Archive: “Category: design”

Abstract Art: Abstract Art Gallery

Posted in design by Adam

28 September 2023

Abstract art showings always draw the strangest shapes.

The shapes represent people at the art show, looking at facsimiles of themselves. (Their more colorful clones are looking at static. It’s very artistic, the static. Also because I didn’t want to clone the image down smaller and smaller.)

But it’s also an honest piece. What do we see when we visit a gallery if not ourselves? Not exactly, of course (unless someone’s put up a mirror, naturally), different versions of us from different places and times and who were able to make better art between wars or drinking too much, back when there were wars and drinking. Oh, right. So maybe a little too much like us after all.

I also like the jumble making it feel all crowded and everyone’s bending over each other to see. Because art-viewing should be like that, right? Everyone’s trying to get a peek, a vantage. Or wants to bounce around the frame to see it from different angles.

And they say true artists should never explain their work.

Art: Abstract Sea Turtle

Posted in design by Adam

21 September 2023

I like beach scenes for whatever reason.

Perhaps I should be writing something about the state of politics? I used to do that a lot, but it started to feel too much like writing about the composition of animal dung, and I kept going even then for a time, until my nose and stomach rebelled, so I’ve mostly set it aside for now in favor of art.

And I like the art stuff a lot more, even if none of it’s that hot. At least I can see a result. Which is to say, at least there’s reinforcement to it. It’s something where I can take a glance at the pieces and know it was something done and real and meet with it on whatever level I’m feeling at the moment.

I’ve had this notion, and it’s probably been seen before, that artists and creators have envies of other media for what’s simple about the other that’s hard about their own. A poet or musician wants to tell a bigger tale, so they have to do a whole book or a whole album, where the novelist would have to do a short story. Or the film director says, “TV can spend so much time on character!” Or the TV producer says, “Film gets to put all that budget into just a few scenes, we have to spread it out over eight episodes.”

And I’m sure it’s not exclusive to creative work, either. Building a car versus a house? I’m sure the engineers and architects, anyone putting stuff together, has some level of wonder at the other’s work and in how they itch to distribute their own labor in a different way.

So why not do it? You might not be able to in your usual craft, but draw a picture. That’s part of why I’m doing the art now. So I can see a result in a way that my longer writing doesn’t let me. Another part is hoping to weather the current media+political world long enough for a better one to come along. One worth spending more time to write about.

Art: Three Figures (monochrome)

Posted in design by Adam

14 September 2023

Decided to try something without color.

Past, present, and future? Or three characters in a story? Are they lined up for sale? For ritual?

Feels I should have left the pattern from the mat. In either case, I worried a bit about how to create a weaving pattern since the reality is all over under over and that would take a lot of time. I didn’t bother, but I figure (hmm) the eyes are mainly drawn (hmm) to the heads, so some of the details aren’t as important.

If nothing else, I enjoy the contrasts between the stones, including that the viewer can decide to compare each pair, while there’s only one triplet to consider.