Ashlar, again.

Worked a little more today on the painting, mostly evening out the tone of the floor. I also decided to darken the lines of the drawing in the book and carefully applied matte medium to seal. I think it's an improvement. I also fixed the "r" in "ashlar" written on the floor so it looks more like an "r". I overall darkened the lettering to make it more prominent.

I'm still stuck for what to put in the little space in the drawing where the brick has been removed. Also, it seems more and more to me that the space in front of the book seems...well...nekkid.

Needs a little something that looks casually dropped like the piece of charcoal under the word. Hmm.

MPK

Painting as it is now.

It looks empty here to me. It needs a little something for balance but I can't decide what. Typical Libra.

More on Painting

Hi folks,

I'm back.

Here are two more progress shots from "ashlar". I've redrawn the walls and the floor to coresspond to the changes in the canvas pieces. The side pieces were too dark to match the "back wall" canvas. You can see in the pictures below kind of what I'm talking about. I like it much better this way, and it makes the space around the canvas claustrophobic, an added plus. I added the shadow behind the book on the wall, which is a vast improvement. I'm trying to get an impression of a strong light shining into a small chamber.

The foreground is a little plain, and I need to do more to the image on the book. It's getting a little overpowered by the drama in the background. But the structure is getting there and I am happy for now.

I ordered my copy of Gallimaufry, by the below mentioned Circus Contraption. I can't wait to paint with it on. Today on my walkman I played Bad Music for Bad People, by The Cramps. After that, If I Should Fall From Grace With God, by the Pogues. Stompin' painting tunes.

MPK

You can see where I've redrawn the sidewalls and repainted to match.

Painting taking on more of an illusion of space.

Circus Contraption

Yes!

Everybody's favorite circus band has finally released their new CD. I just listened to the clips this morning and oh my. Must have. I played Our Latest Catalogue until I could see through the cd. Now I must dig it up to listen to again.

MPK

More cameras

I have recovered from my trip to Hawai'i (actual translation: I didn't want to leave and I took forever to unpack when I got home...). So it's time to get busy in the studio again. I did five more cameras today. Fortunately there are still a good variety of pictures on ebay. I am beginning to recognize cameras that I have already replicated and am trying to avoid this as much as possible.

The brownie cameras are my favorite, with the nice fat chocolate Bakelite bodies and beautiful deco knobs. They are closer to my style in clay then the icy and aristocratic Zeiss, etc. But it's fun to subvert the beautiful engineering of the high-tech cameras into lo-tech clay.

The first picture here is not of a piece of mine. It is a "found" and left in place, but I took a picture. For all those who know me well, you can see why I liked this. The perfect mating of rusty and streamlined. Reminds me of my great dream that someday computers will be housed in handcarved wood cabinets.

MPK

Not a camera, but a large scale model train found in an auto-repair yard in East Oakland. Any ideas where this might have come from?

Time to play match the camera.

Nice, schlubby camera. A type of brownie.

I don't usually do much to the backs of the camera pieces, but there was a pic of the back on ebay and it looked very cool. Kind of "Hal the Computer".

I hope that blue stays nice and vivid, but it will probably fade.

A camera called "Starlet".

This one came out a little funky...I may do over.

"Stitching" in leather was nice to do.

Rapture of the deep.

Ok, not that deep. A few feet.

Dad kindly sent over a disc of our underwater pictures taken while snorkelling at Kealakekua Bay. In Hawai'i, I bought a slim book of fish identification. I thought when I got home I'd just play match the fish and be able to identify all these guys for ya. It turns out most of the fish we took pics of are not in the book, or not identified by name if they happen to be in the background in a picture. Drat. I was hoping to dazzle you with my erudition.

Hopefully some marinelife boffins will stumble across this and help me out. I looked online, but no go, even on the fish charts.

Dad also points out that below I spelled "Moloka'i" incorrectly. There is no "c" in Hawai'ian. So it's "Moloka'i".
MPK

The colors are amazing.

Lobe coral and yellow tang.

Finger coral. Can you spot the starfish, kids?

Puffer hiding out in coral, center bottom.

Sailfin tang.

Yellow tang.

Unknown fish.

Coolest. Fish. Ever.

Close-up of fish shown below.

Fish that is pictured in my book, but not identified.

Fish.

Snazzy little number with white stripe.

Ffaelan fish.

Alex fish.

The rare and much feared ultraviolet pufferfish.

Kilauea and environs

Here are pictures taken on the Chain of Craters, as the road is called in Volcano National Park. This is a great trip to take. I'm sorry for all the inane captions. The image software that posts my photos demands a caption to every picture before it will zip it over here. It's rather a strain to my creativity at times :). The sights are pretty awesome and should speak for themselves. I'll always remember zipping down the road through the woods and then **BIG CRATER**, boom. The craters all have dates on signs nearby. Some of them are fairly recent.

I guess you can get a sense of my tastes that I have dozens of pictures of blackened charred earth and only one or two of the beaches.

MPK

Steam produced by the still-erupting Kiluaea volcano. The lava is flowing into the Pacific.

Lua Manu.

Another view.

Crater.

One of the many wonderful patterns created by swirls of lava.

Cooled off slag that looks like quartz.

Field of lava mounds.

Lava crust bursting upwards.

Geomarker in the middle of nowhere.

Lone dead tree in lava. There is a very faint rainbow in the background on the right.

At nearly 4000 feet.

Lava fields.

I love the way the light plays over the surface.

Lava as far as the eye can see.

Pu'uloa Petroglyphs

Here's a few examples of petroglyphs from Pu-uloa ("long hill"). The little I have read about them tends to reinforce the fact that their purpose is a mystery. I thought (as I do) that they looked astronomical in nature, with the pockmarks being stars, the figures representing constellations, etc. I've been poking around on the internet looking for research on this. I got one page that brings up the possiblity, but it doesn't look like a credible study. For one thing, they date the Ki'i petroglyphs at 3000 B.C. As far as my understanding goes, Hawai'i wasn't settled until 1500 years ago.

And how the heck do you map the entire planet in an outrigger canoe?

Anyway.

I'm posting a few of my favorites that look "astronomical". I like the concentric circle drawings and "charts". We were lucky to get to the site at an ideal time for photographing the carvings. I took a lot more, but these are the most clear and interesting to study. I will save the pictures of craters and cooled lava for another post, as this one is quite long enough as it is.

MPK

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

figure 4

figure 5

figure 6

figure 7

figure 8

figure 9