local shows, international shows-awesomeness.

Lots of art events have been happening in my local area here in Mississipp! Despite the craziness of our times, or perhaps because of it, art and music seems especially important. And I am happy to be a part of it.

Locally, I have participated in several cool art events in Starkville the last few weeks, many of them in conjunction with my art/music/writer son Joseph. Since my last posting here, we have exhibited at two more Sunday Funday events in our local Cotton District, I showed my work at the Mississippi Made show at our wonderful local 929 Coffee Shop on Main Street, I live painted a bit with Joseph one Thursday night at Rick's Cafe, and next Saturday (5 August) we will be in Meridian, MS for the downtown artwalk from 11 AM to 3 PM!

I had one cool piece in the 7th Annual Biennial MS Invitational Art Show in Greenville, MS, and just heard this week that I had two pieces accepted into the upcomiong 44th Annual Bi-State Art Competition at the Meridian Museum of Art in Meridian, MS.

Our amazing international group "Surrealism Now" spearheaded by Santiago Ribiero of Portugal is slated to open at the Poros Multimedia Museum in Condeixa-a-Nova, Portugal on 17 September 2017! This show will be phenomenal and will feature works by at least 108 artists from 48 countries! There was even an ad for the show in Time Square recently! 

In December, I will have artwork in another exciting show in Colombia with the Dreams and Divinities group organized by Parisian artist Liba Waring Stambolllion! This show, "Heart-Conscious Art and Mural Making",. co-hosted by Semillas de la Anaconda will run from 9-16 December 2017 and will be held at Rio Dond Diego, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.

the complex, yet simple, process of creating art

Well, I don't know about other art type folks, but like to have at least 20 different things going on at once in the way of art. Bounce around from one thing to another. Much of the work I do is time consuming to begin with, but it actually usually takes longer to finish because I don't generally work on something straight through. In fact, I probably take this too far. I have stacks of unfinished pieces of artwork. Some, I might have started 20 years ago! Yes, true. I probably did not like where they were going or could not find the right path. However, if I pull that same piece out years later, I often and suddenly know what to do with it. Or, it gives me inspiration for something else. Crazy?

old sketches and stuff

Another thing I have noticed, is the direction I seem to be going. When I was a kid, I liked to paint and do pastel stuff. Then, I got into super detailed things with ink.

super detailed image

Although I still dig the crazy detail, lately I have found myself going back to simple lines and manic expression through painting in an almost abstract manner. I enjoy the simple process of making colored marks with a brush or whatever tool. I like the feeling of motion. I seem to be obsessed with fishes and jellyfish type creatures too. What's up with that? I am constantly intrigued with the idea that we are surrounded by floating creatures that occupy a parallel universe that overlaps ours, but that most people can't see. Obviously, I can see this universe. Duh. 

Recent stuff happening in studio.

But, yeah, some stuff lately is almost childlike. Could a kid do it? What does this mean? A fellow artist told me that this is the eventuality of most artists. You start out simple as a child, get more complex, then as you age you get back to the simple. For me, simple is cathartic. The act of painting or drawing is much more important than the result. Nobody will ever be able to know how I was feeling when I put down certain spirally strokes, or why I put this color here or there. But, I can guarantee this, when I was doing each and every image, I was conveying an emotion onto the piece of art. Perhaps a kid could do something comparable. I don't know. Maybe that is why the art of children is so wonderful. They are not inhibited like adults. They don't know any better. When my son Joseph was very young, he drew some cool little pictures. Ok, well, he still does. But, I used to look at them (ok, I still do), and find great inspiration and ideas would stem from his childhood views of life and the imaginary.

Some pretty weird but simple stuff

So, art for me is a constant back and forth of old and new. Trying to finish up three elongate ink and graphite pieces right now. 

weird creature guys

It is funny, and my own fault I guess, that people have always thought I only did black and white drawings. My own fault, because I mostly only showed the black and white ones. Weird? I do find the need to add serious detail much of the time, but not always. Here is a little buggy creature deal and a fish thingy I was working on the other day. 

buggy guy

fish creature thing

So, not sure what this all means, but there you go.