Showing posts with label Ramble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ramble. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2021

52 Fridays - Number 53 Bonus Week - What's Next...

 

The "52 Fridays" project was actually a "53 Fridays" project all along. That is quite fitting as 2021 proved to not follow any of my assumptions from even that basic one to where the world would be with COVID-19 (Like many people, I thought it would mostly be a non-problem by this point...) Heading into 2022 I have decided the best policy is to have no assumptions or expectations for the year and just take each day as it comes. Better to remain flexible and patient; adjust as necessary. 

This week's image is another I found on "fernandin_jones" most excellent Instaspam feed. No information there, but likely Africa. As always I will update this post with background information when it becomes available. It is always important to connect the cultures and give proper credit whenever possible. This is my interpretation of someone else's work.

The dark, deep shadows pulled me, but also the sweet smile and kind eyes, which I rendered a bit sadder looking then the original. Putting on a brave face reflects how I feel going into 2022. Keep that grin on, but it's difficult to hide the emotion in my eyes. 

It's been a good run making these fifty-three drawings. I have an idea for presenting them and may put them together as a show. Find a place to exhibit them IRL (In Real Life). Doing these drawings every week has reconnected me with the practice of making art. Now, I am feeling a bit off if I don't sit down at least once week and do some scribbling. I will continue doing some kind of creative work every week, but haven't decided what form that will take.

On this last day of 2021, I am grateful for my health, for the love in my life and the friends I have to share the journey. 

Wishing all of us have a peaceful 2022 filled with good times with friends and a few adventures too!

Never Give Up!

OK HW









Friday, December 24, 2021

52 Fridays - Moon Amigo

 

Here it is drawing number fifty-two in the "52 Fridays" drawing project! But I am not finished as I didn't realize until a few days ago that 2021 actually has fifty-three Fridays, so there will be a bonus drawing I'll post on New Year'a Eve. This has been a good project to motivate and focus my creative energies, so I will continue it into 2022, but it will take a slightly different form. What that will be exactly I haven't determined yet, so stay tuned. 

This "Moon Amigo" as I am calling him, was found in the wonderful collection of "koufengallerie" on Insta-scam . There was no description in the post, but a query yielded just the word "Gello", which my research has not produced any useful information yet.

The craters are what grabbed my attention. Like many people, my teenage years were dominated by pimples, zits, greasy skin and all the abuse that came with that. I was obsessed with remedies that would clear my skin up. Not only was it embarrassing, but it physically hurt. I'm glad those days are long gone. This fellow looks more at peace with his bumpy skin, like some ancient moon god wearing those scars as testament to hard earned wisdom. I also like the rings through the nose, though I could have done a better job of rendering those as they had subtle reflections that are lost, so I may go back in with a white marker and touch it up, or just live with it as a lesson learned.

He also reminded me of the hockey mask wearing serial killer Jason Voorhees of the "Friday the 13th" movie series. But I think this guy would just hang around humming handing out candy and not be creatively killing post-coital teenagers.

Happy Friday and Happy Christmas!

OK HW





Sunday, August 02, 2015

My Eight Mile - 8/1/2015

 Yesterday I got out for an eight mile hike. It's a route I know well in the neighborhood. I have mapped out several routes of varying lengths that begin and end at my front door. I'm fortunate to live in an interesting area with a beach close by and a park only a mile and a half away, so the walks are not just a bland sidewalk stomp through suburbia. I've been thinking about the passage of time lately; how quickly time moves through me or am I moving through time? How my walks and runs and hikes are small journeys that slip away before I can focus them to a point in my life. I wanted to do something to document what an average walk like this is like because one day, I may not live here anymore or I may not be able walk eight miles. I do know I am getting older and the old body will waste away sooner then I expect and the eight mile walk will be something I'll miss. So, "Hello there elder Hal Weaver in the future! Remember when you would tie on the old hike boots, plug-in the ear buds and stride on strong and springy legs down the lane? If not, then here's a little reminder of this time in the summer of 2015. Enjoy old boy!"

OK HW


Mile One - The Happy Mailbox - Those colorful reflectors always catch my eye.
Mile Two - Bayville Park - I love the tall pine trees in this park.
Mile Three - Pleasure House Point - Great nature area that I did not hike through on this route. Note- mind the low hanging fingers.
Mile Four - The Lesner Bridge - Here's the construction gantry lurking through the trees. The new bridge will be ready June 2017.
Mile Five - Live Oak Trees - Also in the Pleasure House Point  Nature Area.
Mile Six - I Got Fat Hands! - I must have had a lot of salt in my system as my hands ballooned up.
Mile Seven - Random Crepe Myrtle - My neighborhood is full of these beautiful trees and the bloom is on!
Mile Eight - The End of the Line - This is not my house, just a little cottage behind our house.







Thursday, June 25, 2015

There Goes the Neighborhood, UP! - 6/24/2015

The neighbor across the street is rebuilding his place. The old place was falling down and kind of scary, so we were glad to see it go. The lot was vacant for seven months. During that time we had an unobstructed view of the Cheasepeake Bay, then the building began. We were told the new building wouldn't be any higher. Yeah, right! The old place was only three stories and this one is four. It'll be interesting to see if it starts a trend in the neighborhood. OK HW

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

How to leave the shell of the old life behind...

Tonight while taking out the garbage, I had a chance encounter with an alien being. Well, alien to my normal experience. I found a cicada emerging from the shell of the life it had out-grown. I've seen plenty of the the empty husks left behind by these noisy insects, but never witnessed the act of transformation. I dropped the garbage and grabbed my camera. As I maneuvered for a decent angle, I could see it slowly wriggling back-and-forth to free itself from it's bug-shaped suit. If only we humans could do that when we have outgrown our body or life. Sometimes you do see it happen with people, often after a major life event like a divorce or death of a loved one. The shock cracks the shell of the old life and they wake-up a new person. The old rituals and habits don't satisfy any longer. The path branches off in a new direction. The advantage the cicada has over us humans is, it has no choice but to grow and literally leave that husk behind; we humans have to work at it. I am working to change my life. I want to make more art. I want my creative energies to fill my days much more than it does now. Any time you see me post a photo of a new woodcarving or drawing or video clip, that's me trying to wriggle free of the old life. It can be done...

OK HW

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

How We Remember

I've tried to explain to a few friends what Vine is and they all have the same reaction, "Six seconds? That's it? What can you do with that?". Good question. I think six seconds is freeing because it breaks the expectation we normally have for watching a "short" video. It also occurred to me that our memories, well at least my memories, seem to happen in short chunks; chunks that might just be about six seconds long. When I call up a memory, often times it is a flash of an ordinary moment; walking down the street, waiting in line, a turn of the head and a smile. If I try to remember a long event, it still comes to me in little packets of memory. Vine videos replicate that.

Last weekend, my wife and I were hanging out on the patio listening to the new Steve Earle album and I happen to look straight up and saw some beautiful clouds floating overhead.

OK HW

Sunday, January 06, 2013

I'm a Monkey, baby!

I saw this monkey mask at an exhibition at The Charles H. Taylor Art Center in Hampton, Va and took a picture. It's a simple, decorative piece, not a "real", "danced" mask. Even so, I like the clean shape of the face and the hair lines and the button eyes. I forgot to record any information about where this mask came from or who made it, so I did a web search for "African Monkey Masks" and I found that this is likely to be a mass produced mask from Indonesia. That's alright, it's still a cool looking mask and I enjoyed drawing it.

OK HW

Monday, October 29, 2012

Fool in the Rain

This weekend has mostly been a wash due to the "Super Monster Storm" also known as Hurricane Sandy. We lost power a couple of times today. I enjoyed the break from being connected. It was relaxing to sit and listen to the wind and rain and work on a drawing.

Today's drawing came from a great old tome that has been in my library for many years called "History of Far Eastern Art" by Sherman Lee. It's a wonderful, thick book full of photos of amazing art stretching back for centuries. My eye landed on a tiny bronze sculpture from the Indus culture, a "Dancing Girl" from the Mohenjo-daro region. I like her attitude and her weird, cyber-punk left arm. Everything ancient is futuristic again. Sometime many years from now, when I look at this drawing again, I'll think about the rain and the wind and the quiet space that Sandy gave me so I had time to dance with this beauty.

OK HW

Sunday, October 14, 2012

"Edgar Allan Poe Vs. The Brain Eating Microbe"

After too many years, I am finally exhibiting some art again. I was invited by James Warwick Jones, the gallery manager at the Charles H. Taylor Arts Center in Hampton, Va to participate in the "Small Works" show. The piece I am submitting is called, "Edgar Allan Poe vs. The Brain Eating Microbe" and is a new version of a drawing I made for the "Monster Drawing Rally" for the 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Va. Here's the post for the Poe study I did back then. I loved the concept so much that I wanted to spend a lot of time producing a highly polished version in miniature for the "Small Works" show.  I found the frame at a thrift store, which was an amazing accident that completes the work.

If you are a local or in the area on Hampton, Va on November 2, come on out to the opening reception.

OK HW

Monday, October 08, 2012

Ibo - West African Mask Drawing

The tools you use to create are important because they help remove the obstacles between the idea and the execution. The right brush or instrument or camera can make all the difference, so when you find that thing that fits your hand, you want only that. For me, it's a proper ink pen. I use a variety of pens and will use whatever is available, but when given the option, I go back to a few tried and true pens. I recently decided to track down a pen that I've always loved, Pilot Better Stick Ballpoint Pen (BP-S). I tried a couple of the chain office supply places, but no joy, but I was able to find them online and ordered a box.
What I love about the BP-S is the soft, thin lines it makes and the fine control of gradient and texture I can achieve. It's a lightweight pen that is easy to grip and they are not so expensive that if you lose or break one that it's a problem. They can get a bit blobby at times, leaving surprise little globs of ink where you might not want them, so I keep a scrap piece of paper nearby to spin the tip on to clear it.

This drawing is of an African mask from the Ibo group of West Africa. I like the realistic facial details and the white paint that's flaking off. I also like the plank coming out of the top of the head. There are small holes drilled through it that make me wonder what was attached.

OK HW

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Hiking Pleasure House Point...

It was a gorgeous Indian Summer day today and I took full advantage of it with a nice, long hike. My persistence has paid off this year and I am closing in on my mileage goal for 2012 of 750 miles. With three months left to go, I have less then 180 miles left. Today I tried a new route by adding in a new nature trail that has been added to Pleasure House Point, some land that was bought by the city of Virginia Beach and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. For a while there was a contractor trying to "develop it" by cramming 1600 condo units there, but lucky for all of us, wiser heads prevailed for a change and now we have this wonderful natural sanctuary.
There were roads and houses back in there at one time, but for whatever reason, they have gone to seed, but you can still find crumbling asphalt back in the sand trails and see dock pilings along the shore. Walking back through such a peaceful and beautiful wetland, makes me proud to be a contributor to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Hiking from my home, I wound up with a decent 8-mile route today, which you can check out here.

OK HW

Monday, September 24, 2012

Tater Harvesting Time Y'all!

This weekend I decided to see what bounty my potato growing efforts may have yielded. The above ground plants have died and dried up, so from what I have read, it was time. Eagerly, I dug into the mound of dirt hoping to come across some firm, round forms, but my efforts at first were futile. I pressed on and was rewarded with the handful pictured here. Not much of a meal I admit, but considering that I started with one sprouting tater (here's the post from the spring), I'm pleased enough to get anything. These humble results encourage me to aim higher next year, so I'll plant more and a wider variety of potatoes and take the process more seriously and do stuff like fertilize and such. The Roma tomato plants are still producing fruit so the garden isn't totally done yet. Time to plant some winter crops!

OK HW

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Nothing Like a Fresh Tomato From Your Own Garden

It's been a tough summer for our tomato plants. We tried four roma tomato plants this year, planted in big pots because we have sand for a yard. We water and fertilized and the plants grew big and fast. Then the little, yellow flowers came and after that some little baby tomatos. Hooray! But as they got bigger, they got black on the bottoms and rotted. A quick spin through the net educated me to a condition called "blossom rot" that is caused by a lack of calcium.

The remedy is to dissolve some Tums and water the plant, the result being healthy tomatoes. I tried this cure a couple of times and it finally took on one of the plants. Today I got to pick the first good tomato this year. We've also been successfully growing some leaf lettuce and I can't wait to make a garden fresh salad with my very fresh ingredients.

OK HW


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Three years ago today, John took the train for the coast...

John Paul Verhulst was my friend and he has been dead and gone now for three years. He was only forty-five when he passed. Some of us know that it was some kind of miracle he made it as far as he did as John had a special talent for stepping on the Devil's tail. John was a rock star in search of an audience (and band for that matter). He loved his rock'n'roll music and listened to nearly everything, but above all others, there was his beloved Rolling Stones and The Doors. Whenever I randomly hear either of those bands on the radio now, I always have to nod and say, "Hello John". He listened to nearly everything, searching out the new stuff before anyone else. John was the first punk rocker in our group, inflicting the Sex Pistols on our virgin ears. Blasting The Cramps and Nina Hagen and after a viewing "The Hunger", Bauhaus, he was always on a quest to find new sounds. His intellectual curiosities were not limited to music, John was a student of history, particularly World War II, but could speak on nearly any time or place in history. He was always reading at any time of the day or night. I recall coming home at 2 am (we were roommates for a time) finding him standing in the kitchen stirring a pot of chili, punk rock shaking the walls (you did not want to be his neighbor) while reading a dog-eared copy of William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". He'd look up and flash what we all called his "Shit-Eating Grin" and he was King of the World at the moment and it was good. John was the smartest, most handsome and most worldly among us misfits. When he walked into the room, people damn well knew it. He would take lemons and make a rocket launcher out of them. He had a tendency to behave badly when confronted by authority figures. And the whole time flashing that smile.  John had the air of someone that would fall into it one day. He had too many advantages to fail. While the rest of us mortals scrambled to get through the days, John floated above it all. When gravity finally did take hold, it was vindictive and cruel and John came to Earth hard. "The Lifestyle" took it's toll in a hundred ways and left John savaged and weak. The doctors gave him six months and his "Fuck You" was to go on another three years. By the time all this terrible shit had come down, John and I had long since drifted apart. Years before, I knew that I had to let that life go and there was no room for a half measure. You were either on the train or you weren't. I had other places to go. Before the shadow came, a mutual friend called me out-of-the-blue one day and arranged for us all to get together. We had a few beers and some lunch and sat together one last time, though we didn't know it at the time and snapped a few photos to remember the moment. After that, John and I talked on the phone from time-to-time and made plans to get together again, but something always broke those plans and I never saw him again. Now, it's hard to believe that he's gone. John was a wild, complicated mutant of a man and I am proud to have known him. We were close as brothers for a time and he tattooed my soul and for that I will always remember him. I am listening to The Rolling Stones, "Exile on Main Street" and the Keith Richards' song "Happy" just came on. Hello John. Richards was his a role model and spiritual uncle for John, so quite fitting to hear that now. So, on this third, sad anniversary of my friend's departure from this world, I ask you to raise a glass for John. He was an original human being and left his mark on this old swinging sphere and he will be missed....

Miss you brother,

OK HW


Saturday, April 28, 2012

Some Times They're Playing Possum and Sometimes They're Just Dead

Found this little guy in the yard. At first I couldn't  tell if he was really dead, knocked out or pretending to be dead. I went up to the house and got the camera and he was still there, so I gave him a nudge and he was stiff and cold. I didn't see any evidence of violence (after decades of watching CSI this and that, I've developed my cop-mind), no teeth marks or blood, so what happened? He is tiny, about five inches long without the tail, so a youngin' not long out of the nest. Barely got started in life and was cut down. Sometimes nature is cruel, actually indifferent, we project the cruel part, and will take who or whatever makes a mistake. Another reminder to live each day as if it was our last. "Freshen your mind with death" as the Bushido says.

Whenever I find a dead animal, I always enjoy the opportunity to closely examine an animal that when alive, I might only get a glimpse of as it scurries off to escape me. I love the the curl of his tail and the tiny hand-like paws. The fur is beautiful too, the delicate white hairs floating above the gray fur. I took my photos, then got out the shovel and gave this baby a proper burial.

OK HW

Monday, April 16, 2012

We are all in this together...


These are fine, weird and interesting times that we live in. Anyone reading this is well aware of the unstoppable earthquake of change that is rolling through seemingly everything all courtesy of this here intertubes that is carrying these words. Not long ago if you were an artist or writer or musician or filmmaker, you had to grind away for many years honing your craft hoping for the day when you might be able to get your efforts in front of the right eyes. Eyes in the head of someone "connected", a gatekeeper that would bring the manna down from heaven in the form of a recording, publishing, exhibition, production contract that would whisk you away from the hard-living reality of Ramen and Natty-lite. Well, those days are gone with record, publishing and movie companies all reeling from the tsunami of all this interconnectedness. What is happening now is that the middle man is getting cut out for better and worse. The worse is with the gatekeepers of cultural taste falling to shadow, we are no longer protected from the massive mountains of steaming shite that lie in wait to steal our time and attention away. The better is artists can now sell directly to their fans and cut out all those many layers of corporate dependents siphoning off all the real profits until the artist is left with only crumbs. Part of this new paradigm is fans getting the ability to "invest" in an artist's project before hand often for the price of a CD or DVD, in small payments often as low as one dollar, art funded by the crowd or "crowdsourcing", as it is called. I've been throwing my money behind some projects via the fine web site Kickstarter that is designed to help artists raise money for their projects. Any kind of art you can think of, any kind of project you can conceive can be found on their. So far, I have supported seven projects, everything from a horror film (Hardcore Indie) to a couple of video games (Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun Returns) and my latest, my old friend Barbara Nesbitt's Album project. If you like alt country, then you you love her stuff. I love her voice and heartfelt, authenticate lyrics. She has a good way to go to be fully funded, so give some of her songs a listen and consider helping her bring this album to life. Because you know, we are all in this together. We got to help each other out and we can do it.

Zahdah!

OK HW

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Image for March 19, 2012 - Monday Sunset

I got out for a walk after work with my old friend Colin. Our friendship goes back over thirty years. There was a stretch of many years where we lost touch, but we reconnected a few years back and I marvel at how we've managed to find a new level as friends. This does not always happen. Sometimes the drift sets in and there's no pulling it back. Friendships are tricky and mysterious things. It's hard to guess which ones will last and which ones will fade away.  There's no sense in worrying about it, better to appreciate the moment and hope you get more of them in the future. Friendships are like a sunset. Brief, beautiful and easy to take for granted. As I get older I realize how lucky I've been to have had so many sweet friends.

OK HW

Saturday, February 25, 2012

We're All Just Meat Flying Through the Air

Air travel isn't what it used to be. There was a time that people would get dressed for a plane trip. A time when the airlines treated their passengers with respect and actually cared about customer comfort. For the most part, those days are long gone. There's a restaurant here in my new home for the day, Newark Airport, called Gallagher's that specializes in steaks. They show off the uncut slabs, proof of the quality. It just looks creepy to me and also struck me as an apt metaphor modern air travel. OK HW

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Image for February 12, 2012 - SNOW!


Last night we had our first snow for this winter and for 2012. It didn't last long, but the front that brought the snow also brought the cold, so when we got up this morning, some snow was still there. This winter has been very mild so far, with too many days in the 50s and 60s, hell even some days in 70s in January, so this blast of "real" winter is most welcome by me at least. I like the snow and the cold. It transforms any environment, bringing clarity and stillness (the cold keeps the lightweights shivering in their snuggies inside) and sets the stage for perfect hiking. The groundhog saw his shadow recently, signaling six more weeks of winter. Maybe he was right this year.

OK HW

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

STAR WARS! Uncut

"Star Wars" is a huge part of my cultural mythology as it is for any self-respecting movie nerd. I saw it for the first time in May of 1977, the weekend it was released. I had been reading about it in the pages of Starlog magazine for months, so could not wait for it to come out. I remember riding my bike down to the State movie theater in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin on that warm Saturday to catch a matinee showing. As the lights went down in the theater, I glanced around at the scattering of the dozen or so other folks, all of us completely oblivious to the mind-blowing we were about to experience. Once that Imperial Star-cruiser rumbled down and across the screen, I knew, even as an eleven year old, that I was watching something very special. In the next week, I caught "Star Wars" another three times, but now the lines were around the block and it was playing in two of the three theaters in downtown. As the years rolled on, I could not wait for the next installment to come out. George Lucas had tapped into a universe that carried me out of my awkward teen-aged years to a place of high adventure and well, if you are reading this, then I don't need to explain it.


 
Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Fast forward to now. After episodes one through three. After the digitally massaged reissues. After the magic and soul was sand blasted by the machine that now is LucasArts. "Star Wars" has become that old friend you occasionally run into who used to be your tightest bro, but somewhere through the years, you've drifted apart and now it's just uncomfortable to see them still wearing that Flock of Seagulls t-shirt and smoking clove cigs. Yeah, there were some good times, but it's hard to get over the sting of when they dumped you and started hanging around their new bud, Jar-Jar.



Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

"Star Wars: Uncut" made all that pain go away. Casey Pugh's concept was simple; let's remake "Star Wars" fifteen seconds at a time and everybody is invited. There was no criteria for how to remake it, other then "keep it real" and the hundreds of film makers that participated did just that. The range of creativity is astounding. The love and passion that every contributor conveys with their clips did what I would not have believed possible, they brought the magic back! God bless everyone of those furry little freaks, they gave me that feeling again. "Star Wars" is a product, a commodity, Lucas won't let us forget that. What this film does is remind us that no matter how tight the copyright laws and anti-piracy efforts, if a piece of art crosses over and enters the soul of a culture, then it belongs to us all. We own it now. It is our "Moby Dick", "Huckleberry Finn", our "Romeo and Juliet". This crazy patchwork retelling of Luke Skywalker's coming of age story brings the love back home again. If you love the original like I do, then pop some popcorn and fire up the Vimeo and be prepared to have your mind blown once again.

OK HW