Tuesday, November 07, 2023

The Last Logo

2023 has been a big year for Weaverwerx; a resurrection of sorts after years of little to no activity. I have taken a workspace in the old Kino Studios in Riga, Latvia and have begun to pursue comix, drawings and film projects again. As part of this new era, I have revamped the Weaverwerx website, which was the perfect opportunity design a new logo. Now embarking on a new logo design may seem like a simple process, but even the "richest" and "smartest" person in the world can fuck it up, resulting in losing years of positive branding, good will and billions of dollars. Luckily I don't have those kinds of pressures on me. I'm just this guy trying to carve out my own tiny niche in the real and virtual world. The only person I need to please is myself, but that is easier said than done. I'm a fickle, difficult to please customer when it comes to my own work and have a special mutant power for overthinking that would give Professor X a headache. Somehow I managed to find my way, creating and discarding a dozen different concepts before landing on one that feels right, so right in fact that it will likely (always leave yourself an out) be the LAST WEAVERWERX LOGO. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the new look.

Yes, it is a critter, animal, creature of some type and needs a nickname, which I am puzzling out. Any suggestions? I think of artistic ideas as being like creatures roaming around looking for a worthy person to be their portal into our world. These ideas animals can be enormously powerful and lucrative and creative people bring them forth with nothing more than a pencil and blank sheet of paper. This critter here is hungry and lustful and curious. It wants your attention. I wanted this logo to be part watchdog, part chupacabra, part feral cat, and part alien from another world. I want it to guard my back, but also push me when I need it, like everyday. From a design point-of-view, I wanted an image that would stay in folks' minds and not be confused with another thing; not too complex, but not too simple. Maybe even something that will provoke some affection. I also think it'll look damn fine on a t-shirt!

Time to show how the sausage was made. Here are my raw, rough brainstorming sketches as I worked through various possibilities, including some boring, too generic non-character options.




Some of those "shrunken head" and Tiki God-ish designs could wind up making cameo appearances in some future comix stories, so keep your eyes peeled.

The previous Weaverwerx logo was a simple hand-drawn W with scribbly circle around it, which I call the "Hairball Logo". I'm ditching it because it is too generic. It could be used for a hair salon or a bar or sock company, whatever. I like the hand-drawn quality, but that's about it. I only used this one for a couple of years, so it was really just a placeholder.

Before that one, I had been using this dapper chap with the square head and formal suit. This design originated in the late 1990s and was fun, but it looked too much of it's time. I do like the "round peg in the square hole" head and the "W" suit collar. It was also a load of fun to animate, but times have changed, so time to say adieu.



Now that the Logo saga has been been settled, time to get on with creating some actual content or something...

Keep smiling,

OK HW




Saturday, August 26, 2023

Taking Your Ears on a Little Trip Around the World

photo credit Ieva Weaver
Whoops, I did it again, well in this case, it was no accident but another happy opportunity to play a radio DJ once more. This was my second turn at the web-powered microphone for the Latvian online radio station tirkultura. My first time was back in February of this year, which I related on my other, comix-related blog, The Reluctant Sadist and Other Wanderings in the Comix Underground. Yes, I have two neglected blogs. Always the overachieving underachiever. 

Michael Holland (check out his show on OnoTesla - NTS) once more was my producer and studio engineer as he was for kuš! radio. This was a good thing as I needed his technical expertise and moral support to try and pull off my ambitious upgrade to my first outing. I wanted to go beyond just working through a playlist with a bit of yammer in between the tunes. I wanted to take my listeners for a trip around the world with me on a show that I called, "Wherever You Go, Well That's Where You Are". With that plan in mind, I set to harvesting golden moments I had captured on my various travels and intended to weave those found sounds together with appropriately themed songs. With Micheal in my corner, I knew all I had to do was show up with the bits and pieces and he would put the cables into the right sockets and we'd be off. Now, I did not map out each and every clip as I wanted to build the story on the fly and let our conversation lead us where it may. This loose approach did result in a few technical hiccups, which felt jarring to the point of disaster in the live moment, but on later listens actually adds to the charm and authenticity of the show I think. You be the judge, here's the show:


It was an exhilarating process stitching this crazy, patchwork sonic quilt together in the moment. I was playing mp4 video of travel clips so Micheal and I could watch them together and comment. We agreed ahead of time to let the clips, music and talking overlap to build unexpected sounds and make room for happy accidents and I think that works as much as it doesn't. All that overlapping though meant that the source materials were consumed much more quickly than I expected, so we had to do a little scrambling at the end to fill time. Here's the playlist -

01 - India_Varansai_Religious_Procession (Travel clip)
02 - On the Road Again (Willie Nelson)
03 - Morroco_Desert_Dancing (Travel clip)
04 -  Spread Your Wings (QUEEN)
05 - Bali_Ubud_Furneal_Procession_01 (Travel clip)
06 - I'm a Ramblin' Man (Waylon Jennings)
07 - Japan_Tokyo_Folk_Dancing (Travel clip)
08 - Japan_Yokohoma_Dragon_Dance (Travel clip)
09 - Niamey Jam (Nomad- Bombino)
10 - Vietnam_Ho_Chi_Mihn_Broom_Machine (Travel clip)
11 - Vietnam_Hanoi_Street_Karaoke (Travel clip)
12 - High Plains Drifter (Beastie Boys)
13 - Thailand_Bangkok_Thai_Boxing (Travel clip)
14 - Thailand_Chiangmai_Pop_Singing (Travel clip)
15 - Singapore (Tom Waits)
16 - Hong_Kong_Slyvester - (Sonny Rollins - St. Thomas) (Travel clip)
17 - Bali_Ubud_Shadow_Puppets_02 (Travel clip)
18 - The Crystal Ship (The Doors)
19 - Nepal_Gandaki_Mule_Train_on_the mountain (Travel clip)
20 - Myanmar_Bagan_Ice_Cream_Man_Rap (Travel clip)
21 - Road Trippin' (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
22 - Morroco_Marrakech_Night_Music (Travel clip)
23 - Cambodia_Siem_Reap_BATS (Travel clip)
24 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Judy Garland)
25 - India_Varansai_Ganga_River_Night_Ceremony
26 - Lawrence of Arabia (Movie Soundtrack)
27 - Bali_Gainyar_Ceremony (Travel clip)
28 - King of the Road (Roger Miller)
29 - Here At The End of The World (Alex McMurray)
30 - City of New Orleans (Johnny "Doc" Criner)

What do you think? Should I do some more radio shows? 

Keep smiling,

OK HW


Tuesday, July 11, 2023

A Face Found in Darkness and Space

I found a face on a winter day. It was there, somewhere in the frozen mist. Someone I had known, or maybe would know one day? 


This is the latest collaboration with my friend Neil Bruce; his music and my visuals. Neil and I have been making movies together for twenty years now.  Neil sent me a music track (an earlier version of what is presented here) and suggested I create "...something strange and experimental, around darkness and space." No problem! I can do that! Through the years I have been gathering random footage of scenes and textures that I save just for Neil projects, so I was ready. His track inspired me to create two different versions; one based on organic, natured-based images and the other industrial and human-made. Neil liked both versions so much, that we decided to create two music videos. This is the organic visuals version and the industrial one with new music will be following soon.

The visuals were influenced by dreams, both my own, but also the dream sequences from David Lynch movies. A face half forgotten drifting in the fog or smoke. A friend? A foe? Maybe both.

OK HW

Friday, June 24, 2022

Walking the Wall - Part One

 

Do you still have dreams? Are you actually trying to make those dreams come true? I have a bucket list, which could also be called a "dream list" and I've been neglecting it for too long. Most of the items are travel or hiking related, so the last couple of COVID-19 years have made those dreams more difficult to achieve. I've also added other kinds of  personal goals like artistic/creative endeavors and simple experiences (particualarly shared with friends and loved ones) to capture all of the ways I would like to fill my life with whatever time I have left on this old swinging sphere. One of my top hiking dreams is Hadrian's Wall in northern England. It's not a particularly difficult or long trail running 84 miles from Bowness-on-the-Solway to Wallsend, but the history of the Wall and the fact that the route runs coast-to-coast captured my imagination. I love paper maps and find they make it easy to daydream about walking a path like this or following a coastline or climbing a mountain. The Hadrian's Wall Path looks quite inviting to me when laid out on the kitchen table, with a city on either end (Carlisle and NewCastle) and that big, beautiful, bulge of green landscape swelling in between, belted by the ruins of the Wall. While I do appreciate learning about history, I am not a history buff, so I'll spare you my fumbling to provide what so many others have done better. The barest of facts are; the Wall was built by the Romans some 1,900 years ago, which they maintained for about 300 years before leaving one day without a word of goodbye and left the Brits with a huge resource of cut stone block ready for repurposing as churches, homes and pubs, which is why the wall is mostly missing now save for some short sections in the middle. I'll stop there and point you here for the official facts. 

A photo taken of me by a fellow hiker somewhere in the middle fun bit of the trail.

It had been more than three years since I last embarked on a long distance, multi-day hiking adventure, that being the week I spend hiking in Nepal to the Annapurna Base Camp in March of 2019. I'm not getting any younger, so I wondered, do I still have what it takes to put the pack on and go the distance? I make an effort to stay fit by walking or running everyday, watch my diet, etc, but you never know until you get out there and give it a go. Besides physical fitness, long distance hikes are also a mental game. I've seen more then one hiker mentally surrender on a difficult stretch and the result is the same as a twisted ankle. Game over. One aspect that I crave from the challenge of a hike like this is to push myself and see what I'm made of. There's only so much planning that can be done and it's impossible to plan for everything, so when it comes down to it, you have to show up and put one foot in front of another (in this case about 257,000 steps!). When it comes to planning and deciding on what kind of experience you want to have, I'm of the mind that you should understand yourself and punch your weight. In other words, if you don't enjoy tent camping (particularly in a country known for it's rain) and physically aren't prepared to carry a heavy backpack loaded up with camping gear, then don't do it. It's not a competition, there's no medals handed out at the end. It's your time and money, so plan for the experience that you want to have. You win if you show up and do the thing, however you wish to do it. Some folks will camp out, others will drive and stop at certain historical sites, some will hike but use a baggage transfer service; whatever ticks your box. 

Of course I'm smiling, it's the start of the trail!
I planned to hike the full length of the trail carrying my full backpack (clothing, rain gear, food, water, etc) from end-to-end and stayed in accommodation along the way, so no camping. I set a six day itinerary, averaging fifteen miles a day. In hindsight, I would have divided the path into seven days, which would have allowed for more time to enjoy historical sites and have chats with the locals, but also would have left me less tired at the end of the day. 

Lesson Learned - Stop planning hikes like I'm still thirty years old and slow down and smell some roses, or sheep shit or whatever there is to smell along the way.

Another Lesson Learned - I over estimated my capacity to eat snacks, particularly trail mix and wound up carrying a 700 gram package of nuts  the entirety of the trail unopened, besides some other items. The Hadrian's Wall Path is never far from a village or town, so it's easy to buy snacks along the way, in fact many locals set out snacks and drinks along the way with an "honesty box" system, basically if you take anything, you pay for it. I always skipped these as I was always carrying more food then I needed. 

So which direction to go? Walk east or west? After doing some research (this blog was particularly helpful - https://whatsdavedoing.com/hadrians-wall-guide/ ), more than one experienced hiker recommended heading east towards Wallsend, primarily because the prevailing winds would be at your back. I heeded that advice and don't regret it, but take note of my experience, which was, I hiked into a westerly wind for most of the trip! Some westward hikers (both older Americans) happily pointed this out to me on the windiest days, trail trolls. In response, I would urgently point out to them a suspicious-looking bump on their face that looked like melanoma and they should get checked as soon as possible. Happy trails trail troll! 

I felt like a Roman Centurion
An eastward plan put the trail's start at Bowness-on-Solway, a small coastal village on the Southside of Bowness Firth about twelve miles west of Carlisle. Instead of staying in Solway, which has few accommodation options and what is there is a bit expensive, I decided to stay in Carlisle two nights. which allowed me to take a bus (the 93 on Stagecoach Bus) to the start with just a daypack. I felt just like a Roman Centurion waiting at the bus stop that morning, eager to begin my quest! I noticed another hiker with an impressive sized backpack also waiting for the bus. This was Steven, a friendly Scottish fellow from Glasgow area, who turned out to be my first trail friend of the hike. He was camping along the way and had an open itinerary, stopping where and when he felt like it. I admired that approach, but it is not my way and I was glad for the confirmed bookings I had made. Steven and I hiked together on and off that first day, sharing a lunch break and discovered we are both widowed, so we had more than the hike in common.  
 
You shall not pass! 
It's not the first time that a chance encounter with the right person at the right time on my travels and I saw it as a good omen for the journey. Although we never did see each other again, we kept in touch throughout the hike and I hope to catch up with him again one day. The weather that first day was cool and mostly kind, with only a little rain, which we avoided stopping for lunch at park shelter next to the Greyhound Inn. I munched a snickers bar contemplating the memorial statue of King Edward the First who died there from dysentery in 1307. My Scottish friend said, "Good riddance" showing the strength of that grudge. 

The day's hiking was mostly uneventful, other then one stubborn sheep that block the trail. Despite her efforts, I found away to continue on! The trail ran through farm fields and along quiet roads following where Hadrian's Wall once was. The walking was easy, even relaxing and I settled into the rhythm of my stride, meditating with each footfall grateful to finally be back on the trail.

End of part one. Much more to come!

OK HW