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.

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African Mask Sketch - Bafo

I finally got back into my drawing groove tonight in no small part because of "Hugo", Marty Scorsese's love letter to George Méliés, Paris and creativity. Part of the subtext of the story concerns embracing our true nature, that a person is only full functional when the know their purpose and are exercising it. For myself, I feel the most fulfilled when I am creating things with my hands. It often seems difficult to find my way through The Noise of our modern, electronic age back to the well. It requires more and more effort to turn off this laptop and the TV and sit quietly with pen and paper or clay or whatever and just create. Tonight I got there and I am grateful. 

This is another drawing in a series I have been doing of African Masks. This one was drawn out of a book called African Art by Dennis Duerden. This is a Bafo Mask from the Cameroons. I choose it because it's scary and I like the shape. The pen I was using did not co-operate, so I may draw it again sometime in pencil so I can explore the texture as deeply as I want to.

Do yourself a favor, try and catch "Hugo" in 3-D on the big screen before it's gone.

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February 5, 2012 - Hike Day

My Seven Mile Neighborhood Walk

It was a lovely gray, soggy day today that reminded me of Scottish weather, in other words, a perfect day for a hike. I've been tearing up my hiking goals so far this year. I need to average 62.5 miles a month to make my year long goal of 750 miles. I finished January with 80 miles. The 7 miles today, added to my other February miles, brings me to 98 miles total for the year so far. Cool temperatures are more agreeable to me for hiking, so I'm working hard to get ahead now, so I can be a little lazy when the heat of summer comes. Here's a link to a plot of this hike:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5287228

Gmaps is a handy, free tool for getting an accurate idea of how far you've gone.

All this training is good for keeping in shape, but I need to get a hiking trip on my calendar soon.

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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.

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From the Kan-Ken Archive - U-HAUL!

Here's another promo post card from the Kan-Ken Studios archive circa 1993. The featured piece is called "U-Haul" and was based on a doodle I did one day at lunch. I was feeling particularly German Expressionist that day.

The card was an invite for a one-man show I had at the "On the Hill" Arts Center in Yorktown, Va. That was a good time indeed.

Here's a color of shot of the original work that resides in my friend FOUST's collection up in Richmond, Va. One of things I liked about this piece was the idea came to me in a subconscious way, so I wasn't attaching any overt meaning to it as I created it. Only later, after I had lived with the piece for a while did the message surface. It speaks to a deep sense of insecurity and anxiety about having a home, hence the lightening striking the house. The numbers along the left were part of the original scrap of paper I was doodling on; a count of boxes of books as I fulfilled my duty as a shipping clerk at Waldenbooks. I guess being surrounded by all those boxes brought back that feeling of moving, which we did a lot when I was growing up, something I never enjoyed.

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Image for January 15, 2012 - A Mysterious Visitor

We had an interesting visitor in our front yard this morning. It wasn't the first time we have seen a big, bird of prey hanging out in the yard. It seems we opened a free buffet for such predators when we hung up a bird feeder. Occasionally I'll find a  swirling collection of random feathers under the feeder and wonder what drama went down.

My wife once saw a hawk take down a young Blue Jay; ripped the unaware lad right off the bird feeder and then he became someone's lunch. Maybe we have our suspect. I've posted these images on the Virginia Society of Ornithology's Facebook page, so I'm hoping to get a positive identification, which I'll share on here when/if I find out.

I spent a long time study this beauty through binoculars. Nature sometimes gives us a rare gift of a momentary encounter with something wild and today I didn't waste it. 

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Image for January 8, 2012 - The Dismal Swamp

It was a beautiful day in the fifties and the sun was shining. I got out for a fine nine mile hike with my friend David Simpson. He had always wanted to hike in the Dismal Swamp, but until today, had never been out there. We hit the Washington Ditch Trail at noon and made Lake Drummond before two o'clock. The trail is a dirt road that follows a canal straight into the swamp. It's flat and straight, so not very exciting terrain. The best you can hope for is a chance wildlife encounter and today we hit the jackpot with an all too brief glimpse (gone before I could get the camera out) of a pair of young black bears climbing down a tree and disappearing into the brush.

I was glad to point out the bears to David before they were gone. It's the second time I've seen black bear in the Dismal Swamp. Considering the healthy traffic on the trail today, we were especially luckily for our sighting.

Dave's not a regular hiker (not yet!), but he was  gung-ho for going the four and a half miles out to Lake Drummond, for a nine mile roundtrip. We stopped there for a lunch break and to enjoy the afternoon winter light playing across the glassy water. It was a good day.

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Image for January 3, 2012 - Here Comes the Sun!

Sharp Arctic winds ripped through the area today finally bringing the full bite of winter for the first time this season. I don't mind it, actually prefer to bundle up and have the heavy leather jacket on; hat and gloves deployed. For those that don't care for the cold, here's one of my "vintage" Kan-Ken Studios post cards from way back in April of 1993. This card was mailed off to my pal Gary Garbett (evidence of just how long we've known each other) and was returned because of an unknown address. Dig that Bambi stamp and only nineteen cents to mail a post card. This Sun sculpture was a limited edition, I think I cast fifty copies (maybe one hundred?) and painted them all differently. It was a popular piece costing only about $50. If any one reading this bought one and still has it, I'd love to see a picture of where you have it hanging. Sometimes I miss those days of the outdoor art shows, but mostly I'm glad for having moved on. I stepped off when the fun had drained out of it for me. Doesn't mean I won't ever step back on that crazy ride, but for now, I am happy.

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Image for January 2, 2012 - Farewell Christmas, Hello 2012!

...and so, the Holiday season has once more come to an end, unless you're one of those "twelve days of Christmas" people, then you're only halfway there. Our un-decorating event is as sad and joyless as the decorating part was festive and fun. I got the ladder out and took down the few strings of outside lights while Janet cleaned up the inside. After all the ornaments were removed from the tree, it was time to bring it to it's finally resting place. Lucky for us, we live right across from the beach, so it's an easy enough job to carry it down and find a dune. Note, the photo is staged, that's not where I actually left the tree. It wound up with three other trees grouped in a cavity carved out by Hurricane Irene and so the cycle continues. Better that the trees lives on helping to grow the dune, then grow some landfill.  Weirdly enough, I felt most of my Xmas spirit after the 25th this time. The holiday season came up way too fast for me.

Nothing says, "Happy New Year" to me then a living room empty of the tree. I am still thinking on my goals for 2012. I find it more helpful to make concrete goals, rather then "resolutions", which may be splitting hairs, but whatever works right? One goal I have committed too is increasing my hiking goal from 700 miles as I did in 2011 (actually finished with 717 miles) to add another fifty miles on for 750 miles. That's sixty-two and a half miles a month. No moss will be gathering on this stone. It's day two in 2012 and I already have fourteen miles, just 736 to go...

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Image for December 28, 2011 - AKAN!!!!

I'm trying to finish off a little sketchbook that I've been carrying around for way too long. It's filled with mini-portraits of surrealist artists and African masks. Recently while catching up on the ever-growing pile of New Yorker magazines on the bed stand, I read a wonderfully enthusiastic review by Peter Schjeldahl of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of African masks. One of the mask images accompanying the article caught my eye and I had to add him to my sketchbook. This drawing is rough three inches high. I included an extra enlarged image because I love looking at the texture of the pen marks.

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Image for December 26, 2011 - 700 Miles and Counting...

This photo is actually from yesterday, but no matter, I'll be hiking again today too. I took this just at the moment when I completed my seven hundredth mile for 2011 thus accomplishing my hiking goal. I pulled a seven mile walk yesterday that left my total at seven hundred and three miles and will add a bit more to it before this year is done. I am pondering now whether to increase my goal from seven hundred to say, seven fifty, but we will see.

This has been a good year of hiking. I had the opportunity to hike in several different states including Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Wisconsin and Florida, not to mention one overseas excursion to Scotland. I've had the chance to walk with a lot of my friends, some of whom aren't regular hikers, but I'm always trying to convert folks to the walking life so I'll always have companions for the trail. No point taking a journey if you don't have a friend or two to share it with.

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Happy Christmas 2011

Our Christmas card for 2011. Merry Christmas to all! I wish you health and peace and love.

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Image for December 23, 2011

Click image for larger size

...and so, two days before Xmas and I'm posting a sketch I did of Edgar Allen Poe, go figure. I did this as a warm up for the Monster Drawing Rally event at 1708 gallery in Richmond, Va a couple of weeks back. I had some fun with this portrait, pushing the asymmetrical quality of Poe's face and exaggerated the size and shape of his head. I think I'll be doing another drawing or two of Poe, something more detailed as I just like his face. He also has a haunted, slightly crazy look in his eye that I find compelling. Kinda how I feel about the Holiday Season about now. Merry Ho-Ho!

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The Monster Drawing Rally - December 10, 2011

Ralf and I throw down

Today was a great day because it was Monster Drawing Rally day at the 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA. The premise is simple, invite a bunch of artists to draw in one hour shifts and donate their efforts to the gallery, which in turn sells the art at $65 a pop as a fund-raiser for this most excellent non-profit creative space. I did the event for the first time and was a bit nervous drawing in front of people and under a time limit to boot, but actually found the boundaries actually had a freeing affect. This year, I couldn't wait for the big day, which was originally back in August, but Hurricane Irene ruined that, so it was moved to today. An old friend from way back in the underground comix days, Ralf Schulze (of Zombie Vomit and Dinky-Doo fame, check out his blog) joined me this year. That is he and I in the top photo, Ralf is on the right. My first big drawing was called "Edgar Allen Poe VS. The Brain Eating Microbe" and some one from the Poe Museum in Richmond stopped by to look at it. I'll post a clearer image of the drawing in a later post. Several Richmond friends came out in support and it was wonderful to see so many old friends that I haven't seen in so long. Mark your calendars and come on out next year!

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PS- My friend Casey Gwinn took the photos. Check out his photo-blog COGfoto!

Me and my drawing "Edgar Allen Poe VS. The Brain Eating Microbe