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Cellular Flounder goes Viral (Wayne Ferrebee, 2020) Wood and Polymer
Pursuant to the international coronavirus pandemic and the strange world of quarantine we find ourselves living in, here is an artwork I have just finished. I made the cell/flounder sculpture last year to explore the nature of cells (which are underappreciated by everyone except for biologists…and biologists now basically only study cells, since they have recognized that they are all important). I am always shocked at how much the diagrams of cells look like diagrams of big crazy cities. I think there may be instructive reasons for that similarity, however it is unclear how to articulate these abstruse concepts except through the symbolic language of art. I made the cell a flounder because that animal is my current avatar of Earth life, and since the flat oblong shape is ideal for art presentation (and because of the sad, anxious, comic eyes of course).
I finished the cell/flounder part of the sculpture last year, but it has never struck me as complete. The present crisis sharpened my thinking and so I added a little army of viruses which were enormously fun to make and which are cuter than they have any right to be. Admittedly these are phages rather than coronaviruses, but I find icosahedrons and spider legs more visually interesting than spheres. It is all part of the magic of art. As always, kindly let me know what you think and stay safe out there! Things look a bit bleak and odd, but I wonder if we are not doing better than we recognize! We are all trying at any rate, and we will know more soon. Also spring will be here tomorrow (and with it, a bunch of flower posts, so there is that to look forward to).
Original form (before the invasion)
Happy April Fools Day—or Happy April Fish! (as it is known in France). This is a special day for several reasons.
Most importantly today is the anniversary of Ferrebeekeeper which came into existence 7 years ago today! Since then, there have been lots of snakes, Goths, catfish, and colorful stories. I have gotten some things completely and utterly wrong, but I have always tried to do my best and be honest and keep the content coming, even when I was tired or sick or sad at heart. This is the one thousand five hundred and twelfth post! That’s a lot of clams and crowns! To celebrate, I am putting up three flounder-themed artworks (literal poissons d’Avril) and I am also announcing the rollout of a bizarre and compelling new online toy to appear here soon. I won’t tell you what it is (although I guess a prophet could tell you) but I will drop hints during next week’s blog posts.
Unless you are a Dagon-worshiper or a Micronesian, April Fish is one of the few fish-themed holidays on the calendar and so it is very precious for me, as a fish-themed artist. Additionally, today celebrates being careful in the face of obviously fake news stories. Now lately there have been lots of weird propaganda statements and transparent lies issuing from certain albescent domiciles in Washington DC, so the waters are even more muddied than usual (almost as if antagonists to the east are deliberately throwing up lots of lies and fake stories to make the real news seem suspect to people who are not very good at reading), but it is wise to be eternally on guard. Getting to the bottom of things is difficult, but a good rule of thumb is that real news is messy and complicated and offers more questions than answers (and lots of seeming contradictions), whereas self-serving puffery is generally gloriously simple and shifts all blame onto some third party (like Freemasons, foreigners, witches, or journalists).
Thank you all so much for reading. I treasure your attention and your patience. Forgive me for being so tardy in responding to comments and kindly pardon my errors or mistakes in judgement. Keep reading and looking and I will keep on writing, drawing, and floundering. There are glorious things ahead for all of us.
There is Nothing Suspicious About These Glowing Treats in the ocean Depths (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, oil on panel)
Through the dark and improbable marketing magic of the Big Baking industry, today is National Donut Day (or possibly “National Doughnut Day” depending on how classical your tastes in pastry spelling are). Donuts are sweet snacks usually made of deep-fried flour dough. The traditional doughnut is ring shaped, probably because that is a very efficient way to make and evenly fry such a pastry (if the cake was a sphere or a disk, there would be uncooked dough in the middle), however there are also rod-shaped doughnuts, crème filled donuts, crullers, bearclaws, and heavens only knows what else! Donuts have a creation myth wherein a magnificent Dutch sea captain who loved pastries was piloting his galleon through a towering storm. The mariner was unwilling to let his ship sink and his crew perish, but he was equally unwilling to forgo the pleasure of fried pastries for even one moment, so he stuck the donuts on the ship’s wheel so he could devour them as he faced off against Poseidon. I say this is a myth because it seems likely that donuts predate the Dutch. They were probably invented by Sumerians in equally trying but now unknown circumstances. It’s still a great story though! I have heard that law enforcement officers have their own secret donut creation myths, but, since I am not a policeman these sacred traditions have never been vouchsafed to me. Maybe if you ask any of our friends in blue about this, you should be very circumspect…
Not pictured: storm, donuts, fat heroic captain…
Ferrebeekeeper has an immoderate fascination with toruses which stems from a peculiar combination of aesthetic, mathematical, and mystical factors. In my personal world of symbolism, the universe itself is a torus (it seems like it might well really be a torus, but our understanding of such matters is incomplete). The most familiar torus here on our Newtonian scale is the humble–but delicious & multitudinously variable—donut! So I paint lots of symbolic microcosmic paintings of donuts. I was amassing a whole wall of them, but I started to sell some so that I don’t have to live on the streets. Maybe they will be worth a bunch of money someday…. You could do me a huge favor and say exactly that to the art world professionals whom you meet in your life!
…or if YOU happen to have an art gallery, contact me directly and we’ll work something out forthwith!
I have already put up photos of some of these doughnut paintings on this blog here and here (to say nothing of the painting of a toroid honey bundt cake which serves to represent the entire blog). In celebration of National Donut Day, here are two more Wayne Ferrebee original oil paintings (well, digital photographs of the same). The painting at the top is grandiloquently titled “There is Nothing Suspicious About these Glowing Treats in the Ocean Depths.” Three magnificent sugary donuts glowing within drift among the happy denizens of the deep ocean. A friendly anglerfish proffers a funny lure, while a near-eastern ewer drifts toward the ocean bottom. A glass squid with orange dots scuttles past the scene. In the murky background a passing shadow resolves into another friendly creature of some sort. A cynical & world-wary viewer might interpret the work as some sort of warning about impossible things that are too good to be true, but the enlightened art-lover recognizes it as an evocation of benthic wonders!
Cell Donut (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, oil on panel)
The second donut painting here is a very tiny painting (4 inches by 4 inches–so smaller than the image onscreen) which concerns the micro-world beneath us. It is appropriately titled “Cell Donut.” Against a dark magenta background, a courtly mummer performs some sort of dance/pantomime for a paramecium and a clutch of glowing eggs (or possibly cells). A diagrammatic cell is in the lower right corner with all the color and complexity of a future city.
I took a course in cell-biology one and in the first moments, as the biochemist started writing out the molecular processes of respiration, it hit me that the drama at a cellular level is, if anything, more intense and complicated than the goings on at our familiar human-size frame of reference. “Cell Donut” is meant to remind us that the real rewards and perils are within us already–for in the microsphere within our bodies, billions of cells are fighting, metabolizing, reproducing, and recycling with maddening vigor and ceaseless action. Also the tiny donut in the middle of the painting is a classic plain donut…an ideal symbol for national Donut Day (as opposed to some of my other dozens of donut paintings, which can often be quite baroque, phantasmagorical, or strange…or are just straight-up bagels!)
I hope you enjoy these paintings, and I also hope you manage to drop by the bakers to enjoy a well-deserved donut or two!
Note: No matter what I do, or how I try, I cannot get these paintings to display properly! It is obvious that Word Press hates me and hates my artwork, despite the fact that I have essentially been working for them for free for half a decade. I’m afraid you’ll have to click on the paintings in order for them not to appear all hideously cropped and mutilated as they look above. [sotto voce] mutter mutter…should have chosen “Blogger”…mutter, curse… “never “Fresh Pressed”… grumble grumble.
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