The House that Fear Built

Anger.  Wrath.  Rage.  I've been trying to create an image that exactly matches my feeling, but halfway through every piece, it changes.  It never stays anger.  In this case, I realize that the anger was built on a foundation of fear and dread.

I think this might be a message to myself.  The Rune Sowelu is mirrored in the piece as indication of damage from a negative solar experience.  Now that the light of the true sun is arriving the fear of that past damage is rising like a ghost pain, inspiring me to retreat from love and light.

In actuality, the true sun would heal the pain, but the previous negative encounter was so great as to cause a powerful panic driven fear of this type of encounter.  So the fear went to ground...underground.  From its seed has grown anger, rage, denial, and despair.

My Anger and Rage are defense mechanisms attempting to protect the part of me that was damaged in the previous incident.  Being only damage control, they were never meant to last and have begun to break down as the expenditure of energy required to maintain them is becoming greater than the energy needed to heal.  The current set of experiences in my life have pushed me further and further out of every comfort zone I have.  All my defense mechanisms are eroding and collapsing out of the necessity of energy conservation. All my issues are springing forth anew.  All my dead are returning to life.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

The Burning

This is me trying to sort out my fiery emotions.  Kind of hard when they gang up.  My original intent was to find a release for my emotional intensity.  I was creating this piece at the time the London riots were beginning, but I had no idea they were occurring until 3 days later. 

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring this one out.  I was actually intensely angry when I was working on this piece.  Now it is almost like looking at a firepit after it has been put out.  You remember the warmth and the smoke and maybe you burned your finger or something, but now there is just a black spot and some ashes and the acrid smell that something burned here.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

EGO

Ah, the pride of ego. It can get us into many a tight spot. There may be more than ego involved here, but my first thought when I was finished was EGO. My original idea headed into it was Rage, but in the middle of that explosive flame, I found this little blue faced guy. A cool center to the radius of flame and destruction.

If I could have fire instead of hair I would. As long as I could turn it off and be invulnerable to its affects. LOL.  I'm sure I would have to buy shirts and hats more often, but you have to admit, it would look cool.  :-)  No such luck there.  Burned my finger yesterday with hot glue gun.  Now I have an ugly alien looking blister on my thumb.  Hooray...and ouch.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Back Cover

This is my favorite of the three 2001 portfolio pieces.  The aura of mystery alone sustains it.

The front cover initiates the portfolio.   It is very presentation oriented and uncomfortably intimate.  The table of contents, still presentational, is focused on organized content.  This is the end of the portfolio, or even further after the end.  The portfolio is finished and these are the last visual echoes of its passing.

The fire of inspiration has been extinguished and the plumes of smoke evaporate into the night sky.  Here the hand of the artist is retreating, fading into the night of clouds.  The portfolio has been presented and the hand now moves away, leaving you to think on what you have observed.  The image block of the moon has lost its glow and become transparent, its contrast and intensity diminished.  It is being absorbed now by the sky. 

This piece is best observed while listening to Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance.  I recommend Victorialand or Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, respectively.  I know this is all pretentious and silly, but once in awhile there are those images that move beyond mere representation and step into the mythic, the symbolic.  I am very grateful to have had this image move through me.  Pretentious or not, the mystery within this piece moves me.

Like the preceding pieces from my 2001 portfolio, this was scanned from a physical copy.  This one had many touches up as well and also was sadly lost to The Hunger of the Zip Disks.

{digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: The Ocean

Sequential art is so often based in practical reality, the moment to moment action.  I guess it's my fine art background that makes me want to bring something more into that equation...or maybe just a yearning to explore the possibilities of the medium.  

How do you get that medium to explore the emotional ambiguities of poetry?  The sequence becomes almost anti-story in that view, favoring the emotional to the moment focused on action alone.  Much of current comic book storytelling is point to point plot driven... Mike Mignola being an exception to that...P. Craig Russell another.  

Emotions rarely give regard to barriers or limits or even time.  The emotional moment is a collection of triggers and often time is not even a consideration.  The emotional space allows for the entrance of the lyrical, the dreadful, the exquisite.  It takes several steps outside the day to day to give room to the emerging feeling. 

This piece is in the same vein with some of my other strips where I've combined poetry and imagery.  Another more finishied attempt at turning poetry into sequential art is here.  I drew this mostly with a ball point pen and added darker areas with a sharpie. 

{Ballpoint pen and Sharpie!}

Depths

Bones are always buried.  During our lives, they are buried in our flesh, and when we die we place them under the soil. 

{created in Photoshop.}

THE JANUS EFFECT

The funny thing about Consciousness...it isn't box shaped at all.

 

{Digital Images Manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.}

Me within Me

A current self portrait.

{a picture of myself manipulated with Photoshop}