SCOTUS ’24

Late one night, following the recent activities of the US Supreme Court (aka SCOTUS), and to some extent goaded by my watching of the recent John Oliver episode regarding the ethics of the Supreme Court, I was minded to create some SCOTUS-related art.

Referencing the official photograph of the current SCOTUS members I felt that a little iterative deconstruction would crystallize my mindset. I am pleased with the gloomy to ominous outcome of my digital manipulations and feel it illustrates a fractious, angular storm-cloud that sits and opines over the populace. However, that’s just my opinion, what do you think of the piece?

~Richard

March 7, 2024 0

Reimagining Old Art

Several years ago, I would while away the late hours on the web looking for old artwork for inspiration, as a learning exercise and also to see if I could rework and give some a new life (if it was not copyrighted). An example of this is a digitally retouched and colored version of a woodcut by Bartholomaeus, Anglicus from 1486 AD.

This wonderful scene illustrates the artist’s perception on the various life stages of man, a subject that would later be depicted in William Shakespeare’s, As You Like It – Act II, Scene VII as the “seven ages of man.”

The original black and white lines of the image are clean and crisp, almost modern in their simplicity but I felt that adding simple coloring to the scene would make it pop a little. What do you think?

~Richard

February 28, 2024 0

Escheresque

On our recent trip to Montevideo, Uruguay we stumbled across the weird and wonderful Castillo Pittamiglio, a brick building with a ships prow pointing rather conspicuously between two nondescript apartment buildings on La Rambla Mahatma Gandhi.

There’s plenty to see in this oddly constructed edifice, built by the eccentric (and wealthy) architect and alchemist Humberto Pittamiglio. The self-paced guided audio tour makes for an interesting hours or so wandering through the “universe of the alchemist” with its overt and often hidden symbology.

I hope to post a few more images as I process my photos form the trip but one that I particularly liked was taken form the outside balcony looking through to the courtyard. I was inspired to develop this as a monochrome image, based on the style of Man Ray’s solarization process. The resultant image reminded me even more of an M C Escher composition.

Image of stairways at Castillo Pittamiglio, Montevideo, Uruguay reminiscent of an M C Escher drawing

~ Richard

January 31, 2024 0

Haiku ~ The Wedding

Today another Royal couple were created for the House of Windsor (or rather, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, until the political change) and also for the paparazzi. After months of build up we will see further weeks of pictures of the wedding followed by the usual “is she pregnant yet?” speculation for months on end up until the point at least two royal sproglets are dutifully produced to (Royal) Order.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t watch the wedding, but instead decided to use the opportunity to celebrate the day by restarting my blog (yet again – I’ve been very busy) with the following haiku.

Enjoy, or not, the choice is yours!):

Worldwide coverage.

Amid pomp and vanity,

Privileged couple wed

Having said all this, I obviously wish them all the best for a long and happy future together.

~Richard

May 19, 2018 3

The Art of Lyme Disease

As part of our bucolic Pennsylvanian environment we have many deer traipsing across our property throughout the year. These pleasant little groups, especially when they have the fawns with them, are nice to see, although, despite the best attempts of Disney, they do have a few annoying, and even darker traits.

The most direct impact they have is their relentless browsing on many things in our garden. We have had many plants, both vegetables and flowers taken, and much damage done to young trees and shrubs too by these marauding hordes. In their defense, it’s understandable as to them we are nothing more than a provider of a herbivorous smorgasbord from which to dine, but it’s bloody annoying nevertheless.

That being said, these hoofed visitors are generally harmless to us, though, with two notable exceptions. Firstly, they have a tendency to leap out in front of traffic, so injuring or killing not only themselves but many drivers who hit them and, secondly, they are a significant part of the lifecycle for the parasite that causes the Lyme disease that is so prevalent in our area.

Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by the spirochete parasite Borellia burdorferi which is carried by the deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, and delivered when the tick is having a good blood meal on a human being. This little payload can cause a classic “bullseye” rash of concentric red rings on the skin as the infection spreads, although it does not occur in all cases. Once infected the victim exhibits flu-like symptoms of fever, fatigue, muscle aches and generally feeling unwell. If it is diagnosed quickly enough then one or two 28-day treatment cycles of oral doxycycline should take care of it, although there can be long term effects which include joint pain, arthritis and neuropathies.

The weird thing, from my perspective, is that a person does not obtain immunity from the infectious agent, but can be reinfected. I know this as I have been immunologically diagnosed with this twice in 3 years so far.

So, as I sat here over the weekend I thought I’d create some “Lyme inspired” artwork, in the style of those pop art posters. Lyme Disease – the gift that keeps on giving!

Richard

May 8, 2017 2

May Day, Kitchener redux and Voting.

May Day Celebration isn’t a big thing in the USA. We don’t celebrate it as the start of Spring and there’s certainly no National Holiday for us on what is largely International Worker’s Day in many countries in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, it usually just passes us by as a regular working day. This year, though, many are talking to the streets, mainly protesting the current state of affairs in the government and the recent policies of the US Executive.

I find all this latter day engagement in the system fascinating. It is interesting to see just how much politics is being talked about these days compared to only a few short years back. This is a good thing as perhaps more people are finally taking active interest in the way they are being governed.

That being said, my point today is to highlight the still pathetic engagement that voters generally have in our Western democracies. It is staggering that we pontificate about installing democracies onto other cultures, rightly or wrongly, and belittle anyone who does not espouse our values and yet, when it comes around to election time quite often fewer than half of eligible voters actually turn up to the polls to actually make their mark in the box.

The next big election in my little transatlantic world is in the UK next month and I could not but help create this poster based on one of the many (in)famous WWI recruiting posters put out with Lord Kitchener’s prominent mustachioed visage.

My perspective – get out there and do your democratic duty by casting your vote – even if it means writing in someone else’s name because you don’t like any candidates. If you don’t make this small effort what right do you have to even comment on our government?

~Richard

May 1, 2017 0

A Story – Keyhole Figures

It was only a brief vision, but it left him stone cold nonetheless. They had said that early in the morning, when the place was quiet that strange things happened near that door. He had been doing his regular rounds but was a little delayed when he passed the space. Maybe only ten minutes but it made all the difference. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and and a deadening silence as he passed. Glancing over his left shoulder as he walked down the incline he saw the figures quite clearly. A young woman in a shawl and a small boy. They just stared at him as if they were expecting him to be someone else. Their gazes bored into him with longing. He blinked and they were gone, but he shivered and quickened his pace. He made up the ten minutes by the time he reached the end of his rounds. He would definitely not be late again…

~Richard

April 22, 2017 0

Banksy or Pranksy?

Some care to identify the World’s highest paid living artist, others don’t. I like what s/he does, as an anonymous artist either way. (See what I did there?)

This article came to my attention today. Am I the only one to notice that it occurred around April 1st? Time will tell…

~Richard

April 3, 2017 0

March 25, 2017 0

Vermeer Revisited

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was an astounding Dutch painter who specialized in fairly mundane scenes of 17th century domesticity around his home town of Delft.

I don’t know what possessed me really, but I have recently seen his famous painting from 1665, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” so many times that this image has lodged itself in my brain rather in a similar way to a musical earworm. As a result I spent several hours over the last couple of days revisiting this classic work and adding my own interpretations.