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Ok! I’m headed off to the countryside to enjoy some apple cider, autumn foliage, and family time, but you are all going to be in great hands with the famous/infamous swashbuckler of speculative fiction, Dan Claymore! Be sure to ply him with comments. I will see you back in a week or so and don’t forget to check out my Instagram page. Any questions not addressed here should be brought immediately to the attention of the Great Flounder.
Sayonara!
I have been feeling a bit burned out by blogging lately, not because my subjects are exhausted (there are always so many more fascinating stories to tell, plus I am truly looking forward to weaving all of these strands together) but because I am exhausted. I have been working a full time job as some sort of crummy small-time insurance clerk during the day and creating a splendid world of astonishing allegorical fish art at night and then blogging on top of that. Obviously I should be more resilient and work harder and plan better, but still it takes a lot of effort. Worst of all I sometimes wonder if any of this is worthwhile. Based on what’s around us, it seems like people want reality TV, plastic junk, Kardashians, and Donald Trump. They care little for elaborate flounder artwork and daily articles about golden moles (although obviously, you, dear reader, are a person of much deeper discernment).
Anyway, the best way to avoid burnout is to take a vacation, and so next week I am heading back to the harvest-time fields and autumn oak forests of the family farm to see my family (and the family geese). This time though, I am not leaving you in the lurch. I am handing the Ferrebeekeeper reigns over to a burgeoning writing superstar, the science fiction author, Daniel Claymore (that is his sword sigil up there at top, in case you were curious about the medieval weaponry in a vacation post…although I am going to West Virginia). Maybe he will share some speculative tales of a dark future that might someday come to be. Or perhaps he will take you on an odyssey deep into the seething heart of modern humankind, or, then again, maybe he will rant about incompetent political leadership or write delicious cupcake recipes. Who knows? I am not an overbearing editor and I am giving him cart-blanche. But I know it will be supremely entertaining. make sure to comment a lot when he is writing: I have been bad about responding, but I know Daniel will give your precious insights the full consideration they deserve.
I’ll post another artwork or something tomorrow and then Daniel will be taking over next week. It is going to be really great to have a guest author so prepare yourselves as Ferrebeekeeper goes to unimagined new places (and Ferrebee goes home to collect acorns and feed corn to pet geese).
Soybean Field (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)
I’m sorry I didn’t write a post last Thursday or Friday: I was away from Brooklyn on a whirlwind family trip to see the farmstead and visit my parents and grandparents. Now I love Brooklyn with all of my heart, but it was a great relief to be away from it for a little while. It was lovely to feed the thousand gentle farm creatures, to assess the growth of the plums, apples & nut trees in the orchard, and to walk back through the soybean fields into the true forest.
Parkersburg (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)
Unfortunately there wasn’t much in the way of writing time (and there isn’t much internet access in West Virginia and southeastern Ohio anyway). However I have a few little drawings which I doodled while I was home. My favorite is at the top of the page—it is a view of the soybean fields as the viewer emerges from the forest and is struck by the dazzling deep green of the plants. Soybeans are a critical crop in numerous ways, but I never really noticed them as a child–perhaps because I didn’t yet love edamame, or maybe because I hadn’t become used to living in a world of asphalt and bricks. Anyway, I will write a post about soybeans, but I wanted to share a quick impression of their overwhelming glowing greenness. The second picture is a drawing from the road of Parkersburg, West Virginia. The town is actually both much prettier and much uglier than the sketch—there are numerous picturesque Romanesque and “Jacobethan” churches and buildings, but there also some truly dispiriting strip malls along the outskirts (which I represented with a Kia dealership). Still the town has been improving incrementally for decades—perhaps thanks to my parents’ lovely yarn shop and quilting shop (which you should totally visit if you are ever in the Midwest/Appalachian region).
Paisley (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)
Speaking of quilting, I also drew a purely abstract picture of paisleys after I became fascinated by the printed patterns of the bolts of quilting cloth. Ever since the age of the Mughals, paisley has regularly come into fashion and then fallen out of it. Yet the concept seems to be much more ancient than the Scottish textile makers of the early industrial revolution or the Mughals. Paisley is another subject I need to blog about—because I think it is tremendously beautiful.
Goose Pond (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)
Finally there is a little drawing of the goose pond. I sketched it quickly (and from a distance) just before we drove off to the airport, but you can still see a few little pilgrim geese swimming about on it. My parents’ flock of these creatures has succeeded beyond all measure and now it is like their farm is infested with miniature dinosaurs. Everywhere you look there are geese busily gnawing on grass, biting each other’s tails, or jumping sadly (with expectant open beaks) beneath tantalizing green apples. I am sorry I didn’t do a sketch that really does justice to the lovable avine miscreants, however I am afraid that if I had stood among them long enough to draw them, they would have begun to nibble on me like a big ear of corn (which is their affectionate way of gently reminding visitors that geese get hungry for corn and lovely for attention). Thanks for looking at my drawings—now that I am back from my trip and my mind is refreshed I will try to blog about some of these new subjects!
ferrebeekeeper 