Planting a Garden of Fridays…

So here’s the thick of it": Twitter can suck my balls! (how’s THAT for an opening line Mr. Zubrick, my 7th grade Social Studies teacher?) Actually, no. I didn’t mean that…as I have become somewhat addicted to Twitter lately, and have to admit that it shoulders a bit of the blame for my absence from this blog (not to mention actual human contact and conversation).
If blogging were a drug, then Twitter would be the equivalent of a one-hitter, or a speed bump; just enough rounds of quick fixes that can keep one sustained and believing that they are acting perfectly normal in public, when in reality they are arguing about toast-crumb rights with an abandoned soiled shirt on a park bench….and I suppose that would make this very blog the equivalent of nodding off in a back alley with twelve needles in your arm while a family of rats wait patiently in the shadows for the sun to finish setting so they can eat your face and feet off, and then you soil yourself….but I’m kind of getting away from the point.

The reason that I brought up Twitter at all was so that I could explain where the idea for the subject of this post came from. One of the trends that I have found myself getting caught up in on Twitter is what’s called Follow Friday, or simply tagged #FF, and it’s a easy enough idea, basically that of suggesting to others who to follow.
I have discovered some cool artists and illustrators, writers and thinkers and a few trouble makers through this process.

In my attempts to return to the world of blog writing, I thought it a good idea to try to emulate the Follow Friday posts here. So, that’s exactly what I’m attempting to start with this post, and will continue to do so on a relatively loose weekly basis. I will try to bring at least one person or website or what have you every week with a short explanation of “why” or at least a description.
To start the whole process off, this week I introduce you to two other blogs I find myself always looking forward to reading new posts from…

http://shewalkssoftly.com/
Maintained by Dana (no last name given) who describes herself as an arts, culture, literature, technology, science and media geek. SheWalksSoftly has been a go-to blog for me for a few years now. We seem to share the same tastes in a great many things, and she seems to discover them online before I do…so, for that reason, I tend to discover them through her and her blog…..and for that, I am grateful.

http://organicmeatbag.blogspot.com/
Simply put: Billy Donald is both my friend and my arch nemesis, and I have designs to destroy him, I cannot mention him or his blog here without first stating that all important fact. That being said, Billy has amassed quite a following since starting (restarting, again & again) his blog, and with very good reason; His blog is hilarious and very well written! I liken Billy to social critics such as George Carlin for this reason: underneath the humor is a foundation of high intelligence that is so subtle it could often go unnoticed, but without it the argument would collapse….if that makes any sense. In any case, I still plan to destroy him.

To both I offer the newly created and soon to be highly sought after Zombiespoon Manifesto “Head on a Stick Award!” to take or leave as they see fit…but at least to know that it was offered. (blog awards are such silly things you’d think I’d have created one long ago)

Plug Head’s Irrational Fear of Drains…

Well, I’ve finally made good on my word to post more prints….who would’ve thought I’d actually complete something that I’ve mentioned that I would (more on that statement in a future post).

The prints in question are of the ten drawings from the Burial Rites Series:

       

       

       

       

       

A little bit about the series for those interested: the drawings were all done with ink on book pages, the book being a copy of Burial Services by J.B. Bernardin that I found months ago. I then colored them carefully (carefully due to my being almost completely colorblind, for those of you who didn’t know) with colored pencil and Inktense pencils. The staining of the pages was done digitally, from scans of coffee stained watercolor paper (I tested actually staining the book pages themselves with really poor results unfortunately).

The drawings themselves are very loosely based on the pages they were created on, which might be obvious on some but completely arbitrary on others.

In any case, this was one of those projects that I found completely enjoyable, most likely because there was no goal attached to it in the beginning, just the act of drawing for the sake of it.
These ten are not the end of the series. I am still enjoying defacing this book with my imagination. I won’t promise that there will be additional print series based off of these, but we’ll see how people respond to these.

Just Because, a Virtual Journey through a Written Wilderness

If I were to personify my blog (in all its forms from all its hosts, from the day I started blogging ‘til now) I would have to describe what would initially appear to be an elderly gentleman who, it would seem, had recently been battered about the head and shoulders with a pillowcase filled with a variety dead fish. Upon closer inspection one would discover that its not an elderly man at all, but an extremely malnourished middle-aged fellow with poor posture and the possibility of scurvy or an early untreated case of rickets; plus, he’s wet himself recently and taken to stapling raw bacon to his shirt sleeves…or, maybe he’s a half man, half turtle sin against nature, who’s wearing one of those plastic Halloween masks, you know, from the seventies that they don’t make anymore, and a lab coat covered with his own feces and he’s begging for spare change outside of the local Subway sandwich shop and just generally making everyone feel somewhat uncomfortable and itchy.
What I’m getting at here is that my blog as a person is very sick and either in the need of serious medical and psychological attention, or to be taken out to a remote field and shot several times before being covered up with a thin layer of dirt, eventually to be found by wolves or other scavengers.
At this moment I’m putting stock into antibiotics and shock therapy…I’ve been virtually vomiting my activities, whims and ideas into this little unread corner of the digital world far too long to not give it a fighting chance….plus, I’ve been claiming him as a dependent on my Tax Returns for these many years, so there’s that.

The Cradle of Life or the MySpace Vagina
Say what you will about the ghost-town formally known (and still known, I suppose) as MySpace…but not only do I credit it for my introduction into this narcissistic habit of blogging, but its also where this now shrink-wrapped-with-pudding-skin looking ribcage of a journal was at its healthiest; sporting a few hundred readers and comment conversations that sometimes rivaled the initial posts itself.
My blog walked tall, sporting a bright white flawless smile and a full head of hair. It nodded to the ladies, paid its taxes and stepped out of the shower to pee. It went to sleep knowing that these were the salad days.

A Short Pass Through the Live Journal Tundra and the Beginning Stages of Illness
But, while it was MySpace that in a sense parented my blog, it was starting to resemble more the creepy uncle that you don’t want to leave your child alone with….the one with one hand always in his trouser pocket….the one that wears “trousers” in the first place…and has rumored to have a collection of movies for “special friends”. I spent an increasingly larger amount of time filtering through the “check out my naughty web cam pics” comments on both my blog and profile wall, that I finally saw fit to join the mass exodus and jump the MySpace ship allowing it to sink alone in its own sea of underage daddy-issues.
My little blog found itself alone now on a cold barren ice wasteland known as Live Journal, where its first coughs developed I believe. Life there was short, as I moved quickly to Google’s Blogger, before the zombie hordes of LJ set upon me with inquiries as to why I wasn’t writing about Green Issues or joining them in ganging up on whatever other blogger they happened to disagree with that week.

The move from Live Journal to Blogger, and the Steady Decline into Physical Sickness and Dangerous Insanity
One of the causes of this journal’s present state does have to do with the couple moves to new locations and the loss of readership as people fell from the wagon train only to be devoured by scavengers or the natives. But let’s be honest, an even larger part has to due with my loss of focus over time leaving readers fed up and lost to the saloons unable to afford whores or being killed during a poker game gone wrong….I have no idea where the wild west references are coming from.
I started writing these posts in a time of serious transition, having just come out of a relationship unexpectedly, quitting my job, moving to New York, leaving New York, finding myself in Denver. It was a few years of a seemingly endless Limbo….and writing ridiculous things to an unseen audience was in some way cathartic. But with the settling here in Colorado came a new focus, I suppose. I had the intentions of taking my passion more serious and having the blog reflect that. I think you few readers left know how that has gone (queue tumbleweed bouncing by). The blog has suffered serious neglect the past few years I’ve lived here, leaving in this present state of long few and far between ramblings, wild eyed and stinking of moose piss. And while I believe that my intentions to make the blog appear more “professional” were good, I have to admit to myself and to you that there really is almost nothing professional about me.
My mother summed me up almost perfectly years ago with the phrase “Just Because”. I was her ‘Just Because Son’, due to the fact that whenever questioned on why I would draw or write or do the things that I did, that was typically my response. The second that there was meaning or a goal attached to something, I would almost always lose interest.
I’m still this way. And I think it’s the primary reason for this blog’s neglect. It’s not that I couldn’t write about my artwork in a professional matter, it’s that trying to do so exclusively made any and all updates painfully unappealing to me….and apparently I left the blog locked in a dark basement with a damp sponge for nourishment.

Where does all this bring us? Am I giving the blog pills and the promise of a new start in a room with sun, or am I just giving it a small break while I polish the shotgun? I don’t know. I didn’t intend for this post to ramble on this long, so maybe that’s a good sign that I’m letting go and getting back to the “Just Because” reason for writing (good sign for who, I couldn’t say)….or maybe I accidentally left the basement door unlocked and this here journal is wandering around some looking for toast crusts before I kick it back down the stairs and take away it’s cartoon Sunday privileges. We’ll all just have to wait and see……just because.

Not for Lack of Trying…

…or, a Call for Help.

Recently I came across the images that are posted here and my head was flooded with ghosts of familiarity.

This image was used for the 1984 film "Death Warmed Up"

I KNOW that I have seen much more of this artist's work before, most likely on other posters, horror book covers and magazines, but for the life of me I cannot remember where nor can I find out who the artist is.

I'm not sure where this image was used before

Reverse image searching pulls up very little info, and there is no mention of artwork or their artist in the IMD for 'Death Warmed Up'. So I come asking all of you, my fellow artists and horror fan friends, if ANYONE has any clue as to the artist behind these images....or possibly other images by the same artist that could help in the search....so that I can lay this search to rest before it becomes an obsession and I find myself wearing soiled bathrobes and having tea-parties with boiled egg friends....

Thank You!

Throwing Miniature Candies at Children…

I have been wanting to update this here blog type thing for a few weeks now, but have found myself too busy making costumes for this fine day as well as the Denver Zombie Crawl. I find myself without time today as well actually, but wanted to tell you all:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

There are so many thoughts and memories that I’ve wanted to share here, but like I said, I haven’t left myself the time. So instead I’ll share with you a link to a blog of another who appears to share the same nostalgic love of Halloween:

She Walks Softly

….and I promise to return after these festivities with updates of everything I’ve been up to these past several weeks.
Have a great night!!!