today:
faith and begorrah! what started as an unproductive and guilt ridden day[because i was a 'slugabed'] has transformed into, as Ms McCausey would say "heyyyavun" - or somewhat quasi close... spring is springing and the only thing i can think of is that i am missing it. that i'll wake up in the hell of summer before i know it.
i began doing pencil sketches on Michaelangelo paper [that grid stuff- Wellie told me that he invented that graph paper, and of course i believe her] when i finally crawled from my coma at 3.30PM [which seems to be where my body clock is set these days] -i DID wake at 1PM, but said WTF? and went back to sleep; i have been having delightfully bizarre dreams all week; so I take every opportunity to have more. nothing like free entertainment while one is unconscious
I did possibly 6-7 drawings with coffee, today; then TOLD MYSELF i had to get up and work. so i piddled about, con scopa, washed a dish or 3, then went out and discovered the roses had exploded, made photos, then made MORE coffee/more drawings. had breakfast at 6PM, then began scanning said drawings and working with them in Gimp; more series of star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces, perhaps flashbacks- und jetz, i am again, @ 9PM about to do MORE drudgery, get some it out of the way, so i can devote the rest of the night to artwork; and hopefully get to bed earlier, so i can get up and see daylight for once this month; and possibly get some much needed WORK done around 'the property'.
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| BARFLIES- ROUGH SKETCH- PENCIL ON GRAPH PAPER 8.5X11- [C] 2013 DOUG DUFFEY |
have been inundating myself with, have been fressing, documentaries on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Fandor till 4AM except when i make myself stop! documentaries and bios on art, artists, religion, global warming, ancient aliens, the history of genocide, euthanasia, WW1, WW2- 3, ancient civilizations and cultures, ghettos, and more. definitely not UPBEAT material- but thought provoking.
it drove me to do 'research' all night long on everything from the Olmec, to ancient religions, to WW2 political artists. Unfortunately there are not enough documentary channels on ART, or documentary channels period, on any of the Roku channels i subscribe to [Gott im himmel, i miss ARTE]. When i checked the 'channel store' on Roku, last night, to see what new channels had been added, it seems the right wing christian conservatives have swarmed to IT like flies and are about to over run it. 50 million RWCC CHANNELS, in every key; still trying to reach the godless heathen [and get votes in 2014]- "electric church on fire" [line from one of my songs] - oh what will they do when the Mothership returns? [or THE government and THE church tell the truth] at least the catholic church has covered it's behind by admitting that out of the gazillions of galaxies, that yes, there might be life on another planet. lol. is that why Benedict split? "out with the heretic!" they said
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| STAR PEOPLE- 5/6/2013- [C] 2013 DOUG DUFFEY |
so, after hours of documentaries: ancient aliens, Auschwitz, Art 21, the trail of tears, etc. i went online and revisited many of my favorite political and so called 'degenerate' artists- whose major trip was to comment on their times; the times they lived and worked in. they knew art was not something that goes over the couch; but a tool, a mirror, a weapon. I DID many political drawings and collages during the Bush era; things that will probably never see public light any time soon, even though they may be more relevant now.
i always loved Dix & Grosz and the German Expressionists, because they faithfully recorded and exposed their era- even their art depicting the decadence of their era was political; they also paid the price of having done so, by having to go into exile. but i also again checked out a lot of ancient petroglyphs, and spacecraft in ancient religious art, lots of online reading about ancient cultures who all seemed to be on the same page at the same time; and they were faithfully recording what THEY saw in their time... before: "Man made electric light to take us out of the dark"- James Brown. i fear we live in more darkness with the lights on.
i feel like we live in a bubble; that we have been kept in the dark about more than we can ever imagine- from the big bang theory, to evolution, to Roswell to Hiroshima JFK/RFK, to every conspiracy 'theory' up until the present day; and that we have become DE-sensitized to reality, to the rest of the world, and even to our own surroundings. strangers in a strange land. watching one horror after another since the 1950s, flickering on tv screens, and into our heads; war after war after war, catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe... not news, but entertainment; distraction; obscene titillation. as susan powter screamed, "stop the insanity". i had to cut down the volume, which is why i went Roku
there are crawls across crawls of the horrors, everywhere- even while you're out, gobbling that big Mac or Taco, or guzzling a brewski, in an airport or doctor's office, or bar, there's always a big assed plasma screen hanging in the air, while radio/ muzak blares from somewhere else, while everyone is yakking, and yakking on cell phones, watching or listening to even more horrors on cell phones, tablets or laptops, oh my. there but not there. OUR era is a 24x7 kaleidoscopic nightmare made up of trillions of non stop sound and video 'bites'. there is no decadence; there is no shock value; everything is shoved in yo face, anything and everything goes... and goes and goes... [but does not go away] we ARE Babylon; one world speaking a single common language of noise.
unlike in the days of the expressionists, of blut und eisen, when 'the war' and all its horror was there, on their streets, in their towns, in their homelands, nowadays, someone pushes a computer key somewhere and people thousands of miles away are evaporated; or someone flies an airplane into a building; or blows up a bomb in a subway; or, hurricanes tornadoes and tsunamis destroy what mankind [oxymoron] doesn't. i don't even know if IT [this era] can be depicted. Guernica Guernica Guernica! x 1000 on stadium sized plasma screens- could not even begin. the whole world has gone beyond mad, and doesn't even see it, doesn't even care... "just give me my creature comforts and leave me alone"
i wonder what would happen if everyone would just STOP! not for a day or a week, but a month... or hell, a year; or just stay home and finish off their stockpile of food and drink; and only leave the house when they HAVE TO. never turn on a tv or a radio. i DO that 90% of the time. i AM 'occupying', not wall street, but myself. trying to decrease the noise pollution [and my carbon footprint] as much as i can. i'm not an anarchist, but i'm not so sure that total collapse of 'this' would be such a bad thing, if we would rebuild smarter.
i think of hans bellmer's quote "If the origin of my work is scandalous, it is because, for me, the world is a scandal." - or as some breadcrumb quote that has eternally stuck in my mental throat goes, "man is wolf to man"...but, it seems, in this day and age, that is magnified to the Nth degree. the gap between uber reich and uber arme is ever widening. for now the wars are about oil; tomorrow: food and water... but i digress, as is my wont...
as a visual artist, i can only depict what i am exposed to, or have been exposed to, or what comes to me in memories, dreams and nightmares. maybe 'le milleu', carnvial, halloween, star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces; some imaginary some vague memories coming out as cartoons is enough. i am not out to save the world, which is impossible, but to save myself.
C]2012 DOUG DUFFEY
