin stories, a figurine glass art object and some extras to pad things out. The painting is a bit mad; it’s an ink transfer onto kleenex/tissue that I pressed into gel. The one cigar-tin story is different endings, while the other one has some kind of prose poetry … barking stuff, fun stuff, there’s one I like called Ending for a Movie About Dragons and it goes — The dwarves never make it to the Golden Peak. They never even make it to the Whispering Forest, or to the Desolated Plains, or even to the Struggling Station. Deep within the tunnels of the Mountains of No Tomorrow, lost and starving and half-mad with fear, abandoned by the Wizard of Grey Space, they are surrounded by an immense horde of goblins, a vast swarming of yellow eyes, their teeth red and terrible, and within an hour dwarf skulls are being used as trophies and footballs, the look of horror and surprise frozen on their disembodied faces, so amazed they are at the utter corruption of their magical belief in a quest based in honour and promises. The art object is essentially a snow globe without any snow, just a tiny man sitting on a boulder of acrylic strips, trapped under glass. The whole set is meant as a gift for someone to decorate a new cubicle or old desk or a busy bookshelf. I think it’s just nice to have interesting things within reach when you’re trying to think. If you like this set, drop me a line. I am happy to gift-wrap it, put in a note from the sender and deliver it to someone’s doorstep (if they live in the area). 

Art Gift Box Number 2

Let's make another art gift box! Start with a box that you saved for some reason, some box that made you say, This is a perfectly good box! Of course this kind of thinking is a product of aging, this compulsion to save things, hang on to things, but let’s leave that discussion (diagnosis?) for some other time. First thing into this gift box is a small collage on cradled wood panel, four by six by one and three-quarter inches, a collage in taupe and Prussian blue in distressed layers, big graphic type mixed with instructions from a vintage (sixties?) computer programming textbook, plus details from medieval illustrations. Because why not. Without Even Your Melancholy Fire this painting is called, also for reasons that now elude me. Next thing to add is an ink drawing of a jazz-age bather, black on white with a spot of red for her bathing suit, on photo paper. I like her smile. Almost demure. Then an art object, a figure sitting on a mound of acrylic strips, trapped under glass, she's wearing red as well, perched there contemplating life, on the lid over her head it reads: an Idea. Next up are four mixed media illustrations on playing cards, four portraits of characters, with the titles: I Can Hardly Remember Them Now, I Find It Difficult to Believe, That These Were the Reasons, and These Four I Loved the Best. You could display these together or spread about a room. Next we have a print on found paper called I Want to Kiss You So Badly. This is wax monotype, one pressing only, using a derelict ink jet printer, literally on its last legs, with the surprising advantage of it printing completely random colour combinations, especially when fed sheets of wax paper. This is a still from the movie Imitation of Life, with the incomparably troubled Lana Turner. And then an ink drawing, again with a spot red, of a young girl addressing her seated doll. As one does. Next into the box is a cigar-tin story, the booklet inside has a series of endings, on the cover is a painting of blonde lady in a cap, surrounded by blue. Next up is a hipster (meaning: homemade) notebook, pocket-sized, with an ink drawing of a lion on the cover. Last but not least is another collage painting on a cradled panel, in various reds, with the word POEM in prominence. The colour scheme for this gift set is various shades of red, from crimson to cinnamon, with some items in blue and taupe for contrast. Meant as a travelling art assembly, some plug-and-play, for someone with a new room, bookshelf, cubicle or mantle, someone who appreciates real things made by humans. Everything is varnished or otherwise protected and meant to be picked up, examined and handled. If this interests you, or you have someone in the Kingston area who needs this as a gift, then drop me a line. I can gift wrap it, add a personal note and deliver.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

This is called the devoted. It is a big painting, 24 x 36 x 1.75 inches, which is 2 feet by three feet and almost two inches thick, on cradled wood panel. Mixed media which means a little bit of everything, from pencil to crayon to ink to acrylic, with washes and gels mixed in, before everything gets sealed with varnish. I always use quotations in my listings and for this one there are two, the first by the visual artist Agnes Martin, who did these very careful, very serene pieces built around grids of dots and lines, she said, My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind. The second quote is from Stella Adler, of method acting fame, who said, Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. This is a painting designed to add life to a room. If it appeals to you, then contact me. My work is always affordably priced.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

New Tinyletter today. Wrote it with my brain and my hands. Not AI but who cares, if I could write it in cursive on the backs of old envelopes I would do that, too.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Good morning. 

The other day I listened to an interview with Robert Skidelsky, member of the House of Lords and classic example of Refined Old British Guy. At one point in the (cheery) conversation he listed his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as ...

1) nuclear war 2) environmental collapse 3) pandemics 4) our dependence on networks

... and it was that last one that caught my attention. He talked about modern networks as these strange creations our lives have become enmeshed within, that we both rely upon and are vulnerable to. We don’t understand them. And when they fail, we are undermined, damaged or ruined. 

And then I couldn't stop thinking about networks, and how they are everywhere. And how so many of them are maddening, crumbling or unsound these days.

Take simple networks, like the people in your life. Not like it used to be. Think about how you grew up – inside a certain, easily-defined physical world of family, neighbourhood or town, school, friends and perhaps teams or clubs (I had a paper route, so my network was a bit larger, but kids don't do that anymore). With grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as the occasional, second-tier outliers. These days the extended family unit is now more likely a single family unit. Or single parent family unit. And while we might have greater access to 'friends' online, this is like trading a horse for a picture of one. Or a windswept sea for a wading pool. No danger, no depth, no wind in one’s hair. With the added injury of social media not even pretending to be about anything social any longer, just another delivery system for bursts of entertainment and advertising. An algorithm serving flotsam. On Threads, for example, I see artists complaining about this every day, how Instagram no longer shares their work, even among their followers and peers. How something that was once useful as a tool is no longer worth the effort. Or, put another way, is shit. And I'm only seeing these comments on Threads because it's new, and Meta hasn't figured out what to do with it yet (read: how to turn it into shit).

And what kind of connection do you feel to the network of your workplace, where everything is run by a corporate-woke HR dealing in the meaningless currency of awareness days and mandatory culture training, and half the labour is remote, and your position sits somewhere between tenuous and disposable? Do you feel future-proofed? And how many of you feel like the institutions you work for no longer know what they're about, or are managed horrendously, or not at all, and are stable only in a lethargic sense, as if sleeping, or slowly drip-by-drip failing?

And then think about the matrix of electronic networks in your everyday life, draped over you like extra skeletons or skins. Computers and tablets and phones and entire star systems of passwords and cards and codes and keys. Endless, endless screens. And sometimes these systems work and sometimes they don't, and things break and things are badly designed, or designed with malevolence in mind. Navigating the kind of electronic maze you'd expect to find in a Kubrick fever dream, just to locate the page where you can check a box and press save. 

Your email full of phishing and scams. Every second photo you see doctored or faked or generated by A.I. News items that you have to look at like Columbo. Your kid who corrects you on language but can't find their way out of the neighbourhood without an iPhone and Google maps. Not that they go anywhere anyway. Economic networks that seem designed to blow up every so many years. Supply-chain networks that can break anytime. Government networks that operate like the Forbidden City, cadres of mandarins sending emails to each other, having meetings about meetings, but wholly unable to actually do things. Build things, make things. The best they can do is mail out $200 cheques to everyone. 

It seems to me that I used to live in a system where you had to find the right person to get or do the thing, which was a certain kind of skill (relationships, knowledge, etc), whereas now it's about finding the right system to game for the big payday (influencing, shamelessness, etc). 

Minds are meaning-making machines, but when that meaning is defeated by bad networks, people feel helpless. Or unhappy. Or angry. And then they behave badly. 

Which is great for elections, isn't it? All over the world the incumbents are either losing or taking a beating. While our Canadian federal election probably won't happen until the new year, the outcome is already baked in (the guy that no one likes anymore will lose to a guy who no one likes much either). 

Meanwhile my American friends go to the polls tomorrow. What has that election looked like? What have been the big ideas? Oh wait, there were no ideas. It was Faux Democracy versus Fake Fascism. The Stage Managed Candidate versus The Orange Villain. It's awful, seeing Bernie Sanders out there stumping for Harris. But he has to, because Trump is such a stupid, Big Gulp swindler, who will run a government that looks like Wrestlemania. 

Oh, he doesn’t mean what he says, he says a lot of crazy stuff. All I care about is that when he was president the economy was better. He’s not capable enough to do all that dictator stuff. The people around him will keep him in check. I don’t like him as a person but maybe we need a gangsta. And so on. I’ve heard enough of this kind of thing to think that he will probably win on Tuesday.  

But, just like with the Martian on Bugs Bunny, there will be no ka-boom. There will just be loads of vulgar incompetence, obvious criminality and mock-Christian culture war pornography. Some rich people will get a tax break, certainly, and in the background all the unstable, pernicious networks will continue. 

Until the day they don’t.

Good luck to everyone tomorrow, djb

Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in. — Gunter Grass

This Tinyletter (yes, I’m still calling it that) has been brought to you by the vanity license plates …

GHOUL KHANSOLO NEUROSCI NMBRDDAR HERRZZ BREJAK SLYTAURS JAVA GRL ILVMINI MISSMP LTL BRIT KNTR 44 YOU LIE GAAAARY SYLV D POPPATOY A90SUPRA YRALIH C BISCIT THE PKG LDACOSTA MUSCTCHR RN KATIE TINMAN01 ANA JINA HICKSTER BETTYVES

… with a big thank-you to Meg F!

E / T / C / E / T / E / R / A my Etsy store / my Big Cartel store / my Instagram / Kiss Me Deadly, original ending / We are undone, prepare to die. / kid dances to impress / you need to wellness / donkey loves chicken

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

library card art set, action and plastics

Four ink and wash paintings on vintage library cards.

Each card is 3 x 5 inches and attractively packaged for gift giving, in a clear sleeve with a decorative card top.

Library sign-out cards only remain as curiosity items — relics still occasionally found in the back pocket of library books. I take these vintage, obsolete cards and repurpose them as art, making ink paintings that work in concert with the signatures, stamps and marks the cards have acquired over their history and service.

The titles of these four cards are …

Twelve Men of Action by Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1952) The Military Interpreter by R. Dubuis (1954) Statistical Methods in Structural Mechanics by Vladimir Vasilevich Bolotin (1969) Plastic Theory of Structures by Michael Rena Horne (1972)

Library card artworks are fantastic bookmarks (they have an incredible durability), and absolutely shine when framed. They also make great gifts — just tuck one into a Christmas or other greeting card and suddenly you’re sending your friend or relative some original artwork for the cost of a stamp. 

The artwork is wholly original, done freehand, directly onto the cards, in ink and wash.

Every order comes with an extra art surprise.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.   — Anais Nin

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.  — Jean-Paul Sartre

I love Los Angeles, and I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.  — Andy Warhol

Buy from people, not from corporations. And buy things that are made by human hands, not computers. 

Escape the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art.

SAVE OUR LIBRARIES

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Inktober, so far.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

so don't go

original painting in mixed media

on aluminum panel

8 x 10 inches

a texture-rich painting meant as a compelling accent for a bedroom, mantle or office area (even sitting quite easily in the corner of a cubicle)

badger is leaving (perhaps vanishing)

Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden-in all the places.  — Frances Hodgson Burnett I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining.   — Groucho Marx Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.  — Kenneth Grahame

varnished: a durable artwork that can be freely handled

suitable for framing but also stands on its own

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

you can find more work at 

and

https://society6.com/darryljoelberger

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

and you believed me

original painting in mixed media

on hard panel

8 x 10 inches

a small but texture-rich painting meant as a compelling accent for a bedroom, mantle or office area

the writing in pencil goes as follows …

and then i turned away

and would now look again

or so i promised

varnished: a durable artwork that can be freely handled

suitable for framing but also stands on its own

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

“Ring Found” and “A Glass Eye” 

two original gel monoprints on found paper, with typewriter text

each 8.5 x 9.25 inches

image patterns in French sky blue, fawn brown and emerald green with darker line and type marks

on found paper — pages torn from a discarded book about the French Impressionists

the writing is original and my own … 

I took out an advertisement in the classifieds.  It read:    Ring found. Public beach at Withering Place.  Real diamond? Describe it and the circumstances of losing it. Box 1457.    I had found no ring, of course. But I was bored,  and wanted some mail, which was so hard to come by  in those days.

and 

Something gleamed beneath the dresser. Lamont searched in tiny patterns with his flashlight.  It was a glass eye. Look at you, Lamont said.  As he squatted down to retrieve it, two fingers  already forming a pinch, Lamont could feel but  not hear the various cracks and pops in his knees  and back. He cursed while his chunky cop shoes  twisted and squeaked beneath him. And while he  could feel the sudden cold, the appalling wrongness  of the shadow which suddenly loomed at his shoulder,  he did not hear its approach. After the second hammer  blow, he heard nothing at all.

each print lightly tacked to foam board

packaged for gift giving in a clear cellophane sleeve

meant for framing but can sit on a mantle, shelf, or corner of a cubicle as well

two artworks in conversation

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

you can find more work at 

www.etsy.com/ca/shop/cigartinstories

and

www.society6.com/darryljoelberger

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

sometimes i even enjoy it; mixed media on cradled wood panel, 6 x 6 inches. This painting will make you thin. This painting will make you happy. This painting will lower your cortisol. This painting is nutrient-rich. This painting will make your enemies fear you. This painting will earn you six-figures in passive income. No work at all. This painting will activate your glutes. This painting will calm your anxiety. This painting will make you feel young again, and all your dreams come true.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

five ukiyo-e ink brush drawings on paper

The ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") genre of art flourished in Japan from the 17th through 19th centuries. Ukiyo-e artists produced woodblock prints and paintings depicting samurai, beautiful courtesans, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, history, folk tales, travel in romantic landscapes, flora, fauna and erotica. The Floating World, as the pleasure districts of Edo (modern day Tokyo) were called, describes the sensory pleasures of urban life, but also offers a bittersweet reminder of the fleeting nature of all worldly delights. Some of the greatest Japanese artists of the time—Ando Hiroshige, Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Toyokuni III, and Keisai Eisen among them—became known primarily as woodblock print designers in the ukiyo-e style. Their work had a profound impact on European artists around this time—its flattened perspective and innovative compositions inspired artists such as Mary Cassatt, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as the Japonisme movement in art and design.

Here are five original ink-brush drawings in the ukiyo-e style — a reinterpretation divergent from a simple pastiche in that the historical ukiyo-e images were never done in simple black and white.

samurai at rest

samurai with fan

samurai with playful ghost

samurai with spear

the warlord

superblack India ink on various weights of all-wood sketch paper: a textured-surface, cold-press paper with anti-microbial agents (for protection against environmental acids)

8 x 10 inches each

packaged in a clear sleeve with lightweight archival board

… Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; … refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world… ~ Asai Ryoi Singlemindedness is all-powerful.  ~ Tsunetomo Yamamoto At the moment of victory, tighten the straps of your helmet. ~ Tokugawa Ieyasu

meant for framing, to be displayed as a series

a wonderful gift for the Japanophile or fan of Asian art

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

find it here: drawthingspaintthingswritethingsmakethings.bigcartel.com/product/five-ukiyo-e-ink-brush-drawings-on-paper

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

stop holding onto yourself

an original mixed media painting on cradled wood panel

24 x 30 x 1.75 inches

ready to hang, with a wire attachment in back

figurative, in black and white, with spot colour

the astronaut, high above east germany

alice blue, beige, bisque, blanched almond, bone, citron, coquelicot, dark turquoise, eggshell, ghost white, isabelline, ivory, light orange, mint cream, orchid pink, peach puff, saffron, sinopia, thulian pink, vermillion

for the centre of a smaller or medium-sized room, or corner of a larger

classic astronaut, straight from the space age missions

three quotations come to mind … 

Space is to place as eternity is to time.   — Joseph Joubert I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time.   — David Byrne Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.   — Hermann Hesse

no preliminary pencil lines … straight brush to surface, with tiny details in collage

varnished: a durable artwork that can be freely handled

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

painting, art, expressionist, wood, wall art, decorative, texture, mixed media, art gift, art lover, collector, astronaut, space

wood, paper, acrylic, wire, gel, drawing, collage, varnish, marker, crayon, black, white, grey, stars, rockets, adventure

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Number 306. A road trip described. You can find it here.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

Some retro 8-bit gaming designs in my Society6 store. All pixelated, all the time.

[drawpaintwritemakethings]

the world is out there

mixed media collage on cradled birch wood panel

14 x 14 x 1.75 inches

drawing, painting, writing, pencil, crayon, ink, acrylic, wax, collage, type, found pieces, found paper, wax emulsion, wash, gel, varnish

the title is from a quotation ...

The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. — Richard Rorty

Rorty rejected the long-held idea that correct internal representations of objects in the outside world are a necessary prerequisite for knowledge.

a painting about identity and meaning

this artwork is sealed and finished with varnish

a piece alive with texture, colour and movement

durable — can be freely handled

three more quotes come to mind …

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about. — Joseph Campbell Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite. — Charles Spurgeon I am rare, and there is value in all rarity; therefore, I am valuable. — Og Mandino

ready to hang (there is a wire hanger applied in back)

shipped with care

everything from my shop comes with an extra art surprise

buy from people, not corporations

buy things made by human hands, not computers

escape from the dreaming planet ... give the gift of original art

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