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Now that the holidays have passed, it has occurred to me that I should post some of the India ink and watercolor illustrations which I have been making lately for fun (or, more accurately, because my subconscious torments me unless I draw them). The first (above) is a little illustration which I made as a gift for my erstwhile roommate, Jennifer. Sadly, Jennifer gave up on the germinal chaos of Brooklyn and fled away forever to live in the bosky dells of Knoxville (or whatever it is they have down there). But she used the epistolary arts to request a drawing of a magical elf desporting among many varieties of fungi just outside of her new home city.
Here is the picture I drew. I have envisioned the magical elf in the style of the Nats, the joyous syncretic deities of Burmese Buddhism. Various seeds, spores, and small creatures lurk beneath the mushrooms, wood ears, and coral fungus. In the background, modern Knoxville spreads through the wooded hills watched by a vulture, an ermine, and a whitetail deer (as a mysterious being of pure creativity fruits into fungoid darkness). Above it all looms the mighty “Sun Sphere”, a dazzling feat of 80 architecture which is uh, eighty meters tall.
As a historical aside, I encountered that very tower myself, in 1982, when my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, my sister, and I traveled to Knoxville to attend the World’s Fair for which it was built. Although I was only eight, I was struck by how crummy and chaotic the World’s Fair was and how the Sun Sphere looked like off-brand deodorant rather than a mighty futuristic skyscraper. For her birthday, my little sister (who was five or six) had asked for a fine suitcase so she could be a world traveler. My parents (or grandparents?) bought her a beautiful new fuchsia case of finest sampsonite, which was the nicest piece of luggage among our entourage. Alas, a would-be larcenist broke into our hotel room and rifled through the nicest suitcase (which was all full of crayons, dolls, and little girl’s clothing). The fair was too crowded to see anything, although, come to think of it, I am not sure there were any actual attractions other than an endless field of bumpkins and insurance-salesman-looking characters. Then a bird pooped on my grandmother’s head. Good times in Knoxville!
Here is a similar drawing which I made in my little sketch book. I guess this picture portrays…breakfast? Since I am not a morning person, I refuse to acknowledge the International Morning Person (IMP) propaganda that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This tableau helps to deconstruct that tenacious myth. In the foreground a pelican enjoys a live flounder and some froot loops–even though this is properly a cereal for toucans! A sentient pineapple throws up his arms in consternation at the proceedings as a masked ghost (or possibly some very very runny scrambled eggs) shrugs indifferently. On the picture’s left side, a featureless pink humanoid…or maybe an embryonic ghost…or a representation of how the artist/author feels in the morning is likewise overwhelmed by breakfast. The entity drinks copious amounts of coffee, possibly going so far as to pour the stimulant directly into the grotesque organ-like aperture in its center. No wonder the little guy is so anxious! Frankly, only the ravenous pelican seems happy to be there.
Even if flatfish are not the sole protagonists of these small drawings, they are still there, lurking beneath (or becoming part of the food chain). Perhaps it is worth taking a moment to again advertise the all-knowing digital flounder which my friends and I built to delight and perplex you (or maybe as a disguised lure to beguile you into my digital realm). Let me know what you think and we will keep on floundering through this winter!
Whimsical Seascape (Wayne Ferrebee. 2015, watercolor, ink, and colored pencils on paper)
My New Year’s resolution wayyyy back in January was to show more of my art. As with most New Year’s resolutions, I am having a pretty mixed record with that, but at least I have made a great deal more art, and I even had a couple of small local shows. Anyway, to get back on track, I thought I would show you a piece from a big exciting project I have been working on. I have been making an ornate & intricate art toy: this is one of the illustrations that goes with it.
I didn’t scan or format this properly. As you can see it’s just lying on my bedspread (I think my cat is just off screen waiting to pounce up and down on it). However it should interest you because it has a surprising number of Ferrebeekeeper themes which got included by accident because they are always on my mind. A galleon is cutting through the azure waters off of some colonial trading post (probably in Indonesia, though this is really a fantasy piece, and it is hard to say anything for certain). The European ship is passing a Chinese junk. Both craft are menaced by a passing colossal squid as an oarfish undulates decoratively in the background.
The principle drama of the composition comes from a volcanic eruption which threatens the trading colony. The spume of lava and dust from within the Earth is faintly echoed by a passing whale. My favorite part of the composition is the pelican gobbling up a displaced moth (or maybe a fluttering soul expelled from the fires of the underworld by the eruption). It is hard to tell whether this is a white pelican or a brown pelican—just like that infernal dress which took over the internet a few weeks ago.
I have no commentary on the frigate bird, the flying fish, or the canoe filled with hapless people being attacked by a giant shark. You will have to find your own meaning for them. Likewise, the Easter-egg colored balloon filled with aeronauts is a whimsical and fun addition. Although I will say that maybe we, the viewers, are meant to identify most with the travelers in the balloon’s basket who are being whirled through this fabulous fantasy landscapes for pure amusement and delight.
Update: The way this is published hideously crops off the right side of my picture! I presume this is part of WordPress’ ongoing quest to make blogging a baffling anti-aesthetic nightmare (seriously, what is up with this new-ish GUI, “beep beep boop”?). Anyway, you can see the actual image (and bigger!) by clicking on it. Sigh…
Naturally I love my readers with all my heart and I wanted to present a spooky Halloween treat to you for today’s post. I started out by writing an essay about the nature of reality, but it was filled with cubicles, creditors, skin cancer, and dead oceans. To be honest, the dystopian sci-fi novel which is waking life was way too scary to be any fun (since it turns out that reality is completely horrifying). As a back-up plan, I have returned to my old stand-by: strange creepy mascots. Because of capitalism, nationalism, and the savage tribalism at the heart of humanity, our world is filled with weirdos and sad actors who are paid to don rubber costumes and act like bears, pelicans, and sundry bobble-headed freaks. Or, alternately, mascots can be animated or digitally created characters which are deeply wrong on an existential level. Here are some of these mascots and these are their stories:
Let’s start with a punch from the past. I remember being appalled the first time I saw a Kool-Aid commercial. I mean Kool-Aid man is a being who is a fragile glass pitcher who crashes through a brick wall. He then pours himself out into delighted children who drink his very essence like the Eucharist and go into a sugar high. What the hell? How did marketers come up with this and how is it a thing we all immediately understand?
The New Orleans Saints’ primary mascot is Gumbo, a McGruff-style weeping hound with a blood-red tongue who is actually fairly lovable (as such things go). However, Gumbo has recently been teamed with Sir Saint, a gruff football villain with elephantitis of the chin. Sir Saint was one of the original Saints mascots during their first seasons of loss and misery and, for some reason he has been brought out of retirement to cast a shadow over this halcyon era.
Long ago, a wandering mage/bar-owner cast a curse upon the Chicago Cubs when they ejected him from the stadium for bringing his beloved pet goat to a game. Yet even before the curse, the cubs walked in darkness–as demonstrated by this image from 1908 which shows them with a nightmare bear. Bears are scary enough, but this one looks like a rabid muskrat or a bear shaman who got trapped in a hell dimension.
Past posts have touched on the subject of how bizarre Olympics mascots are. Yet even Wenlock and Mandeville cannot compete with Shpitzik, a sentient fire-wielding cactus who was meant to represent the Israeli Olympics team. Not only was Shpitzik a walking atrocity which should not exist, he was also a blatant rip-off of a character from a children’s show popular in Israel in the 1970s. The cactus mascot was soon at the center of a giant expensive law suit. The website theclassical.org told the harrowing story here and described the lawsuit’s conclusion (which also was the end of Shpitzik). In the final judgment, the presiding magistrate determined that Shpitzik was “’far more than a ‘humanization of a cactus” but was also a copyright infringement. He then ordered Shpitzik’s “permanent destruction and erasure from memory.”
Boltman of the San Diego chargers does nothing to help alleviate the rumors that steroids are rampant in professional football.
The Chiquita Banana was created by a famous cartoonist, Dik Browne, who also created “Hagar the Horrible”. The talking over-sexed banana was introduced to America as an animated character in 1944 (because apparently that year was not traumatic enough).
You don’t have to be a sports mascot created by committee to be completely horrible, as demonstrated by these two mascots for a drug store in Kyoto. Apparently they are renowned for making generations of children cry.
This is “Boomer”, a (possibly retired) mascot of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I think he is supposed to be a geriatric cannon pointed directly up, but he looks like a reject from a movie about steampunk sorcerers.
I don’t want to seem like I’m picking on new Orleans but the newly renamed basketball team “the pelicans” just unveiled their new pelican mascot and it is widely being heralded as a creature of nightmares. This mascot is so atrocious it made the front page of CNN and has already inspired the internet’s underemployed digital artists to create an entire history for it.
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