Thursday, December 31, 2015

Frogged




I wanted the fairy tale
although I don't pretend to be a princess.
I long ago learned to rescue myself.

I passed over so many amphibious suitors,
looking for the one;
neither prince nor knight,
but someone to relish the sunset,
someone real.

I should have recognized the taste
of flies on your lips,
foul and forked.
I spelled eyes to see what wasn't there.

I forgot my feet as your tongue
oozed its sticky words.

Awakening, at last,
to your tongue thrust,
to your slime oozing off my chin.

There are no happy endings.

Find it here.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Your Monster



My self identity was so many pieces
stitched together on your slab,
an almost person, cold and dead.

You meant nothing to me;
my heart lifeless in your eager hands.

You flipped the switch.
Some monsters are better left dead.

The spark of life flickered.  You fled.
You couldn't face what you created.

Love beating within me was never your intention.

The only way to protect my resurrection of feeling
was to hide its beat behind corpse eyes;
I worked to control the killing urge 
of my fingers, which itched to betray me
and summon their master, their maker,
even  knowing that you would only flee
faster and farther from our grasp.

No matter the distance,
I can feel the waves of horror and hatred
at what you gave life to.  The needle shakes in your hand.
The electric current, a lightning flash, burnt us both.

Undo the stitches.  Throw the pieces back into the grave
you dug them from.  Take back the life you inflicted on me.

Your revulsion only feeds the continued beating of my heart.

Find it here.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Never Trust Pandora with the Keys


"I have a very important task for you," said Schrodinger to Pandora, handing her a ring of keys.  "Make yourself at home in my laboratory.  Help yourself to any snacks from the fridge."

Pandora looked from the keys in her hand to the strangely intimidating and, yet, alluring door.  

"What's in there?" she queried.  

"Just a cat," he replied quickly, shrugging in to his coat and hurrying to the door before she could ask any more questions.  He scurried out into the darkness, knowing full well what mischief Pandora would get up to in his absence, knowing that the cat should never be freed.

Schrodinger created that cat: a beast which is not alive, nor is it truly dead.  What it is, this cat, is a diseased, rotting, undead thing.  Schrodinger made it.  He rolled in the filth with it.  He cuddled it to himself, reveling in the disease, breathing in its rot, but, at long last, even Schrodinger began to feel uneasy.

He had been trapped in the darkness with this thing, with this terrible knowledge of what he had done; this dark, twisted secret.  It rustles in the darkness, stealing his peace of mind.  It taunts him from the shadows, a secret which can never be told; a secret which can never be shared.

In his growing guilt and madness, Schrodinger begins to believe that he can free himself from it.  If he can just send it from him; if he can just drive it from the darkness and send it into the light, surely, it will be destroyed.  His mind will be cleansed.  All will be made fresh and new.  It will be as if he never crafted that disease ridden beast.

So, he leaves.  He entrusts the keys to Pandora, knowing full well what she will do.  

She will unlock the door.  She will release his terrible secret.  She will let the filthy, rotting beast out into the world.  She cannot help herself.

And, Schrodinger, you will not be cleansed.  You cannot cure yourself of infection by spreading disease.  All you  have done is shared your horror with the world.  

We didn't need to know, Schrodinger.  We didn't want to know.  

No one needed to see your undead cat, Schrodinger.  Keep your theories and your horrible secrets to yourself.

Find it here.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

One in 7 billion


A few days ago, I was at an exhibition with a friend.  

I don't remember the conversation that led up to it, but as we paused for a moment in front of a depiction of voodoo ritual, he commented, "Did you know that there are over 7 billion people on the earth today?"

I waited for him to continue, expecting some further reflection on overpopulation, dwindling global resources, maybe even something about the effects of climate destabilization.

Instead, he said, "You would think that in a world of 7 billion people that there would be even one person that would just get me."

In that moment, I thought I had never heard anything quite so heartbreaking, and so very, very true.

Yes, yes, oh yes, I realized, that is exactly what I want; all that I have ever really wanted.

Why, in a world of 7 billion people, isn't there anyone who understands me?

I'm tired of facing the endless crowds and the lengthening days, always alone; a mask of competent resilience carefully in place.

Find me, please, I'm right here; waiting, just waiting for you.

Find this piece here.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

What is an Artist?



What is an artist?  Is it some sort of special, divine, inborn talent that makes an artist?  Is it accolades and awards from people with a pile of degrees and a long resume?

I have begun to think that perhaps you become an artist when you declare yourself an artist; when you have something important to say with your art and you say it.  

You don't need the approval of an expert from an ivory tower to declare you an artist.  You don't need a special parchment with an even more special seal.  You don't even need for your nearest and dearest to approve of you and what you create.  (Sure, it would be nice, but it isn't essential).

Remember Van Gogh?  Remember Monet and his scrappy bands of Impressionist rejects with their Salon Des Refuses?  Think of Duchamp and his two million dollar urinal.  It was art because he said it was art.

Pick up a brush, a stylus, a handful of clay, and say what needs to be said.

You are an artist.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Put away Childish Things



My malfunctioning tabula rasa, 
ready to be filled with editorial notes.
Some children are born to disappoint,
but a daily meal of criticism
filled even my thick skull 
until self hatred spilled out my blue orbs.
No more would fit.

My playmates and classmates were showered
with love for simply being.
I mirrored them, echoing,
but every action, backward, distorted
and wrong.  Or, so you told me.

Ten is too old for playthings.
My untouched dolls, eyes glassy with judgement,
lined dusty shelves.  Playtime was over.

My only escape from you, closed to me.
You locked the gate, sealing out the light.
Hoarding your miserly draconic love.
My inner drummer marched me cliff ward.

I learned to always choose the men
who loved by dismantling.
They knew all the songs
you ever sang to me.
I followed the piper. I danced, 
always getting the steps wrong.

I can never quiet your voice,
the siren in my ear,
the storm of your indifference
forever eroding the sand foundation
of my mirage of self.



Friday, September 18, 2015

The Green Silence



I was runner up to your queen.
You fulfilled all your obligations.
I languished as understudy.

I never learned to be true blue.
Green suited me better.

A black hole to your rising sun,
a whirling pit of negativity,
a weed in shadow
while your rose bloomed.

I lived on leftovers,
the queue of mediocrity,
the rejects, wannabes and never weres,
the Calibans longing for Miranda.

Wearing a leather jacket 
doesn't make you Joey Ramone.

Caliban learned to hate
what he could never possess.
Passion becomes poison
whispering in the dark.

Blue roses never bloom,
stunted in their growth.
My betrayal blossomed
in reptilian silence.
The greenery flourished.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Heartless



Your heart trembled in my hands;
my eyes, blind.
The men were my mirror.
My self work so much
spilled semen on satin sheets.

You left your door open.  
I chose the window.
I thought he was my vision quest,
my knight in the sweat lodge.

He clanked in,
full of answers
to the wrong questions.

I left you; lost you;
your heart so much shrapnel 
beneath my hooves,
charging the wrong way.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Just Be



Everything you ever did wrong
you wanted to fix with me, 
your tweaked rerun.
The casting was all wrong.

A bean sprouted from disappointed dreams,
I went off script, losing 
the pink swirls, the tea parties,
and the porcelain dolls.

Your prototype miscarried 
into gothic horror,
tarot card spreads and spirits
calling from the darkness.

My wings didn't sprout.
The tiara never fit.
My shields failed.

Layers of masks;
the paint is peeling.
Alterations and cuts,
the skin doesn't fit.

I struggle to breathe; to cut;
I'm corseted into the wrong role,
robed as an ill favored caricature.

I'm shedding your skin
into something reptilian and sleek.
Dropping the masks,
I still won't wear pink

Friday, September 11, 2015

Friendship is War



I loved a Botticelli artist,
Medici nosed and sewer deep.
You took him.

Cutting cheekbones
your heavy arsenal.
Victory was inevitable.

Scalps lined your shelves
from Joe Punk
to Evil Personified.

Friendship is war.

We were dolls to be broken
and dropped.

Stand on the pile,
your battle plans to self esteem.

Shredded


I judged your profile,
forgetting Lord Byron was a bastard.

You were a garret in Paris,
a moth in the darkness.

I brought my black bag,
brimming with legs and breasts.
I couldn't cure you.
The infection was too ingrained.

Your pretty words
turned my head 360.
Your hook was barbed.
I swallowed.

The fight was pitiful.
You cut the line,

leaving me numb,
among the splatter,
my faith torn,
my feet shredded,
your cock broken.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Winged Alice and the Keyblade of Doom



Your cigarette blown words
lodge firmly in my back.

Losing a toe or three 
keeps me swaying on the beam.

My fluted mouth stiffens.
I drop more than my shirt 
in the parading maze of dazed revelers
sweating in the Carnival swelter.

Twinned but not;
best friend for never.
Dissected from skin to bone.
The stripes on my pants are all wrong.

The paper mache grizzly,
the Army green ginger,
neither fits.
Your German blonde elevates you
to the balcony scene.

Keeping my mask carefully blank,
I fall into beta position.

In the garbage piled streets,
no one wants to vomit alone.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Another Brick in the Wall



You muzzled me, 
taking the key away.

I waited for my carrot. 
Sticks followed stones.

They poked me.  
They jeered 
but I believed.

If I was just good 
for long enough.

I stayed mute; 
my hands empty, 
eyes ahead.

I pretended not to see 
candy falling into the hands
of the rebels, the misfits, 
and the artists.

I applied for your approval,
selected my Waldo moment.
I stayed the course you set.
My rat for your cheese.
My obedience in triplicate.

You stamped me; 
rewards delayed.

I misunderstood 
what I was playing for.

The rule book is faulty.
Only the dead reap the prize.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Do You Mind



My nemesis gyrates to her own spiteful tune, 
placing the soundtrack on replay.
The film runs on endless reels.

She pops my joy balloon,
my present to myself.

She wakes me, sweating,
to a distorted future crone,
eating fast food ketchup for sustenance.

Our reality extends to large vistas 
of past pain and future brimstone.

She dances to my pain,
relighting like a phoenix
what cannot be erased.

I need treatment.
Bring on your electrodes.
Incise into my skull.
Let the flagellation cease.
Pierce my demon heart
and grant me amnesiac peace.



Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Permadeath



You were older, stronger, meaner,
powered up, and ready.

I spawned into existence,
stealing love,
taking undivided attention
from your player status.

Your hate one uped 
exponentially;
battle ready.

An apple from a narcissist tree,
seeking power like addicts
chase the dragon.
The game was a mismatch.

Your griefer evolution
spiraled up,
level by level.

Leaving me to fall,
hitbox draining,
condition loss,
without a hope of starting over,
my status stalled,
Character in permadeath.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Left Behind



My miserable friend,
companionably muted.

They constructed our cage
from reflections of their own
despair and disappointment.

I dreamed your dreams.
We shared their darkness.

Together we huddled.
We never told

until the door opened.
I flew fast on stolen wings.
The window closed
with you left behind.

I escaped our cage,
the one they built,
only to craft one of my own.

I made my bars with hate and self loathing.
I can't break them.

I hope you are far away,
flying free,
leaving me behind.


Thursday, August 27, 2015

New Orleans Silence


I might have been something:
a physicist, a shaman, a healer, 
a streetwalker.

Instead, I am broken,
created in your image.

A broken doll made by a twisted man,
criticism beating in your empty chest.

Your bile corkscrewed into my marrow,
from the moment I began my desperate crawl
away from you.

I could never get far enough.

Your craftsmanship was faulty.

I am left a nothing, a heap of broken parts,
never working, never feeling,
abandoned by my maker.
                                                                                        - Loveday Funck




                                                             

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Fish Hunt


My original exposure to Frida Kahlo was several of her self portraits.  While I admired her skill in capturing her own likeness, I wasn't blown away.  I had heard her described as a feminist icon, but, based on the self portraits, I wasn't getting it.

Later, I did a little more research and came across more of her work.  

Finally, I understood.  

I think artists reflect their struggles in their work.  We use our art as a way of working through a lot of our emotional turmoil, of trying to make sense of our own pain and the madness of the world.

The more I learned about Frida Kahlo, the more I understood.

She suffered through polio as a child.  This led her to dream of  a life in medicine. Helping to fight childhood illness would help her make sense of what she suffered.

Unfortunately, in her late teens, she was involved in a truly horrific bus accident. Her life and her body were hopelessly shattered.

How to frame that so that it makes any kind of sense?

The crooked lines of God?

So that she could help lead the world to a Marxist paradise?

So that she could inspire generations of female artists?

She endured dozens of surgeries.  She had her heart broken by both Diego Rivera, her husband, and by Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the October Revolution.

She couldn't bear the children she longed for.  She couldn't go a day without physical agony.
What was it all for?

I look at the pain in my own life and it is nothing compared to what Frida Kahlo suffered.

I hope there was a purpose to it and that she made peace with it all before the end. 


There are three specific pieces of hers that I completely love.

Previously, I completed an homage to "The Two Fridas", one of my favorites.


With "The Fish Hunt", I was drawing on the brutal, twisted life of Albert Fish and couldn't help including a little homage to Frida Kahlo's "The Wounded Deer".

Of course, I think my favorite piece is "The Broken Column".

Her struggle was a difficult one.  I cannot even begin to imagine the daily pain that she suffered.  I admire her idealism in believing in Marxism as the great hope of a great future for the world.

Her life was an unending heartbreak that was reflected in her work.

When you're shattered into so many pieces, is it even possible to achieve a sense of wholeness?  For everything to ever truly come together?  

That struggle is why she became an artist.
Pain leads us to a creative place and we try to filter it, via our art, into some semblance of meaning.






Thursday, August 20, 2015

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Darkest Inspiration - Fishing for Billy



Inspiration can come from the darkness.

I posted on this subject recently as the new series I have been working on started with very dark source matter.

I've managed to transform it, via my usual pure lunacy, into something that bears very little resemblance to the original.


Sunday, August 9, 2015

Fish and Grace


Inspiration can come from many places: a quote, a poem, a line from a song..

Sometimes inspiration can come from a very dark place.

This piece leaves me feeling very conflicted.  I like the vibrant colors.  It has a sort of fun, surreal, fairy tale, Wonderland-esque feel, but my original impulse in making it is the antithesis of happiness and light.

I have a weakness for Victorian true crime and have been binge watching documentaries on Youtube. Eventually, I stumbled upon the disturbing tale of Albert Fish.

He was a product of the Victorian age of poorly run and brutal orphanages, but the most infamous of his crimes were committed a few decades into the new century.

He brutalized, murdered and ate children.

He was a monster, called the "boogeyman" by one of his almost victims yet, in person, he was very unimposing.

He was the single father to five children whom, reportedly, he took good care of and did not abuse.

Did he love them?  Was he capable of love?

How could a man who could brutalize and murder also be a dedicated father?  

At his trial, he was described as the "Gray Man", a man who appeared a bit of a doddering grandfatherly figure, really, the sort of man you would barely take notice of.

Perhaps that and his choice of the most helpless and innocent of victims is what makes him so disturbingly sinister.  

So, how did I go from horrific child murderer to a toadstool wonderland?

Really, I am as perplexed as you are!

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Dandelions of the French Quarter


I found this image of a Victorian girl about half a year ago and was enchanted by her.

She just looks so happy to be where she is and doing precisely what she is doing.

It's a fantastic attitude to take through life.

Last week, I discovered that Berke Breathed had begun drawing "Bloom County" once more.  I adored Opus and Milo and Cutter John as a child.  I felt a tinge of that Victorian girl's joie de vivre.

I adored the way that Berke Breathed and his creations mixed serious politics with the whimsy of a child's bedtime story.

Well I remember the serious temptation of the dandelion as it sways on the breeze, seeds ready to fly.

How could I help but pay homage?


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Blue and White



Strangely, when I had the option of using the whole of the color palette and absolutely any subject matter under the sun, I felt completely and utterly blank.

Had my imagination and stock of cultural references deserted me for all time?

Then the prompt of using two very specific colors and everything clicked into place.

Always such a relief when creativity knocks gently and quietly on the door.

Erato, you are always welcome here!

Sunday, July 26, 2015

I R Mutt


My son asked me what I was up to when he found me looking at images of toilets.

Naturally, I responded that I was tinkering with the idea of making a dog toilet.  I was undecided because I wasn't quite certain as to how to go about it.

My son told me that the idea was so many kinds of wrong.

Therefore, I had to follow through.

Viola.  The Dog Toilet.

Clearly not as elegant as the idea behind the original "Fountain" by Duchamp in 1917, but as you can see, I had absolutely no choice.

It had to be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

Friday, July 24, 2015

Guard Duty



Sometimes society gives power to people that shouldn't have it.

Give someone that little bit of power and a uniform to match and they check their humanity and their compassion at the door.

All they care about is exercising and abusing that power.

Maybe it is time to re-think who we uniform and trust with our safety.

The welfare of the people that they promised to protect goes completely out the window.

It's heartbreaking, but I am coming to distrust and fear the people in the uniform more than the monsters themselves.

Whatever happened to reason and compassion?





Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Inspiration is a Dream


Almost every time I put my work on display, whether at gallery or art market, someone asks me where I get my inspiration from.

If you regularly follow my blog, you know that my inspiration can come from almost anywhere: a song, a news event, or even something that happened 100 years ago.  

This time, this piece, my work was inspired by a dream.

Ordinarily, I don't remember my dreams.  At least, I usually forget them within a few moments of waking, but this one stayed with me.  I'm not certain why as it wasn't particularly insightful or life changing, but stay with me it did.

It opens, as clearly as I can recall, with me interviewing for a job by Sandra Bullock.  It seems that she has a part in a movie in which she plays a mermaid.  To really get into her role as mermaid, she has adopted a pet dolphin.

She needs to go out for the evening so naturally she needs a pet sitter.  That is the job she wants to hire me for, her dolphin sitter.

She explains to me that the dolphin will shortly be arriving on the bus, but I need to be careful as the dolphin is not an ordinary dolphin.  

Apparently, her dolphin is difficult to deal with and has an unpleasant personality.

Fair enough. We greet the dolphin as it hops off the bus; her strange land hopping dolphin with a flat face that happens to be the size of  a small dog.

We take the dolphin inside and Sandra gives me a last minute list of chores.

Apparently, one of the tasks for her dolphin sitter involves chopping a ten pound ham into tiny bits and then feeding them to the dolphin.

She leaves and I get to work on the ham.  After I am about half way through, I decide to start tossing small bits to the dolphin in case it has become hungry.

Inexplicably, the small dolphin has turned into a dachshund. 

In my dream, this does not bother me at all and I start to feed the dog its ham. 

End.

On a slightly less bizarre note, I haven't been doing the usual round of art markets.  

The heat has just been too brutal.  

I simply cannot handle sitting out in the sun from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon so I won't be in New Orleans this Saturday although I plan on being back next month and for the rest of the year.

Similarly, instead of being in Lafayette for the Farmers Market at the Horsefarm, I spent this past weekend indoors vending at Mechacon.

It was amazing fun.  The attendees were dazzling in their cosplay.  I loved every moment of it.

Now, I will be back at the Baton Rouge Art Market next Saturday (it ends at noon so I'm hoping the heat won't be quite as brutal earlier in the day).

Also, next Saturday night is "Flight 524".

There will be amazing music and fire dancing as well as spectacular art from local Baton Rouge artists (including mine!).

If you are going to be in the area, you should absolutely come out for what promises to be a fantastic time!