Art via Ray

In defense of putzing around...

2011-07-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

“If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle -- absolute busyness -- then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy -- and without consciousness.” -Gunter Grass.

So much of my art comes from a place of rest, of lollygagging & of a love that doesn't need or take effort in any currency.

{ Fair-Weather } by Big Sway

2011-03-09T23:01:00.000-08:00

There is no fair-weather love
In nature, no fair weather...
In love, there is nowhere fairer
Than your heart's desire of
And not for

Care or despair, rebel
No rebellion is inclusive
No rebellion is merely personal
Though so conducive to propel all points
Onward, to be continued, dot dot dot...

There are no fair-weather dreams
In plain English, no free lunch...
In love, there is nowhere fairer
Than a non-dominant unswayed declaration of self
And a non-hypocritical acceptance - inequitable wealth
Of the kit 'n' caboodle
Sent to subjugate us all

Rebellion is slavery dressed to the T

Grace is the closest we've come to heaven

Lost 'n Found

2011-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Second piece is lost to Burning Man. One of many pieces lost due to boneheadedness. Broke my heart, but gotta move on. Picture by David Gilman of me selling my Valentine's outside the Tea Room Cafe here in Petaluma.

Rayturn Of The Mack

2011-02-19T16:30:00.001-08:00

I'm back a bit now. New pieces coming soon. As for now, golden oldies...

{ Drinking Decaf Coffee In The Tea Room Cafe } by Big Sway

2010-03-15T22:14:00.001-07:00

They'll never understand,
but we won't hold it against them.

There's an infinite space
beyond the upstairs' hemline

& upstairs, the windows spin,
trying their best to suck me in.

Backwards, towards advancement,
they try wadding my spine like T.P.,

only to have their fingers snap
like brittle ribbon pulled too taut.

See, we'll never understand,
but let's not hold it against us.

I notice my thoughts are made
from the same mettle a songbirds,

a gilded gong, Madeleines, words,
lid-filtered light & sugar packets.

Before long, we'll all be dead
& happy as a newborn.

A god wakes up after dreaming
seeming meanings, corporeally worn out.

There's a finite place for your failures.
My life is a voluptuous thought.

Sometimes rainbows vomit...

2010-03-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

{ Wheels Of Steal } by Big Sway AKA Ray-Ray Swaney

2010-03-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

HOW can you forget a name like that?
HOW can your forget a face
Like that
Hm?
As they say in ancient Greece,
"There ain't no cure for the summer-time blues".
And no damned need for no damned measure
I stand by here-forth with an apostrophe Q.
Run-on sentences fall apart and run off, away from
Glorious summers under willow's dark weeping touches-
The kind of eyes reserved for the muse's apparitions.
Fine feathers form a spinal mission. As such:
A name / a face
HOW can you forget?
Like that
Hm?

Glazed lips...
Carve my name into your shoulder blades...
A swirl of odor,
A swirl of caramel on yr tongue and I
Drink deeply of yr dark carafe, Shiraz
Uncorked...
( I make love to the silences ).

Touching the root with bare fingers,
We linger on the chair of the fruit;
The riches, like works of Chinese fire
Make all logic moot
And loot, alms.
Fingers playing in a loom
Marvel at magnetic heart strings
Written in palms.

Things as they are, I ought
To not worry so much being caught
Doing nothing wrong-
King Kong vs. a knot.

The wind's picking ups
And I'm collecting rain on my
Chimera turned lover.
The needles sting the skins
Racing down animal highways. I'm over
All this immature bullshit, I'm in
To you...

{ Faced With A Bright Idea } by Ray Swaney

2010-03-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

Anyone else ever felt like that (in the face)?

Horsey, side 2...

2010-03-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

The horse is one of my totem animals, not to mention my sign in the Chinese zodiac.

Horsey, side one...

2010-03-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

I've recently taken to the Goodwills for objects to paint on. This horse is one of those beautiful finds. I need to remember to buy a clear coat spray, so the paint don't chip off so damned easily. -R

{ Ray Swaney } by Miles Frode

2010-03-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

I like this drawing a bunch.

Collaborative art...

2010-03-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

I love drawing with people as some of you may know. One of my favorite art partners is Mr. Miles Frode, currently of Ashland, Oregon. This is a drawing he made of me (lose lines/form) and I, in turn, shaded it in (tight lines/tone). Together, we are MR-.

{ Dream Of Just Deserts }

2010-03-06T18:57:00.000-08:00

Art Blog

2010-03-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

It's getting tough to blog on and on. Anyone want to know anything? Any ideas for posts on art?

Look how happy art makes me...

2010-03-02T11:21:00.000-08:00

...said the world's third laziest blogger.

Abstract with a few options on orientation...

2010-03-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

If you bend left at the neck 90 degrees, it looks like a psychotic fox to me. -R

Sculpture by Marites Eldred

2010-03-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

A comrade from the Kellogg Community College days, dah? I wish I owned this piece.

{ Stick Your Fingers In The Ink } by Big Sway

2010-03-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

Stick your fingers in the ink
Get more than you'd expected
Country music
Stains the wallpaper
More beer
Begs the buying...
Water drips on a rainy
Late-February day
Bottom-top to bottom...
Down...
Down to the lowest point, stealing
We drop in a bow
Low
Looking to how, healing
(Straight shots of feeling now)
A court-appointed clown
Drunk 'n' wheeling!

- - - -

A Rachmaninoff piano concerto
Sways fingers like bristles through my mind
Through wet paint, whistling
Working slow-pressure valves
I melt like a clock
A large Foster's cancerto sits empty
Smug
Choking on F knows what

Car doors play the night
The moon readies her crime
A small child eats her okra

Dr. Horowitz operates
Upon the ole black 'n' white
(Rides a Baltic-bound baby grand
Fearlessly in flight)
Dreaming of an opera

- - - -

Holding a prayer candle to my feet
Jesus turns them into jet packs
So we can fly through the sky all day
And drop little holy water balloons on sinners
We eat excellent pizzas, muffins and wafers
We put on masks and pretend to be each other
Until communion (I can't stomach cannibalism)
Eating a red-bound songbook
Jesus turns me into a Deep Purple hymn
And we rocket around, eating pastries, singing
"Blessed be the child who thinks he, Him"
Or some other holy vision

- - - -

Holy, hot hell!
My molars sink into tundra
My eyelids are slowly falling off
Drilling for the root
My crotch just doesn't feel like my own anymore
Same for my elbows, big toes, tip 'o' the nose
Deep down in the eyes, I'm dense anti-matter

Needing a warm flapjack
A tumbling freak sack
Fumbling in lack
A fuck (but more or less vulgar; your pick)
Hot, holy hell!
There's a crack in your logic like the Liberty Bell
Filtering a surer light
(But purer less/fuller; your pick)

Dang, yr right!
Get a fair price
For your marrow
Stay true, too
Through time's harrow 'n' kick
Cultivate love for all seasons

- - - -

Anita O'Day announces spring
Pig-latin for dough; cute
Gettin' pay like Mel Tormé
With no vibrato to boot!

Gotta run, here comes Nat
King
Cole...
Doin' the Harlem Swing
Yr vocal chords on trombone slides
Yr soles are sprouting wings

Louis Armstrong dances, wide
To Gypsy blue flame singin'
Puttin' air through funky there
Blowin' and a'winkin'

- - - -

A twinkle in the starlight
A stark kill of bedroom lightning
A barking bolt of fire-light starts
A startling, white hot art, bolting

Mulched emotions...
Electronic clippings from newspapers
Simmer at the surface like leaves...
It all boils down as heat labors

Fingers, wrought sun gardeners
Fingers, run to gardens' eve
Fingers, tend garish seas
Fingers, north wind martyrs

Grasp spirit
Bear life
If you'd please
Yourself

- - - -

Get more than you'd expected
Sticking fingers in the ink
Valencia Oranges open
Are tenderly torn door
Venerably absorbed kin
Sunlight water-founts drop
Bottom-top to bottom...
Down...
Down to the lowest point, stealing
We drop in a bow
Low
Looking to how, healing
(Straight shots of feeling now)

- - - -

Across the bow
Left reeling...

Wassily Kandinsky...

2010-03-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

{ Mars In Revolt }

2010-03-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

This one seems to be big with people. I like it, too. It came out really quick. You can't tell in the photo, but there is green sparkles as well. -R

What do you see in this?

2010-03-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Pen and ink Rorschach art. -R

{ Army Of One }

2010-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

Drawn from a lady in the newspaper and her guitar at an East Bay civil demonstration of one sort or another. -R

Clarence John Laughlin

2010-02-22T22:25:00.001-08:00

Henri Edmond-Cross

2010-02-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

Hello, Inner Sunset

2010-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

My good friend, Daniel Durrett from Michigan daze, has just released a new album and I have to tell y'all that it's pretty damned wonderful. I've listened to it 20+ times in the last couple weeks and I am still wanting to listen again.

The album deals with themes of corporate America, chasing your dreams and is a cautionary tale about not letting the bastards of the world stick it to ya. It runs from sinister to hopeful. It's a road-trip you'll want to take again and again.

Daniel, who had a cushy (and unfulfilled) life developing microphones for Shure, left the corporate world stifling his dreams to pursue his soul love; music. He moved from Chicago to San Francisco with his yogariffic gf, Kari and their beautiful, sweet dog, Nala. Having quit my job 15 months ago to focus on art, I can really respect and "feel what he's puttin' down".

The whole album, although it is very rock-folk based, drifts into icy, ethereal, and dreamlike electronic textures that make pinpointing an exact genre quite a feat. Maybe somewhere in between Radiohead, Sigur Ros and Beck could one find a centerpiece for Hello, Inner Sunset.

If you just want to listen to it, you can listen to a full stream here: http://music.danieldurrett.com/

A great guy. A great album. Show my man some love!

Love ya, Dan (and Kari & Nala)!

The Angel Of Dali...

2010-02-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

Absynthe Drinker...

2010-02-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

Marker heaven in a tripped out (mine)d...

2010-02-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

Cupcakes; a lost art found by my mouth!

2010-02-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

{ Current Events Wash Me Away } by Big Sway

2010-02-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

Fell into a pool of magnetism
Eyes inviting event horizons
I feel destiny of the crushing
Like empty tin can smiling
A black hole back to unrequited love
Straight ahead through the morning

Down the dark rabbit hole soul windows, I
Plunge, not caring
Wearing poverty, smiling, time
Is beautiful and willing

Life is what I make of it
And that son'va bitch is smiling

- - - - - - - - -

A electric guitar distortion flutters in my breadbasket
I'm tickled with antennae
Ten to full moon
A cartoon, beating
A unwrapping bloom
Like honey and true
The fruit of confusion is sweet
The seeds of life are fey
Open your arms and lock them around my head gasket
Kissing, we pray

- - - - - - - - - -

Running away with me
My fantasies spin and buck reality
The gypsy queen found puzzle pieces
Loves the mess back together again
Juggling, my mind grieves
Between inaction and valiancy

- - - - - - - - - -

Poem, arrow point, pierce
The heart of the matter like dull, stolid Cupid
Delinquently fierce
Off the mark and intrinsically stupid
On the up 'n' up
Off the map
Entirely perfect and foolish
The dream of the heart or the lap?

Rage against the ghoulish

{ Your Beginning Was Everything; The End } by Big Sway

2010-02-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Somewhere along the line, God is watching and I have my pants down
Only he doesn't judge
and I don't give a shit
(being the one with the downward-aimed pantaloons).
Nobody gave me anything I needed.
Everyone gave me something I thought I might.

I tried, I did, to face your vacuum,
only to be sucked up and put in a compartment
with other pieces of refuse refusing to be wiped out
like moral ambiguity and falafel.

Somewhere along the line, I forgot
what a wonderful wilderness I am.

Somewhere along the line, I fell in love with life,
and dominos clacked
and patterns emerged
and death gifted me a wet, red rose;
my Valentine embracing heartbeaten fortitude.

Sweetening my pain with love, I laugh.
Sweating, in my palms, I love myself, alone.

Life is leavening death.
I was born on Dia de los Muertos
and still dance with the happy phantoms.

My end is just the beginning...

Valentine's Day pt.2

2010-02-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

So far, I've made more than $100 on V-day cards and have a handful ready for tomorrow. C'mon, male blockheadedness! LOL

{ A Naive Beauty } by Big Sway

2010-02-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

Stars flash across dark pupils & procure silent wishes
from naiveté, who wears chiffon to bathe
in the rose water milky moon.

She rides the kingfisher. Rides the loon.
Cries & doesn't know why she breaks
the dishes or the 3-legged stool.
Mezzo piano & out of tune,
she mews the blues alone again,
dancing as Paul Klee,

{ Fruit-First, Flee Forth } by Big Sway AKA me

2010-02-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

wise guy poets write about what they know; nothing
eyes on the sides of their heads like ornamental goldfish
threading thin air to gold, one day
the space-cases will inherit the lost earth

my collection of bottles plays brown glass upon dew encrusted pane
my knuckles tickle from the cold, full moon air
all the horses got their carrots &
the hairy grass is crowned
in a diamond frost rebirth

while, down the road, a wood chipper snarls to life
while, on the street, a manhole cover blows jazz
while, on the other side of the world, they do stuff
lots of stuff
lots of undefined things, they do
like in cars and houses and government buildings
while, in my mind, out; tossed & cursed
(i.e.
a hot thirst for a non burst of taut girth)

the horizon is used as leverage
for a climbing, flaming sun to reach
the zenith coming (30 years of age young)
I implore you, stay away
from the thought hearse
as bad as you think things get
a dull mind will make death a lot worse

Valentine's Day

2010-02-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone got a sweetheart? If not, you can join the devil, me and the bottle (making three) this year. =D

I am making a bunch of $5 Valentine's this year. I'm selling them at the Hop Monk Tavern in Sebatstopol, Thursday night, and at the Tea Room Cafe in Petaluma, Friday from 8-3. Wish me luck. Ray-Ray needs some money, honey!

New Abstract painting...

2010-02-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

This piece is super texturiffic! I couldn't quite scan ALL of it in due to technological size restraints, but you get the idea.

I started this piece by glopping down a few colors of paint and worked out some basic shapes. Then I made a bunch of circles and spirals with the brush in the wet acrylic base. Hours of finger painting (on a heavily textured base is a joy) happened until I got the colors the way I liked them. To finish, I threw in some light to heavy outlines and signed the darn piece.

I'm interested in what imagery you get from it. If the painting were an emotion, what would it be?

Another day at the office. -R

A helmeted priest and a horn'ed Skitter...

2010-02-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

I was sitting at the Tea Room Cafe today and the owner, KT, told me she hadn't seen my blog yet. I told her I hadn't updated in about four days and we decided THIS would be a MOST intriguing blog entry. Hahahahaa...

So, don't forget to check out the latest four entries for some SCHWEET drawrings.

THIS entry is two pieces out of my small pen drawings book. I used a Micron .05 pen. The helmeted priest is entitled "The High Priest Passes No Judgment" and the critter is "Six-Point She-Skitter".

Sinister Valentine's character, Love...

2010-02-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

Colorful pen abstract...

2010-02-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

Rolling with the punches...

2010-02-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

I went in to thicken this guys lines in and ended up making him look like he had on lipstick, which was not my intent. Where to go then? Incorporate, my good man, hence; Lipstick- CHECK! Leather pants- CHECK! HIGH FIVE!!! Now it's a super fun piece about a lipstick-wearin', leather pants-sportin' fiver of highs. LOL

Hopmonk in Sebastopol every Thursday

2010-02-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

I vend my art a this event, "Juke Joint" (the Brooklyn group who played last night was the phat, funky, rump-shakingly wonderful & eclectic Pimps Of Joytime) and sold one of my fave pieces to a VERY cool guy, Eric, as a gift for his bro-in-law. Therefore, I am no longer po as fudge; I am only po as sin now. Hahahahaha. These kinds of events are great. I like pressing skin and accosting people to go through the "exhibition". Someone even paid me to draw him. I gave the Pimps' bassist the drawing above of Freddie Hubbard (since he bought one of mi amiga Michelle's knitted "wristies"; I like to share and help out, what can I say? My momma raised me dern good). All in all, I was happy with the fruit of the eve. Much love!

-R

p.s. Go check out Pimps Of Joytime and if you ever get a chance to see them play & you like dancing ("A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having!"), go,cats and kittens go, go, go. =D

Featured Modern Poet: Frank Reardon

2010-02-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

{ Fried Okra } by Frank Reardon

She often sang "Elvira"
from the little lights trying
to find their way through her
plump belly

Hair net and a face full of
fried okra-
Six sermons from Paul's
luscious letters,
The last of the two dollars...

I married the dreams of her
Waffle House and gave them
to Decatur County,
Either way I was promised
two biscuits and a side of
Jimmy Dean.

I kept believing as the
Juke-Box played "Rose Colored Glasses"
by a silk tongued John Conlee
Turning over the fire of my beauty
and marrying her on a Good Friday,
good lines, good Klonopin...
Jesus and the defeated.

Anger and broken dishes
finding a set of fins in a loose bin
of old caramel wrappers,
Bama face was the detour

The baby is crying
The baby is sitting in shit
while the trailer eats a bowl full
of fists,

I just watched her hair fly
as she threw the last of my
compact discs out the window,

Another beer,
Another kiss,
Another picture frame of hate...
Each day trying to convert the already late,

Black suit rented
A wedding that no one cried at,
Gambling the lines and odds-
when it would end

Forsaken and 5 years drunk...

2-3-10

- - - - - - - - - -

FRANK REARDON has published several poetry collections including Cancer Face, Exorcism Of The Con-Artist and Rival Tongues. His work has appeared in such magazines and webzines as New York Quarterly, Quillbillies, Black Listed, Epic Rites, Denver Syntax and Kill Poet. Interstate Chokehold is his first major collection. Frank currently lives in North Dakota and is working on his first novel.

Reviews

“Frank Reardon is a truly exceptional young poet currently rising up from the bowels of the internet. One could compare his work to prominent street poets of past generations, but it would be unfair to lump him in with anyone, for his work has no problem standing on its own merit.”
- John Dorsey

“Frank Reardon works words like a hungry young prize fighter, creating killer combinations that produce knock out verse. A real contender, the kid’s a triple threat with heart, style and class. An up and comer to be reckoned with.”
- S.A. Griffin

“Frank Reardon is a prophet, word brawler and unapologetic caller of society’s bullshit. His words are brutally honest and can take you places you didn’t know existed or weren’t comfortable traveling to alone. One of the best voices of our generation.”
- Richard Daley

“Frank Reardon is a heart beating through impenetrable odds. His writing reaches into your skin, grabs your bones and asks you to dive head first off the cliffs of fear and fragility into the vulnerable sky of our empathetic space and time.”
- Scott Wannberg

- - - - - - - - - -

His latest, Interstate Chokehold can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Interstate-Chokehold-Frank-Reardon/dp/0981998445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265252746&sr=8-1 and is currently waiting for you to tenderly caress it's spine as it gives your brain the BEST night in the sacrament of it's life!

Go on. Don't be scared...

...You know you wanna. Puckishly yours,

-RayRay

Abstract Expressionism

2010-02-02T16:07:00.000-08:00

This 3'x4' painting of mine is one of my favorites (and just my luck, I don't have enough wall space to hang it). It was all about the energy and the contemplative void it was created within. I need some more big canvasses. If you ABSOLUTELY must have this piece, it's price tag is a mere $1,000 (hey, maybe some rich art collector person will happen on my blog; z'worth a shot). ;)

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM-

"A painting movement in which artists typically applied paint rapidly, and with force to their huge canvases in an effort to show feelings and emotions, painting gesturally, non-geometrically, sometimes applying paint with large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing it onto canvas.

Their work is characterized by a strong dependence on what appears to be accident and chance, but which is actually highly planned. Some Abstract Expressionist artists were concerned with adopting a peaceful and mystical approach to a purely abstract image.

Usually there was no effort to represent subject matter. Not all work was abstract, nor was all work expressive, but it was generally believed that the spontaneity of the artists' approach to their work would draw from and release the creativity of their unconscious minds.

The expressive method of painting was often considered as important as the painting itself." -Artlex.com

Critters.

2010-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

I love drawing critters. This jaunty lil guy just discovered the world and so far, he digs it (like he has 2 shovels). Any name suggestions for the new friend?

Years in the making...

2010-01-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

I started this drawing at Burning Man, summer '08 (note figure standing in between big wings; a very cool art installation).
I thickened the lines up sometime in '09.
I JUST finished it with a nice graphite session.
Sometimes if an expression isn't finished, it is good to be OK with putting it away for years even, knowing if it is to come to fruition, it will tell you. CHEERS!!
-Ray

How to turn a tragic mistake into a masterpiece of a tragic nature...

2010-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

First, draw a beautiful drawing of these two figure with intertwined faces.
Next, overshadow the face of one of them so they look extremely angry and paleolithic.
Third, feel really sad you ruined a beautiful drawing.
After that, try to scribble out just the eyes and brow for some hip eyes-scribbled out look that's all the rage these days(?).
Fifth, you feel angry, cuz now it looks unsatisfactorily worse than before.
Sixth, give up and scribble the entire figure in a wash of lines.
Finally, you've created a cool drawing dealing with some dark and tragic theme (TBD).

Let this be a lesson to you kidlets out there; don't give up, be vigilant, positive and beautiful fruit will be born.

-Ray

(For the drawing, I used a Micron .05 pen whilst bathing in some January sun.)

Poetry Excercise 1: Acrostic Poem

2010-01-29T17:13:00.000-08:00

Remember making Mother's Day poems with M-O-M written down the page and fitting words matching the letters, such as:

Makes me pancakes.
One of my heros.
Mastered Jenga.

That's an acrostic poem. Sometimes I like to pick names or words and create acrostic poems using only one word per letter).

Willful
Orders
Reverse
Direction

YOUR MISSION, should you choose to accept it, is to create an acrostic poem for your name using one word per letter and posting it in the comments. CHEERS!!

And here is MY name acrostic poem (only fair, one supposes):

Remain
Always
Yourself

AND THE WINNER IS...

2010-01-28T17:10:00.000-08:00

THIS ONE! Thanks for everyone's imput; y'all are the best. No, better than best, you're bestest. -R

Murakami-inspired prosetry...

2010-01-27T16:57:00.000-08:00

{ A Shower, A Charm & A Murder } by Ray Swaney

I took three showers today. The first was the social obligation. The next was to dispel a cocktail of anxiety, loneliness and that "je ne sais quoi" known as an existential crisis. I guess you can hardly call something that can be soothed by a hot shower a crisis, but I also don't want to downplay the power of a hot shower. The third is an experiment in meditation of the transcendental type.

Sitting "Indigenous American style" on the slick floor where a brace of non-slip gripping ducks once lived (they have since moved to the walls of the shower, not so sticky as in their prime, hanging on for dear life,) I empty my words with each exhale. They roll down my nudity and the drain. Behind Iids, I see my head as a window. I see thoughts and ideas passing through, but nothing sticks. Is there even a piece of glass there? Am I that transparent?

I always thought of water as a baptism. I picture a wet phoenix (whalebird) rising from this psychic medium. This multiple shower thing has been going on for the last few weeks and let me tell you, I don't feel like a phoenix, but I do feel clean. My mind throws out the idea of having to wash the shit off of a diamond that is me.

After toweling off, I see my middle-distance stare looking like a half-way house into the foggy mirror (in which I always draw a smiling face with four simple lines). I can draw a smiling face on the window which is my head, too. With the wonder of a small boy, I look into my eyes. "Who are you?" "You talkin' to me?" "Who else?" "I don't know." "You don't know who else I would be talking to or you don't know who you are?" "Both of them?" "Fair enough. Just take it easy on yourself, Ray-Ray. The world is not for understanding. Understanding only serves to drive folks crazy."

I'm glad I can talk to myself. The Ray in the mirror seems so much more put together than I, though only 2-dimensional; he doesn't have to live in this world. He can't experience a broken heart. He can't fall, trip or stumble, drunk, into love. Mirrors are biased to whatever you put in front of them. Maybe I am just biased against mirrors, but I'd rather be a broken window. Break the pane. Break the pane. Break the pane.

Draw a simple smile on your flesh like a hot shower (or three). Let the yellow charm of finches sing and the dark murder of crows go unpunished!!

Lady

2010-01-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

{ The Search For My Dog Lady Who, Struck By A Car, Ran } by Ed Coletti

Every shadowed rock or shrub is Lady.

Every acorn dropped on fallen leaves

Birds in bushes, jackrabbits springing.

The family of three deer swushing through

brush beneath the golf course hill

near where my dog Lady surely died,

make noises similar to those once made

by our own little family of three on a walk in the woods.

I stare from my office window hoping,

half-expecting her bright blackness

to saunter nonchalantly into view.

But she departed doing what she does best,

In a full-burst charge of mindless blazing glory.

We resume and end our search at sundown.

The eastern flame no more.

On our harmonica, I play my final “Taps” for Lady.

Holding onto that last note for as long as I possibly can.

December 22, 2004

- - - - - - - - - -

I like drawing pets more than I thought I would. This drawing was commissioned by my friend Ed of his doggie, Lady. I was VERY pleased with how it turned out. Ed was satisfied as well, so all in all, a successful endeavor.

Hope you enjoy Ed's poem about when he thought he'd lost Lady to the world's clutches; he is a talented dude. Check out his poetry link on the side of my blog! CHEERS!!

--Ray

Which way looks best?

2010-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Which way do you like right-side up best? Help me out. Deciding which way is up in my abstracts is a real joy for me and a great way to hone the eyes...

Drawing people...

2010-01-24T19:03:00.000-08:00

Drawing people, I like to do a quick outline and then force (warp) all the inside features to fit. Here is an example of Presidente Obama; note the distorted hand (I LOVE that stuff).

Aiming at ghosts with sure-miss accuracy...

2010-01-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

You've given no words aimed towards me
unless they're tied to yr ends (I feel ya lean).
My attraction's hid by yr indifferent's green...

Fascinated by yr face & the space
left for my imagination to behest ya:
empty nights in yr cigarette ember hair sheen
& poetry as a communication with no co-.
Yeah!
We're split so perfectly like logs,
thrown to, you, & I, fro to different Wests

I know you'll drink Sangria with me.
I know our skin is like oil & water.
I fill you up. Your cry is smoke
You empty my cup. I die, poking.

Come with me on the teeter-totter.

Abstract and surreal poetry is the wombat's pajamas...

2010-01-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

{ Droll Contender } by Big Sway

The lights go out in the Rubber Factory
Knowledge of fledgling suns
Ohio's dirty
Electrical
Blues

Losing you
Addict pains
Leaving, you are on time- 10 A.M.
Gun-fire, semi-automatic
Poems sprawled out like an armed shop lifting spree
The razor-edged son of music and poetry

----

Sleater Kinney sings in a small red brick room
Birds are birthed in barbwire
Newborns breath like a bass drum
Roller rink audiences cheer 'round and 'round...

----

Kids whisper
Behind flowers
2-minute songs
Fragile as Fall in dandelions
Warbling on heels

----

Disco whale calls
Indo boop bip techno
Masses rising up
Between ribs
With knives pairing reapers with keepers

Stomping in unison
Pub music
Peanut shells waltzing all night
Words picked and repeated in unison

----

Peppers kiss your cup
Brothers and sisters shake it up
Cooling down in LA funk
Cement in the eye sockets
Pacific salt on the tip of the tongue

----

Songs churn cues of lazy and lonely poets
Behind bottles of frozen liquid booze
and cold Coca-Cola in spider-webbed plastic
Emptiness inside, outside is fingers escaping in fictions
Graphite and plastic on canvas
Shlopping mupp onto good, erudite peoples
Unfair, unfair
My fair
May-fare hairline fracture
Between existing and exisnotting

----

Welsh knots
Diving for hidden treasure
Cream of wheat
Odd gilded fever
The fly swats
The tail flies

----

You lie there in the light of morn
White tassels up to your cheeks
Quilts of desire, heavy and warm

I wake to your breath like a roll of thunder
Blurred eyes spin like shells in and out
Melted engine, soft for sculpture

----

Laughable regrets
Weeds in the lips, overgrown
The case is made for teen infatuation
The challenge is filled with secret love
The voices soar over dells and bell-towers
Unique snowflakes in a blizzard bellow

----

Simply sweet
Complex chaos
Justification & just desserts
Complex feats
A simple matrix & a just measure

----

A mixed drink
Mixed emotions
Cauldrons of droll contenders
A fixed connotation of a loose meaning
A ill-fitted bender

----

Your poster sits over my head, bored
Self-gratification girl
The horrific yarn of the hairy palm
Need, need, need
Pursed French leaks from oily pinks
Dark lining eyes run like sex marathoners
Dance, sweat, pheromones
Beats, booze
Goners
Lost in ascribable memory

----

Tossed to libel
Reliable libel
Rivals' repayable libation
I hold no political constituency
Aisles drunk and stumbling
White hairs dyed black as Satan's asshole
My country is dried out
Martini and on the rocks

----

Thoughts, alone,
Cannot do the J-O-B
Lonely thoughts
S-O-B to the bone
Let me celebrate your body
Let me touch the Rosetta Stone
Manifest a tenderness
Let me proclaim you oddly
More or less

----

A small child sticks his tongue out at silence
Runs his eloquent digits over a fretting guitar
Swaying to and fro over Motown
An overdrawn ATM star
Come home to roost

----

Phone messages go out in the night
Phones go unanswered
Jaws jab on
Words burst on the scene from somewhere
Otherwhere
Keys are mastered
We've been left alone

----

The big peace arrives a mile north
In an eye of a buzzard cyclone
Coyote band of spirit scavengers roaming
Waking she up

The high flyer stars on overcast days
The singing starberries pop & coo
A big rain is being murmured on ribbons of wind
Dark as a bruise

Faces, faces, faces!!!

2010-01-21T16:07:00.000-08:00

"We all have a face that we hide away forever,
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.
Some are satin, some are steel, some are silk and some are leather.
They're the faces of the stranger and we love to try them on.” -Billy Joel

New Abstracts for Sebastopol!

2010-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

I've been pounding out some sweet abstracts (& faces; see next post) to sell out at HOP MONK Tavern THURSDAY night with MICHELLE Brown (who's been a knitting dervish).

I foresee some beer monies and monies to invest in a proper website.
I was thinking artviaray.com - any better suggestions?

-R

New style discovered!

2010-01-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

I happened onto this new style of abstract pen work. I love how the forms fold into each other. I am creating a bunch of $10-$20 drawings to sell at Sebastopol's Hop Monk Tavern this Thursday. Well, time to draw some more!!

What I panited today in four steps...

2010-01-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

Media exploration...

2010-01-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

There are no rules in art, so wander with your media. Push a crayon around in a different way. Paint with a twig. This drawing was just a ballpoint pen and it's amazing the different marks you can create with it. Don't settle into conformity or a rut of what you know; you'll often find something you like to add to your repertoire. Most importantly, don't let anything make you feel like you've made a mistake. Mistakes are opportunities turned upside-down.

Scribble-Scrabble

2010-01-16T20:20:00.001-08:00

One way I enjoy starting a drawing is to lay down a thicket of line and see what pops out; what images in the line correlate to those constantly grasping from my mind. My dear friend Dan from Michigan days' nieces introduced me to what it's technical name actually is; scribble-scrabble. From the scribble-scrabble, mind's rubble's rabble-roused by a learned pattern into a clear image. This image is a case in point; a pointy-headed case; a crescent king plodding through the modern world's weak, synthetic sodding.

A quick guide to non-representational abstract art

2010-01-15T19:27:00.001-08:00

"Much of the art of earliest peoples: signs and marks on pottery, textiles and inscriptions and paintings on rock were simple, geometric and linear forms which might reveal a symbolic or decorative purpose. It is at this level of visual meaning that abstract art communicates. One can enjoy the beauty of Chinese or Islamic calligraphy without being able to read it.

In 1913 the poet Guillaume Appollinaire named the work of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Orphism. He defined it as, the art of painting new structures out of elements that have not been borrowed from the visual sphere, but had been created entirely by the artist...it is a pure art.

Some approaches towards abstract art drew connections to music. Music provides an example of an art form which uses the abstract elements of sound and divisions of time. Wassily Kandinsky, himself a musician, was inspired by the possibility of marks and associative color resounding in the soul. The idea had been put forward by Charles Baudelaire, that all our senses respond to various stimuli but the senses are connected at a deeper aesthetic level.

Closely related to this, is the idea that art has The spiritual dimension and can transcend 'every-day' experience, reaching a spiritual plane. The Theosophical Society popularised the ancient wisdom of the sacred books of India, China in the early years of the century. It was in this context that Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint and other artists working towards an 'objectless state' became interested in the occult as a way of creating an 'inner' object. The universal and timeless shapes found in Geometry: the circle, square and triangle become the spacial elements in abstract art; they are, like color, fundamental systems underlying visible reality."

--Collected Wikipedia words which say what I would say, but more smoothly and with less effort on my part. I can say without ego, that I am a quite lazy man (in those worlds outside of the arts).

{ Jazz Affection }

2010-01-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

someone
(wow)
told me about jazz down dark alleys

the angelic fingering
of the cleft muse

a lord in snare
an earl of bass kick
tick
tock
goes the metronome
skipping the clock over for the black of midnight

Dali
we, doll, call freedom
and ride gouache lyrical
bird morning passed over Greece
under (even) the sun settling debts

the air pushed through gold silk and soul
the denim of the man in day to day trafficking
of holy tasks all top-heavy or under lit

submariner Chicago goes the thermostat

that sound!
warmer than Sandburg's love of dismal corners
lamplighters and the key note jive jumpers
claiming dance
(exclamation heater) space
jam out of minds past skin and nerves
frost bite on clarinet
to fireball sax

jazz in limbo
going lower (oh, how low)
fatly fingering fat copper wiring
choir in steel
rhyming human soul
where all bear the mark of oppression
and laugh in faces (out of)

where hearts bleed cement
and love supreme resides
deep down, dropped
riffs in my alphabet soup

the shuffle of papers
cat calls go ignored
still bills, debt and owe
toe-tapping the deficit

deification of jungle benefits
swinging from cobwebs

eyes close like smoke
and open like fog over the bay
and the muse, it (the music)
keeps on

weeps on in sleepyheads dreaming awake

Self-portrait of an artist as a portrait...

2010-01-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I am starting a blog. So much of my mind is motion without effort or insight.

As an artist, I see myself as a filter for something beyond (AND possibly within). I don't try to communicate when I create (though I won't deny communication could be the original mover); I just do. My "windows to the soul" tells my hand what a piece needs.

Around 13 months ago, I quit my job to focus on art. I didn't really have a good reason; work was alright and my coworkers were great. One day, it just came to me; "I need to put in my notice". I've often cited Kandinsky as being involved; his work makes me drunk like a waking dream.

When you have a great talent, it's a gift you have to share; it is bigger than the artist. It is even bigger than the audience. What you do is everything, so do something you love. If you do what you don't love, do it to the best of your ability. Good things happen to those who do things well.

Much love!