Sculpt based on artwork of Marta Nael's 

Steps and process in sculpting, fabricating and painting.
I need to find a better way of photographing this.  I wasn't too thrilled with the end photos. 

Surrealling Dreaming

     I had a dream last night, so vivid that I can’t shake it. I found myself with two others, painting at individual easels, when all of a sudden; a large stag came bursting through the side glass doors of the cabin that we were in. It fell to the floor, dying, with its blood slowly spilling across the wood paneling, as if its throat had been slit. Then a vendor of from my work, who is a hunter, appeared. He said that we had to honor the fallen stag, by painting with his blood. So we all reached down, dipping our fingers into its blood, and began to feverishly paint on our canvases before the beast exhausted its last breath. 

     Now at this point, the other’s paintings became some truly darker, twisted images, but oddly enough I found myself painting a playful child, representing an image of hope in my mind, all in the blood of this animal.

     Chilling dream. Very surreal. I’m taking it to mean that I should get back to painting, and just that Hannibal the TV series really had some lasting impressions on me. But that dream, it was so freaky, and there’s probably something deeper in it all.

Smithville Artwalk

     Trying to start up the Blogger again, if nothing more than a place for me to display artwork of mine, in hopes of continuing artistic growth.

     I will be in Smithville NJ tomorrow, sharing some of my artwork.  Hope I get some positive response!

Dr Sketchy's - Philadelphia

                Come see (and draw) Statik Creation's very own AprilMayi, along with Demi Darko, next Saturday 9-17-11.  Featured at Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School in Philadelphia at World Cafe Live from 3:00-6:00!

Zombi - Escape Velocity

                  This duo, from the Pittsburg based band Zombi, has just released there 4^th album on Relapse Records, and I’m just now taking notice of them.  I must just say something about them in brief, because it’s one of those bands that are slowly ingraining itself into my brain.  It honestly blows me away. 

                   If you grew up of having fond memories of 80’s movies of the thriller, horror, or Sci-Fi genre, featuring music from the likes of John Carpenter or Goblin, this may be a perfectly suited CD for you to check out.  It is such a soundtrack from that area, with enough freshness liken to trance or bands like Voice Industrie (minus the vocals).  I can literally picture Snake Plissken running around in my head when listening to a lot of this music.  It gets into your brain and hooks you completely.  I really wish that in some respect these types movies from the 80’s could still be made, but it seems with the advancement in technology we’ve lost a bit of grittiness and fantastical nature of what made them so great.  Real hands on quality makeup effects, brooding film quality and the supernatural nature of a music that sounds beyond reality.  Zombi is a band that’s tapped into something beautiful and familiar to me, and for that I thank them.    

Freelance!

                  Freelance, an opportunity to make extra money, or a complete waste of time and effort?  I just want to take a moment here and vent my frustration, and before starting on my little diatribe, I’d like to state that this is not intended towards anyone that may be reading this blog that I have worked with.  There, of course, are always times when projects come about, when mutual interests are shared forming collaborative efforts.  I enjoy seeking out these types of projects, ones that are fun, which may just so happen lead to opportunities to make money, or help someone that I have a prior working relation with. When these types of projects fall through, it’s usually due in part to other family obligations and commitments.  I realize this, and I’m OK with that.  

                 This post is not at all about that sort of work.  What I am refereeing to is when someone (in the professional business world) that I may briefly know of, or have been suggested to by someone else contacts me.  They explain that they have the perfect opportunity for me, that will be lucrative for us both, in helping them with some work.  What I’m finding all too often now is that the more time that I take to explain my cost, labor, and timing and reasoning for suggesting some alternative solutions, the less appreciation I receive in the end for my time.  I do my best in any work related scenario to be realistic, and to explain that sometimes it’s not best to rush into a project without doing all of your research. I have no problem, in fact, creating what they may ask for, but the reality of it all is most of the time the client isn’t fully thinking things through.  When I take the time to explain that there is more to consider before diving in, so much that it may impact the quality of your product I’m merely dismissed without even a thanks for my time and information. This mere lack respect is what irks me. I understand a project falling through for one reason or another but how do you expect to run a business with this sort of lack of professionalism.  It make me wonder, should I just do what’s asked of me and shut up, take the job, make what they want, take the money and run be for it fails? Nah, that’s not me.

Psychoville II

I’m only 3 episodes into the new season, but what a great, twisted little tale it is, and I’m loving it as much as the first!

I’m so glad to hear that this show was well received in England, enough so that it had been renewed for another year. 

From The League of Gentlemen creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, they bring you season two of this British dark comedy. 

•             Psychoville is a dark character comedy mystery in which five different characters are strangely linked.

The main characters are: Mr. Jelly, an embittered one-handed clown who makes balloon animals with his hook; Joy, a desperately misguided midwife; Robert, a love struck dwarf; Mr. Lomax, a blind avaricious collector; and David Sowerbutts, a serial-killer-obsessed man-child.

All five are at first seemingly unconnected, but we know they share at least one thing in common... despite having different backgrounds, different interests, and coming from different parts of the country, they have each been sent an anonymous, black-edged card marked with the words: "I know what you did..."

As the series progresses, we learn more about the background of the main characters, and discover they all spent time together at Ravenhill Hospital.

In Series 2, a locket with the letter 'K' on it becomes key. Police Detective Finney and shadowy Grace Andrews are amongst those who are desperate to get their hands on this item of jewelry.

 I’ve really taken a liking to this series, and can’t wait until I finish the rest of the episodes for this year.   I was hoping that I could find them available all online to watch, but so far have only found the first 3 episodes.  I really wish that I knew all of the inside references to other movies and TV shows, apparent in this series, as I’m slowing cluing into them, and could appreciate it even more if so.  If you haven’t had the chance to check this series out, do yourself the favor and do so, and make sure you check out their Halloween special as well, which doesn’t exactly fall within the story line of season one, but rather, uses just some of eclectic group of characters to tell some smaller tales of horror. Ala: Twilight Zone-esque

It’s great that a show like this can exists in a different country, because the truth is that it would never have had much of a chance here in the states.  I don’t know what it is, but it seems like outside the norm shows don’t hold up in America, outside of a one year run.  With the exception of shows like “Lost”, can you think of any highly revered American shows within the last few years that fall within the unusual category that are continuing strong?  I suppose shows like Metalocalypse, Venture Brother’s, ATHF, Squidbillies fall into this category, but they are definitely of a lower budget, and relying on much smaller audiences for their success.  Other than that, no prime time shows come to mind for me, if you can think of any please let me know as I’d love to check them out.   

I think that Psychoville’s dark sense of humor is what would be the ultimate factor of failure in America, completely off base with the typical state side viewer.  However, I still do appreciate that channels like Comedy Central  and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim have made attempts to license these types of British odd ball shows, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, League of Gentleman, Mighty Boosh, Look Around You, Little Britain)   but still without much success I’m afraid to say.  

Oh well, at least we can always rely on England for bizarrely dark humor.  Cheers!