artLife

beavertails greet you

just a taxicab driver

mugshot from the al-Glasses tribunal

.....................

welcome to the gallery:

let's go

16" x 6" watercolor on Arches

backseat drivers

I hope you have the time to

see all six linked pages.

As new work is finished,

it gets dropped-in wherever

there is a parking place.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Thanks for visiting.

hell for bad cows

16" x 12" watercolor + graphite on Arches

the plane of 9/11

24" x 18" watercolor, colored pencil & graphite on Arches

I send my deep condolences to the extraordinarily talented Mr. Kelley's family and friends. His works brightened my trip so many times I can't remember them all. He was indeed a genius among us. His time with us was a life of vision that contributed an indelible legacy for generations into the future. G'wan Alton! You sure had it right.

Story/Gallery

Don't miss the photos link located on the Greatful Dead poster halfway down the page.

Welcome back.

How bittersweet. We know its going to happen again, that block due to exceeding viewer capacity thing, its the overarching sinus headache of the past two weeks. I'd love to ignore it, but for your sake I'd better not. I promise you alternatives are on the horizon, a variety of choices are being seriously considered and a decision coming soon.

To say I am dismayed that you were suddenly turned away is an understatement. Never have we seen such a startling example of how our internet has been taken over by homeowners' associations. Its as if the web was prime oceanfront property snatched up by desperate developers who can't do anything else but weasel into your pocket. Someone, somewhere, saw opportunity and unleased mercenary armies of political lobbyists and the unlimited world of shared knowledge was parceled practically overnight into gated communities. Surely they keep graphic designers busy laying out prospectus, revising used logos, manipulating font and color. Imagine a whole planet enveloped by bandwith and you'll see what they saw if you see things that way. But that isn't how it began. Where it is now is where it was never meant to be. There are multitudes of eloquent and altruistic testimonies to what it could have been which would have led all of us to a better, more honorable world. But in the New World, the real world, the world of war and corruption, greed and resouces appropriation, all that could have been has instead been barcoded and made moronic. They like to say things like "There's no free lunch." Your net, my friends, is just a tenth of an acre tent city with water meters and company stores. And you are subject to immediate foreclosure if you disobey to the rules. You don't have to believe me, I'm just a nobody painter, but you might take to heart the message you saw at this very URL from May 18th to June 1st.

The internet is unlimited.

There is no global warming.

Clean water, fresh air and the sun's radiant energy come with our birth package.

What is a conspiracy?

Just who are the victims of these massive present day conspiracies? And who are the conspirators? Can you tell the difference anymore? That's okay, don't tax your brain, being unaware of the difference was the intent and it has been accomplished. When they saw how well it worked, entire tribes of masked cockroaches rifled through the garbage cans of our lives while we were sleeping. Our attentions were earnestly riveted elsewhere and now its too late.

The die was irrevocably cast in stone by the eighties, in case you didn't catch it, I did because I happened to see Roger Rabbit, a lucrative tinseltown offering that meshed animation with film actors. I walked out of that theater into our sunny real world knowing life as we always knew it was gone forever, that anything could happen from that point on, that technology had entered the twilight zone of holographic population control. I might not have grasped the potentials nearly so quickly had I not been a graphic designer already involved with creating concepts for the consumer audience. In my spare time I restored fading family snapshots painstakingly pixel by pixel where accidents of experimentation led to a complete alteration of the original piece. A different family could be created. A different place and time. A different meaning to the photograph. It wasn't good, it wasn't what was intended. It wasn't real. But it could be done if the person at the helm was tasked to fabricate and falsify.

Which is the same process used over and over again in creating markets for, say, hybrid vehicles, organic foods, carbon taxes or ahem, protection from terrorists. Creating a market is the easiest part of a consumer product campaign because you and I are predictable statistics referred to as merchandise consumer units. If the artist tasked with visual elements is sort of picky, like me, taking weeks to reach a satisfactory alignment of palette and typography, it slows up the whole program and you'd be advised to make arrangements with employers to lower their overall standards of quality, something which also benefits employment figures. Do you see what might happen? Essentially, shortcuts to massive profits were taken on a grand scale without the production of real things to back them up. China has long known how this works and has become quite the master of reproducing knock-offs. You can pick them up any day or night on the street corners of Greenwich Village. At least they produce something. Our other partners sprinkled thoughout the globe are not so enterprising, yet. They see there is a campaign, but have no real incentive to come forth with anything of substance to deserve a campaign. Its all pictures and logos and come-ons, slick models that exists only as balsawood prototypes never seeing their way into production.

Real things that can't be bought are not commodities. A real web, sharing real knowledge between all levels of society existing in all locations of our globe is not a commodity. Unfortunately, the parallels to this unpleasant insight which are unfolding all around us, now more than ever before, speak for themselves. Think on that.

The predictable response to having your website blocked to visitors is to rush out and purchase an expensive domain name, register it and take out a subscription with a web hosting service (payable in advance of actually creating anything or even supplying the rudimentary tools required for such creation). As I already mentioned, you and I are predictable. We suffer from a common disease which manifests itself as an awareness of something strange lingering around the edges of rational thought, something blurry we can't quite bring into focus. *Because something is happening here, But you don't know what it is, Do you, Mister Jones?

We have to experience the trials of great pain and suffering before we can see it. By the time we know what it is, its too late to avoid the kharmic kickback. The barn door is open, the livestock are stampeding. Someone already predicted we'll just stand around taking pictures with our cellphones to upload to youtube.

*Ballad of a Thin Man, 1965, Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited. Speakers please.

ventanas

36" x 24" watercolor on Arches

Glacial Irregular vacations at Sunrise Mountain

20" x 14" watercolor and colored pencil on Arches

sheep's cathedral

20" x 14" watercolor on Arches

Since you have come this far, so fast, let's visit some wise friends, the light bearers, who are holding tiki torch openhouse parties along The Path. We Hansels and Gretls need a variety of nutritious insights packed in our knapsacks to sustain us through these darkest of the deep woods on our way towards destination unknown.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Sing along now: Val der ree, val der rah, val der ree, val der rah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, val der ree, val der rah, my knapsack on my back.

For the side zip pockets:

Visible Origami - an out-of-time castle of corridors with hidden doors and winding staircases leading to stained glass spires and glowing turrets of the soul. bring ear phones

Signs of the Times - any oneliner description is injustice, but it has been wisely noted as "venerable"

A Photo Essay on the Great Depression - stark rewind in black and white. batteries included

Tao Te Ching - What is, IS. The Lao Tze intro, tuck inside your right front zip pocket.

The Truth Seeker - exactly what its name suggests, for once. Yaaaaay, ah, sunglasses, please.

Metronome Online - your beat keeper

Country Joe's jukebox - Again, turn up your ears

What Really Happened - just see for yourself. sunglasses advised. leis and poi included in travel package

Hymn to the Magdalene - Claire Karst Rivero, speakers ON. period.

Citizen Kane - review ... Rosebud ...

Tropic Arts - oil, guache, watercolor genius at work and play

Ralph Eugene Meatyard - photographer, human being, some called 'southern gothic'

Embellishing Jupiter - watercolor wanderlust in love with life

Darwin Wiggett - photographer, naturalist, lay back in the grass and groove with his gifts

Just Get There - brand new community blog, lots to see, lots to learn. Share something heavy that moves you, changed you, share things that we need to know right now

Eugene Atget - description not required, is it.

Baghdad Year Zero - What Naomi saw when she visited the war zone

The Quilts of Geesbend - astounding art born from Slavery, a collective history, art, music, events

TOFA - transforming the world, one connection at a time

The Washington Note - real time political insider, three Weimaraners and a full dance card, backed by an informed chorus of readers ... don't miss POA on pedal steel

Twenty Great American Stories - I like to study the works of skilled writers, a lot. You, too?

Beer and Incence - following the Path in a mainstream world of weirdness

Tiny URL - clever tool to shorten long URLs so they don't distort blogger's comment pages all out of proportion

IRIS Seismic Monitor - worldwide interactive earthquake charts in real time, headlines, tetonic plates

Current Fire Detections - frequently updated current large wildfire maps in jpg. Click on any region

Thomas Cole - The Voyage of Life, Founder of the Hudson River School.

Guinea Lynx - Guinea Pigs' essential medical guide and forum

Native American Quotes - to think on and remember all you ever read, were told and heard, then think again

The Daily Coyote - Meet Charlie, Wyoming adoptee, mister too-cool, living with Shreve, a remarkable photographer

Mustang Accounting - Vegas cowgirls untangle your past, present and future life into clean little columns of compliance. Keep them close ... every day is tax season, even while trekking into destination unknown.

The Existentialist Cowboy - Watch cowpoke-daredevil Hart rope the steer. Look for him also in sott.net Features. Oooooopey ki yay...

Think these will fit in the knapsack?

there is a lot more to see

but take care on your way

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If you wish to use any copyright protected material from this site please direct inquiries to: spiritcanyon@earthlink.net