"Day One" by Doug McClellan Burn the clothes you wore that day. Save the ashes. Bring them to the square where we are fashioning a monument of ashes. Winds will rise, soften the heroic shapes, the paper faces around the square will become eyeless, the sideshow will depart to a muffle of drums, leaving only hollow sounds of wind-- and wind being wind, the ashes will follow it, leaving a swept field of countless jagged stones. Newspaper and oil on canvas.

A Showing at Last!

I don't know if you remember the twelve shadowboxes I posted a while ago, but I finally found a place for them. It wasn't easy. I tried several galleries and coffee shops around the town. Many required a monthly membership fee (there was no way I could do a one-time showing), wouldn't have any space for a while (the airport), or didn't respond at all. But I did manage to find this cool little place called Domino in Manitou Springs. It's a tiny place but I like the neighborhood and a lot of the art showing. The shadowboxes should be up the first Friday of October, but if you're in the area you should definitely check this place out.

http://www.domino80904.com/

On a personal note, I havn't posted a new blog in an ages because I've been working two jobs. One is still the framing store and then I've picked up a seasonal job as a cashier at Home Depot. Luckily, the two are really close...like...to the point where I could walk from one to the other in five minutes. The framing job is still my favorite: it's in my field, the work is pretty laid back but usually interesting, I get to see artwork people bring in, and I like the people working there. 

Home Depot is just really stressful. The store is enormous and there are so many things to remember. I'm only a cashier, but I'm the first person people see when they come in so I get a lot of angry people returning things (which I'm not authorized to do; I have to send them elsewhere) or asking my advice on what weed killer or screws to use. Most of the customers are decent people, but I've had a few try to steal things by hiding them in other products, give me hell because their card is declined, or bitch about prices and lay down their entire political and economic theory on me. That's a whole 'nother blog, though.

I'm still writing and cranking out some art, just not at the pace I'd like to be. I dunno when my next post will be but I'll try and keep you up to date. 

Gods

So after sending out submission after submission to various literary magazines, I finally got accepted to one. The Blue Earth Review (published by Minnesota State University) is going to publish a photo called "Gods" in their upcoming ninth volume. I took the photo while visiting New York City last summer. Many photos have been taken of the iconic "Atlas" sculpture in front of the Rockefeller Center, but I had no idea that it was right across from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

It was such a great contrast - a Greek diety vs. Christianity, art deco vs. gothic, and (judging by the cover of Atlas Shrugged) a symbol of individualism and capitalism vs. an institution of charity and community - I had to get a shot. I didn't notice when I took it, but if Atlas put his legs together more, it would almost look like a reverse crucifix.

The Hammer
by Carl Sandburg

I have seen
The old gods go
And the new gods come.

Day by day
And year by year
The idols fall
And the idols rise.

Today
I worship the hammer

Endzone

Finally a new painting. This one took me a few months, but I'm generally pleased with how it turned out. It's an improvement on an earlier painting I did in college called "No 'I' in 'Team'." The local high school was having its homecoming parade with cheerleaders riding a fire truck and the entire football team riding along in military trucks of some kind. Seeing that really cemented the link between sports and the military for me. Luckily, I had a camera on me and snapped a few photos, but it's kind of hard to tell in the painting exactly what's going in. It should be clearer here.

But honestly, sports and the military are disturbingly similar:
1. They're both geared toward young men and are the source of many of the games boys play as kids.
2. They're both socially acceptable outlets of aggression that channel violence toward a threatening "other" (a rival team vs. foreigners).
3. Both require uniforms, physical conditioning, and training that breaks down the individual identity and replaces it with the team mentality.
4. Both nurture a tribal sense of pride and belonging (sports fans vs. patriotism).
5. Both are enormous businesses with huge marketing and recruitment campaigns on high schools and colleges.
6. Both are cultural rites of passage into adulthood.

Now don't get me wrong. Sports and the military aren't necessary bad. Sports can help build confidence and teach teamwork and in events such as the Olympics, entire countries can come together and try to set aside political and cultural differences to play a few games. In a perfect world, armies and warfare wouldn't be needed, but until we get there, militaries are sadly necessary in this world.

But you can't deny that much of the behavior and culture these two create mirror one another. They're engrained into our culture and have a huge hand in molding what kind of people we are.

The title is borrowed from a Don DeLillo novel which also explores these themes.

Wow, check this out!

I've heard about the craft of bookbinding, but this is insane!

http://www.jacquelinerushlee.com/images/BookSculpture.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/03/03/134229879/destroy-your-books

http://www.flickr.com/photos/briandettmer/

http://www.englandgallery.com/artist_group.php?mainId=32&media=Constructions%20%26%20mixed%20media

Menagerie Series

While doing some renovation, I had to pick out some paint cards at the local Home Depot. Once I painted the bathroom, I still had the card left over so I took out an exact-o knife and carved out a koi fish. I wondered if I could do an animal for each color and maybe put them in shadow boxes. So here's the finished results. 12 handmade shadow boxes (because the cheapest I could find that were the right size ran $20) with various animals of various colors and string, cut paper, cardboard, and acrylic paint to add a background. Now I just have to figure out a way to attach glass to the front and sell them.

 

 

 

 

The Storytelling Graph

I’ve heard a lot about character-driven novels vs. plot-driven novels, character-driven novels being the more literary, and reflective examinations of humanity and plot-driven novels focusing more on events. I general they’re easier and a little more fun to read. Authors usually develop one over the other depending upon what genre they’re writing or what literary movement they’re from. I don’t mean a writer always develops one at the expense of the other. For example, science fiction usually demands more from the plot than the characters. A few authors strike a good balance between the two and I think these authors are among the best.

Both of these are important components of storytelling, even if I believe character is a little more important than plot in most cases. A story can take feature survival on the high seas, sacrifice on a desert battlefield, or the break-down of a relationship in a seedy hotel, but if I’m not invested in the characters, I won’t care when something happens to them. The characters don’t necessarily have to be sympathetic or even likable, but they have to have dimension. I have to feel their anger when they are cheated, their sorrow when they lose, their sense of triumph when they overcome. On the other hand, some novels (particularly from early Modernism) focus almost exclusively on the characters and let the plot take a back seat. This can work sometimes but the characters better be pretty damn interesting. A story isn’t much of a story without conflict.

Since I’m a pretty visual person in how I solve problems, I tried charting out a graph plotting famous authors between “character” and “plot” but decided to add a third component to make it more interesting: style - which would include voice, the organization of the novel, and diction. Many authors are known for their style whether it’s the sharp punctuating words of Norman Mailer, the free association and play on words of the Beats, or Victor Hugo’s dense sentences with word counts surpassing the hundreds, but for some writers, the style outweighs the substance. There are some novels seem solely about the impressive, poetic language but when I finish a chapter, I have no idea what actually happened to the main character or whoever that is (I’m looking at you, Thomas Pynchon). Style is certainly something to be proud of, even encouraged, but an author cannot let it overtake his writing or the plot and character will be completely eclipsed.

This graph is a work in progress. It contains only authors I’ve read (some not in quite a while), but if you see an author that should be on here or if you Baldwin is in the wrong place, please feel free to make suggestions.

Look! I made one for film, too! I know the director shares credit with the actors, producers, and especially the writers of the screenplay, but surely you can see some trends with the movies certain directors take on and how they choose to make them.