Friday, February 26, 2010

The Big One


"Three Wishes"
24"x36"
Acryllic on Canvas
$500

Here's another piece left over from my show at The Hive. While I was making it, I was thinking a lot about how dreams and aspirations keep us going through all kinds of discouraging, disheartening, and somewhat maddening events. Our wishes are huge and powerful things in our own worlds. They can be the light at the end of the tunnel, a nagging voice in the back of your head that makes you feel terrible for not doing more, or they can be a playground to frolic and dance around in.

Just look at how many opportunities we give ourselves to wish, all the rituals and ceremonies that go along with wanting something specific to happen. Every birthday we blow out the candles, when I go through tunnels I hold my breath, and there are countless forms of shooting stars, dandelion seeds, wishbones; all of them are a kind of magic spell we use to try to make something happen, or at least to remind ourselves of why we're working so hard.

A wish is a powerful thing, deeply personal and often secret. Most importantly, given how often we must succumb to the circumstances of our existence, wishes are one of the few opportunities in life we have to define ourselves, and choose who we are.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Happily Ever After

New work:


The Crane Who Caught the Moon
3"x5"
Acrylic on paper w/ cut paper

While working on this piece I was thinking a lot about happy fairytale endings. I was also looking at a lot of Yoshitaka Amano and Japanese woodblock prints. I really like framing the image with paper like this. It's something I'll definitely be doing again.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

ArtOrder Challenge: Rust

As I've mentioned before, ArtOrder is a blog that holds regular art contests that are typically based around fantasy and science fiction. This piece is my submission to a challenge based on making a piece that conveys the concept of a quote from the Irish poet James Stephens: "A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust."

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Small World

This piece is one of the ones I sold during my show at The Hive. I really like how the tree turned out, and I want to do more with treehouses in the future. This is also the first time I've mixed pen and paint in a while, which I think I may incorporate into my next big project.