X marks the spot

X marks the spot
for the Xmas tree
we settle on,
after a debate
that would make
Congress jealous
in our level-headedness.

The rows of these trees
remind me of orchards
and highway lanes
and grocery store aisles,
which remind me of
Warhol’s stacked grids,
to organize describe adhere,
and a whisper in the brain:
“stay within the lines.”

But away from the lines of
Christmas trees is the forest:
trees jolting up in a beautifully
random mosaic,
and it’s in there
are the birds
watching
us shop.

Leaf standing tall

Christmas abstract

I got into a holiday mood in responding to Illustration Friday’s Pattern topic, trying out some patterns stuffed into an abstract design. Fun to do something a bit different than usual.

Lots of really neat works you can check out over there at Illustration Friday.

High Susan

The computer generates
closed captioning
on the TV screen as it spells
out the speaker’s
salutation.

But this goes in a different,
more captivating
direction
than a mere
“hi.”

Does the computer think Susan
is stoned, possibly to calm her
nerves before going in front of
the large TV cameras
aimed at her?

Or does the computer wish to
elevate
Susan to angellike,
to ascend this lowly
ground and
float above us as
wondrous inspiration?

Unfortunately, I’ll never
know. The computer,
as usual,
is a mysterious, hard-to-read
individual.

Art … or fake?

A pleasant day outside

It felt really good to get back into painting for this small (4″ x 6″) work. Maybe going small is a good way for me to re-start painting, as it’s been a while since I did it regularly. Lao Tzu, you said it so well about taking just one step to start a journey. Frequently, my journey has included detours and me stopping and simply looking around. But it’s really helpful to look back and see how far I’ve come. I’ve felt much more confident in my drawing than I did when I started this blog four years ago. So let’s see how it goes with jabbing some paint down.

     Back to this particular painting’s journey… it’s my donation to Postcards from the Edge, which is an exhibit coming to the Luhring Augustine Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. If my painting is given a thumbs-up, it’ll go up for sale with other postcard-sized artworks during January 24-26, 2014. Proceeds from this exhibition will go to Visual AIDS, which is an organization that, to quote their website, “utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.”

     Many thanks go to Artist Marketing Resources for posting this call for artwork—as well as for the work you do to post many other calls for submissions.

Bad fish

I was excited to have a commission to create an illustration. I’m a freelance graphic designer who usually works on book covers and layouts, so this commission wasn’t part of my everyday work. The illustration was done for a phishing awareness campaign—to be paired with a caption along the lines of: “There are bad fish. And there are bad e-mails. Be careful of phishing.” It was really neat to create this. I typically throw down my ideas in sketchbooks (some of which should never see the light of a blog post), so doing stuff like this and Illustration Friday’s topics helps jolt me out of my usual process.

Rock paper scissors

This design is available on many shirt styles at Zazzle.

Naked reflections

Naked reflections

In the reflected streamwater,
they saw that,
once again,
they were naked.

They had felt the undressing
as their leaves fell away,
but the full realization
came in that mirrored water.

Being used to this annual
event, they weren’t ashamed—
not after growing mature after
being teased as saplings.

But with the chilly wind arriving,
they shivered and huddled
within themselves.

3 smokes