transmission art blog

Okay, I had been doing a lot of reading about various stuff and looking at other art and trying to make sense of my place or the place my work is at, in the universe of creativity, labeled "art making." One thing that I find myself doing is updating old works as time goes by, whether it be assimilating them into newer pieces or just simply creating a newer version with new things in it -- the beauty (and curse, perhaps) of the digital medium. Either way the end result is a new piece of art, in actuality. In my head I have tried to make sense of that, and why it's okay. The philosophy I've then come up with regarding the creating of art includes the conclusion that a work is never truly finished. It merely exists in a particular state at any given point in time. A work of art continues to evolve even if it is only in its contextual relationship to the externally changing world in which it exists. In other words it changes only because the world in which it exist chan

A detail from a piece about a spaceship (well what else?) encountering a deep space anomaly that appears to be a portal of some sort. Yes, there is always "story" behind my art...it's what I strive to do when I create.

A small detail previewing a just-about-completed experiment into "purpose-made" Dieselpunk art. Purpose-made as opposed to an illustration containing visual elements that someone might describe these days as being Dieselpunk, though such a reference would exist entirely by coincidence. For more background on this notion see earlier post "On The Effects of Discovering Deiselpunk, et al." I like how its coming along (now) though initially it was a struggle. Ah but what fun! The full-size, finished illustration will measure about 14 inches wide by 8 inches high.

In a mad dash to get stuff ready for Denver's MileHiCon 43 art show. Will have several new wall-mounted raydiopunk 3d pieces including a couple mounted weapons. If you don't know what raydiopunk is: its an art style I am in the process of deriving from Dieselpunk and related SF-genre visual styles, integrating it with my own speculative visions of alternate pasts and projected other realities. Really. Also trying to finish up a few new illustrations from  which I'll be producing prints. Four weekends left and it's just crazy trying to get everything together...about ten different projects going on simultaneously. My daytime job commuting to Dallas for three months totally killed my schedule. Hopefully some of this work can translate to local non-SF shows which I think it can -- my work received positive feedback from a show at Core gallery on South Santa Fe in Denver this past Spring and has been seeing interest from some "art buyers" too so we'll see co

Recently I've been spending time learning about Dieselpunk, especially the art thereof and its relationship to the design/visual characteristics of retro-futurism and other related *-punk genres. Mainly because I am strangely attracted to these things...they just look super swell and (with this particular genre) I love machines that remind me of pulp science & horror fiction.  And, during this process I have begun to notice that a lot of my own work and the things I have been striving to achieve visually/artistically seem amazingly aligned with what I have been reading and seeing in terms of the thematic and visual elements. Bolts, bits of metal, mechanical widgets, incongruous technologies, post-apocalypticism (?) and glomming it all together ...that's what I do already but with no conscious thought of the genres or the art that's associated with them. The thing is, it's a struggle to make it work, often not knowing what I am working toward even though I may h

I've always been intrigued by the Weird genre, though I must admit I have not read much other than H.P Lovecraft collections, but maybe I've read some stories that I was not aware that fit in the Weird category. I sort of think Ray Bradbury's work may fit here, but again not sure. Its another one of those things I want to spend time learning about (and there are many such things...). In any case this flavor of writing is great fodder for a rich imagination and has led me to producing illustration work inspired by my thus far limited reading. The pics here are samples of that output. Additionally, in my research into *-punk art and writing (diesel, steam, atomic, what have you) I've recently come across Jeff Vandermeer's website and some of the work he and Ann Vandermeer have been involved in...wow, what cool stuff! Not to mention some of my own scratchings would be a perfect fit with their Weird fiction publishing (wink wink)! But now they've clued me into t

There is a strangely comforting effect that settles over me when I take an apparently innocent though non-functional mechanical device and proceed to disembowel it, carefully removing every little bolt, widget and spring until there is nothing left but a greasy metal carcass and several neatly organized piles of parts. The ultimate goal of course is to feed my collection of metal doodads and mechanical thingies that I use in my art whether it be for a digital amalgamation or a three-dimensional assemblage. Quite restful I assure you, like watching the rain or vacuuming when no one is in the house. I have posted some pics of my exercises in deconstruction to demonstrate. An old adding machine I found in a thrift store. Its actually pretty thrilling to get those first screws out and see what lies under the covers (yeah I have no life, so what -- its all about the art!). Before my instruments of discontinuity have been applied... After the first