The Boys of Darkover

Here I am again, preparing to go to DarkoverCon this weekend, in the northern suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. This convention has lasted 32 years. I have been to every one of them since 1980 (I also went to the ones in 1978 and 1979.). There are other people like me who have gone to this convention every year. It is like a family reunion. Sometimes I sell art, sometimes I don't. I will have a fairly nice exhibition this year, both of originals and prints.

Inside the aging hippies who attend this convention are eternal swashbucklers, Renaissance bravos and red-haired Celtic babes, Regency damsels and occult adepts. Most of them, including me, have lived their lives as much in fantasy worlds as in the "real" world. This has both good and bad sides. They are harmless people, but they are also on the margins of society. Marion Zimmer Bradley, the original inspiration for this convention, died ten years ago, and I thought this gathering would have been long gone by now. But it is a nice time to get together with old friends and party. I won't be bringing my computer so there will be no Art By-Products until Monday or Tuesday of next week.

The picture shown here is a portrait of Marion Zimmer Bradley's heroic gay lovers, Regis and Danilo. It is acrylic on illustration board, 7" x 10", May 1984. I went to DarkoverCon that year, too.

Space Duck

This digital improvisation or "speedpaint" was done in about an hour in Photoshop, while I was listening to an ambient electronic music improvisation by my friends Darrell "Palancar" Burgan and Stephen "Duck" Philips. They improvised on their instruments and played together despite being separated by more than a thousand miles. Burgan is in Texas and Philips is in the Maryland side of the Washington, DC area. In fact, Burgan set down his notes without being able to hear Philips, and their communication was by instant message chat, rather than sound. This is the way music can be created these days. The improvisation was more than an hour long, composed of lush drones and drifting spacey passages, mercifully free of harsh noises or annoying rhythms. Perfect for a dark, rainy November night. The improvisation was recorded and will probably be available, eventually, from one of the download sites connected with the Stillstream composers. The title of the picture, "Space Duck," is in honor of Stephen Philips, owner of the "Dark Duck" record label.

Deco Pricetags

When I first started working at Trader Joe's, I was encouraged to make all sorts of decorative miniatures for use as price tags. These would be reproduced, and the empty space in the center would be calligraphed with a product name and price. Each set denoted a category of products, such as vegetables, fruits, canned goods, or bread. This set, done in early 2004, was for frozen desserts. I was inspired by Art Deco and especially the stained glass designs of Frank Lloyd Wright. The originals are each 5 1/2" x 2 1/4", done in ink and markers.

In my tenure at TJ's we have been through three "revolutions" of price tag design. Each "revolution" meant that thousands of tags had to be laboriously replaced, each one of them hand-written. These tags went out of use in 2005. We are currently working on yet another of these replacement revolutions, with more than a thousand tags left to go.

Alcohol-Free Bubbly

We're doing a lot of signs at Trader Joe's for the holiday season, as you can imagine. Goodies and sweets are everywhere. There's plenty of wine, too. But I always want to remind people that there are some people who can't, or don't want to, drink alcohol. They want to be festive too! Therefore they can drink these tasty fruit juice sparklers in a wine glass. This sign is about 3 ft. x 2 ft., as usual done in acrylic markers on black chalkboard paint.

Noantri World: Keilians

Here's another page from my abandoned Noantri history. This panel is about the Keilians, an ethnicity of Noantri that gave up modern technology and ways to live in a medieval style, including feudalism and brutal clan and gang warfare. They carry on even in modern cities governed by more advanced ethnic groups. Around this time of year the Keilians hold a great festival, with parades, street performers, games, vendors, feasting, and drinking. Tourists visiting Keilian areas love it. But outside the tourist zones, the Festival is an opportunity to work out the vendettas which have accumulated over the year. After the festivities are over, the non-Keilian police authorities go around the city pulling the dead Keilians off the streets.

Meteor Wing

Kandinsky goes into space! Here's the Kandinskified version of the red squad of space fighters and their colorful decorations and insignia. The bright colors in this are inspired by superhero comics. This is the last in the series of smaller space and abstract pictures that I am preparing for DarkoverCon. This is not a good reproduction image of this picture as it didn't scan well, but I figure a flawed image is better than no image. I'll take its picture with my digital camera when sunlight is available. Space is for heroes!

"Meteor Wing" is 9 3/4" x 9 1/4", acrylic on coated matboard, November 2009.

Calatrava's Bridge

If things had been different in my life, I might have been an architect. But I would not have become the type of architect whose stunning works grace big cities and change the way people think about buildings. I would have been grubbing out a living re-modeling garages and building bathrooms. And I'd probably be unemployed right now. But this picture, in my current series of space paintings, honors an architect who truly merits description as the first kind I mentioned. Santiago Calatrava, from Spain, has designed things which look like they come from another universe where gravity is different. I have never seen a Calatrava building in "real life" but just looking at pictures of them gives me a thrill. Hence my homage to him in this little work. "Calatrava's Bridge" is acrylic on illustration board, 8" x 10", November 2009.