Calendar Scene: Autumn

Something is a bit different about this post. What is it? The image is a photograph, not a piece of my hand-done or digital artwork. I took this photo, but it was such a nice scene that I felt no need to do a watercolor or acrylic that would just duplicate it. Nowadays art galleries are full of photographs, and they are considered art if they are presented well enough. But in my earlier art days, photographs were still thought of as something less than real ART, unless some major famous photographer did them. I am considering posting my especially good photographs occasionally, unless you think it is cheating.

This photo was taken in 2007, in eastern Massachusetts, just a couple of miles from my parents' house and the place I grew up. The roadside fence of granite chunks is typically New England. I'm posting it here because I will be going up there again for my annual parent care visit. I'll probably revisit this place or someplace like it. During next week I may not be able to put up "Art By-Products." I'll try to make some sketches while I am there.

Conversation in the Dark Tower

This Bloghost was out of commission for a few scary hours, thankfully it's now back in action. Here's the continuing conversation between our two trainmen, the wormy and the innocent, coming from the high corner office in the old Art Deco skyscraper of Taggart Transcontinental. I have recently discovered a pop genre that perfectly encompasses Rand's ATLAS universe. You've heard of "Steampunk," well, this is "Dieselpunk." It's a fantasy concept based on the mid-20th-century technology of heavy industry, steel, railroads, flaming refineries, coal mines, oil derricks, propeller planes, all the things that Rand writes so enthusiastically about.

I have been a fan of heavy industry for most of my life. My father introduced me to its wonderfulness, though his interest in it was from a "socialist realist" sort of outlook. That is, this grimy prosaic technology, maintained by the downtrodden proletariat, supported our world. Rand, from the other end of the political universe, turns this on its other end. This grand, effective, powerful technology, maintained by a brotherhood of the competent, supports our world, and is in turn supported by a heroic elite of brilliant, inventive, good-looking geniuses. All you need is the smoke and flames. I hope to be seeing some of that soon, as I pass through the refinery area of New Jersey on my way north.

Ellis Wyatt, Oilman

Ayn Rand believed fervently that individuals could make a major difference in the world, at least individuals who were powerful, talented, and creative, whether in industry or in the arts. This is part of the appeal of Rand to people like me, who are talented and creative but live obscure un-influential lives. I'm not that much into the politics, but I'm very much attracted to Rand's vision of creative people as heroes. Reading Rand always gives me a self-esteem boost. But it is rather like caffeine. It doesn't last, so you need to have more. Interestingly, Jennifer Burns' book describes Rand's use of amphetamines during the writing of ATLAS SHRUGGED and afterward. ATLAS does have the delirious feeling of something written while on speed. I think I'll stay with espresso.

Algorithmic Art

This is a teeny tiny piece of art, an "artist trading card" measuring 3 1/2" x 2 1/2". It's designated for a friend of mine. She requested one of my geometric abstractions, so here it is, in cheerful colors, made with markers on bristol board.

You've seen a lot of different kinds of art on this blog, from sketches to doodles to architecture, sentimental country landscapes, and hard-edge "modernist" geometric abstractions. And plenty of fantasy and science fiction and astronomical art, too. And also, graphic story panels and continuity. Doing a lot of different things isn't always the best strategy for an artist who wants to show and sell stuff. Galleries and art directors want to see a consistent style. So I can be consistent in any number of artistic "lines" or options, but amassing a portfolio in all of that takes time to do, which I don't have.

I sometimes think I should just pick one for a while and make a whole lot of them, which all look similar. Colorful geometric abstractions like the one above appeal to a lot of my friends and collectors. I get positive comments and even a bit of imitation (flattery!). So why not do a whole series of these?

I can do that, but I must admit, that they are designed according to an algorithm, a progressive series of instructions and rules. If I design according to the algorithm, things turn out right. I know how to keep it all in balance, and not go outside the lines or do anything messy. (I will not reveal the algorithm here, it's a trade secret.) But it can get somewhat mechanical at times.

I put a lot more work and time into "Summer Pastorale" (the one with the trees and the grazing cattle) than I would on a geometric of the same size. Perhaps I shouldn't admit that. I always assume that the value of a painting is partly determined by how much time and effort the artist put into it, and also how big it is. If a collector buys a picture I did in a day or so for a lot of money, am I ripping her off? One of my more aesthetic and analytical friends tells me that it's the design skills and the experience that count, not the time spent daubing or spraying. It's nice to believe that, but I have my doubts. This tiny trading card, by the criteria of size, and time and effort spent, is worth little monetarily, but someone will treasure it anyway.

Telecommunications Cover

This is a magazine cover I did in summer 1986 for a long-gone trade magazine called TELECOMMUNICATIONS. I got the job for the cover through a Boston science fiction writer friend of mine, who at the time was working at the high-tech firm Bolt, Beranek, and Newman.

The BBN folks were guest editors of TELECOMMUNICATIONS magazine for August of 1986. They contributed articles and could also do the cover if they wished. My friend commissioned me to do the cover for their issue. The commission was to depict in artistic terms a long-range computer/telecommunication network, with individual features such as satellite dishes, computers, personal computers, radio towers, packet switching devices (rectangular white forms, looking like refrigerators), and local area networks inside buildings. The network itself was represented with neon-glowing colored paths, spread out across a stylized city plan reaching to the horizon. White and grey equipment gave the impression of lighted city buildings. I based the sky on a hazy California sunset.

The theme of the magazine was "Advances in Telecommunications." Little did I know that the network I depicted on the cover was rapidly expanding and turning into what we now know as the INTERNET(S). Seven years later, that same friend would commission more art from me and pay me with free internet access.

Acrylic on illustration board, 12" x 15", August 1986. Published as cover to TELECOMMUNICATIONS magazine, September 1986.

Star Vortex

Here's another in that 1986 series of astronomical features. This one was originally meant to depict a high-powered gas jet coming from out of a black hole. But as I review it, this could just as easily be an "active galaxy" where an enormous central black hole creates intense radiation as it gobbles up stuff from just around it. This would then be the "accretion disk" or matter spinning in a vortex around the giant black hole. Or perhaps it is not that at all, but a gamma-ray burst in action, where an oversized but failing star collapses into a black hole all at once. It's a violent universe out there, as well as beautiful.

I have done stuff to this picture with Photoshop. The original 1986 acrylic did not contain the white sparkles and glows which surround the central jet. Now that we have Hubble Space Telescope, deep-sky objects have been revealed to us in much finer detail so space artists must imitate accordingly. I added the starry glows to represent incandescent gas and other superheated material orbiting around the black hole's accretion disc, before it inevitably is sucked in, on its way to...perhaps another universe.

"Star Vortex," summer 1986 acrylic on illustration board, plus Photoshop meddling in 2009, 8" x 8".

Play Railroad Tycoon in Ayn Rand Comics

When I look up "Railroad Tycoon" in Google, I don't get references or images of 19th-20th century railroad barons. I get pictures and play schemes for a video game called "Railroad Tycoon." I have never played it, and have only vaguely even heard of it. I guess there aren't any railroad tycoons left in the USA. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe, in Randworld, it is not good. There might be mini-tycoons though (would they be "tykes?" "tykeenies?") who run small railroads on old tracks through touristy areas. I found this kind of railroad when I went to West Virginia early this summer. But the rail town was deserted, and the station was empty. I'd love to see a steam engine chugging down the track. Hiyo, Phoenix-Durango!