More Tuco!!!

By popular demand, here' s Tuco sampler!

Tuco, The Cat

Once Upon a Time I cat sat for 6 months. A gravy job, let me tell you. I sketched a loosey-goosey book of line drawings of Tuco, the cat. Cats are great subjects to draw. And Tuco's a fun cat, fab-u-lous cat.

The last few days I've scanned photocopies of the original. Bless Photoshop for the ability to clean up a lot of dirt, etc from the page. Still at 200+ pages, it's quite the cleanup job. I do about 10 pages/hour.

Whatever happens to the final PDF document, it's nice to have a digital record as paper gets lost and damaged - as I've already found.

Baker's Back!

And he's better than ever!

Update thanks to Carolyn from across the pond - BT has put Baker back in the game, using his voice as their text-messaging identity.

Tom Baker Says:

Tom Baker's text voice is back!! BT launched Text Aid today to raise at least £100 000 for Shelter.

2p from each text message sent to or from a BT landline between now and 8th January 2007 will go to the charity.

Now for the really exciting news... I just got back from London, where I've been promoting the new Text Aid Bakaraoke single alongside Maggot and P Xain from Goldie Lookin Chain!

BT commissioned me to produce the song, which is a Bakaraoke cover of The Kinks' song You Really Got Me.

The track will be officially released on 18th December, but you can listen to a preview and pre-order it from bt.com/textaid now. It's only 79p and all BT's proceeds go straight to Shelter. Let's make Tom the Christmas number 1!

Good Show! Jolly good show!

Tom Baker Says...

If you are a fanatic of the vintage Doctor Who TV series like I am, you'll agree that Tom Baker (third regeneration) was the greatest ever. I'm prepared to debate the topic.

Bill

Anyhoo, the photo shown was a happy surprise as it came out of the photobooth. The hair, scarf, the nose - I've become the character. Amazing what hours of posing in front of a mirror with campy expressions can do.

Tom

A few years back British Telecom (BT) hired Tom Baker to basically read the dictionary aloud and record the audio. His voice is absolutely fabulous. So, BT cut the audio into individual words in order that BT customers could have Baker say whatever sentences they like. A fan set up a website, Tom Baker Says, for us to listen to some of the choice lines. The 'Full Metal Jacket' quotes in the movie section are my fave.

It took Baker 11 days to read the dictionary words aloud. I'd actually pay money to have an audio-dictionary by Tom Baker. Sadly BT's Baker message service got canned. You can also hear Baker's hilarious lines as the narrator of the British TV show 'Little Britain'.

Easy Flyer

I've done some clay modeling the last couple of days, trying to find an aerodynamic form. I came up with this one, below.

As the form emerged I realized that I'd seen it before, thousands of times. It's amazing the things you can come up with, letting your hands go.

Ever watch a small bird fly? When the bird wants to 'take it easy' it'll flap wings a bunch of times then tuck the wings in tight to glide through the air. This is the form in clay.

I idolize the Inuit soapstone carvers and their connection with wildlife through generations of sculpture. This is the as close as I've come - by accident.

Yea!

Godfather of Soul, RIP

Thanks, JB.

Making Things

Having original thoughts, making things and putting them out there into the world for consideration is a tough gig. It can be very disheartening at times with a seemingly endless stream of efforts to no effect.

I'm working on a couple of big projects (taking all of my time) right now but can't bring myself to discuss them. Too many times I've mentioned something I'm giving all my heart to only for it to come to nothing. People for years will ask after that 'great project' and I'm forced to say it's come to nothing. Again and again. You get to the point where you don't say say anything at all.

What's point of saying, "Hell is other people?"

I'm going for a walk. I may be some time.

The Nonist

I'm adding a new blog to the roll - The Nonist.

Not sure how I first came across this...pro. Damn good. Art Slob plays a different game, but it doesn't stop some jealousy when looking at the style and content. The Nonist can really execute.

In my gallery crawl rounds, I've come to judge the quality of an art gallery by the state of the walls on which art hangs. In the same way, I consider blogs by way of the content field. Check out 'The Nonist'.

The Luckiest Man in the World

'Luckiest Man in the World' Alexandra Hooper, 2006

A great old friend of mine took this photo and I had to laugh.

She says...

Hey, wanna see a pitchure of what I saw a few weeks ago at the Mississauga Salvation Army - I like to call it "The Luckiest Man in the World". Yessiree, true life comedy.

I've seen more than my share of doll art, but this one is by far the best. Thanks for sharing, Alexx!

Lynch: Inland Empire

Those who know Art Slob know that Lynch has a pantheon crypt set aside for his final resting place. Until that glorious internment, we have the trailer for his latest ka-razy art flick coming out called 'Inland Empire'.

Thanks to Ms. X for passing the scoop along. Follow the link here to grab a snatch of Lynch's latest mad insane genius. Official INLAND EMPIRE website.

Plonk

'Tower of Plonk'

Behold!

My slobby, blobby 'Tower of Plonk'. In an attempt to drink less wine, I reasoned if I bought a 4 litre box of red wine, I would have the occasional glass of wine with meals and random cheese sampling. It's nice not to go through the whole ceremony of uncorking just to get a glass. But, one does tend to lead to another at the moment.

The vacuum spigot keeps the wine fresh, sitting as it does on top of my fridge, and will theoretically be as good as new for months. Haven't been able to test the longevity claim quite yet.

Painting the box, and just replacing the internal bag of wine, gives the 'Tower of Plonk' a being's presence in my pad. Just hope I don't start talking to the thing. When the wine runs out I go in search of plonk like a caveman in search of extinguished fire.

Love Power

I can't tell you how much I love this scene from Mel Brook's original, 'The Producers'.

The height of comedy, baby!

GC 061202

This week's steamin' hot Toronto art is ready at Gallery Crawl.

Anima: The Woman Within

Had a Big Dream this morning. I take a Jungian psychology view of it.

At the end of my dream's unconscious vision my anima appeared in the form of a popular TV actress of whom I know next to nothing. Marcia Cross (at right) was the vessel for my understanding. Though a very beautiful vessel, I'll try to forget about her now. That's my first trial.

She was dressed in black with raven hair, appearing in the middle of a deserted city street at night. The headlights of my convertible illuminated the woman and I slowed before her. She approached and said two words. I won't say what they were. Pretty damn moving words - The Message. I began to sing and slowly drifted awake.

Jung says to take the entire dream very seriously. I do and I will. Fortunately, my anima appeared as the positive, helpful version for which I have my mother to thank.

Below is an excerpt [on positive anima function] from an essay, edited by Carl. G. Jung, written by his professional confidant and friend, M.-L. von Franz entitled, 'The Process of Individuation'....

The anima: the woman within

Difficult and subtle ethical problems are not invariably brought up by the appearance of the shadow itself. Often another 'inner figure' emerges. If the dreamer is a man, he will discover a female personification of his unconscious; and it will be a male figure in the case of a woman. Often this second symbolic figure turns up behind the shadow, bringing up new and different problems. Jung called its male and female forms 'animus' and anima'.

The anima is a personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and - last but not least - his relation to the unconscious. It is no mere chance that in olden times priestesses (like the Greek Sibyl) were used to fathom the divine will and to make connection with the gods....

The anima is, for instance, responsible for the fact that a man is able to find the right marriage partner. Another function is at least equally important: Whenever a man's logical mind is incapable of discerning facts that are hidden in his unconscious, the anima helps him to dig them out. Even more vital is the role that the anima plays in putting a man's mind in tune with the right inner values and thereby opening the way into more profound inner depths. It is as if an inner 'radio' becomes tuned to a certain wave length that excludes irrelevancies but allows the voice of the Great Man to be heard. In establishing this inner 'radio' reception, the anima takes on the role of guide, or mediator, to the world within and to the Self. That is how she appears in the example of the initiations of shamans that I described earlier; this is the role of Beatrice in Dante's Paradisio, and also of the goddess Isis when she appeared in a dream to Apuleius, the famous author of The Golden Ass, in order to initiate him into a higher, more spiritual form of life....

But what does the role of the anima as guide to the inner world mean in practical terms? This positive function occurs when a man takes seriously the feelings, moods, expectations, and fantasies sent by his anima and when he fixes them in some form - for example, in writing, painting, sculpture, musical composition, or dancing. When he works at this patiently and slowly, other more deeply unconscious material wells up from the depths and connects with the earlier material. After a fantasy has been fixed in some specific form, it must be examined both intellectually and ethically, with an evaluating feeling reaction. And it is essential to regard it as being absolutely real; there must be no lurking doubt that this is "only a fantasy." If this is practiced with devotion over a long period, The process of individuation gradually becomes the single reality and can unfold in its true form.

Many examples from literature show the anima as a guide and mediator to the inner world: Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia, Rider Haggard's She, or "The eternal feminine" in Goethe's Faust. In medieval mystical text, an anima figure explains her own nature as follows.

I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. I am the mother of fair love and of fear and of knowledge and of holy hope...I am the mediator of the elements, making one to agree with another; that which is warm I make cold and the reverse, and that which is dry I make moist and the reverse, and that which is hard I soften...I am the law in the priest and the word in the prophet and the counsel in the wise. I will kill and I will make to live and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

In the Middle Ages there took place a perceptible spiritual differentiation in religious, poetical, and other cultural matters; and the fantasy world of the unconscious was recognized more clearly than before. During this period, the knightly cult of the lady signified an attempt to differentiate the feminine side of man's nature in regard to the outer woman as well as in relation to the inner world.

The lady to whose service the knight pledged himself, and for whom he performed his heroic deeds, was naturally a personification of the anima. The name of the carrier of the Grail, in Wolfum von Eschenbach's version of the legend, is especially significant: Conduir-amour ("guide in love matters"). She taught the hero to differentiate both his feelings and his behavior toward women. Later, however, this individual and personal effort of developing the relationship with the anima was abandoned when her sublime aspect fused with the figure of the Virgin, who then became the object of boundless devotion and praise. When the anima, as Virgin, was conceived as being all-positive, her negative aspects found expression in the belief in witches.

In China the figure parallel to that of Mary is the goddess Kwan-Yin. A more popular Chinese anima-figure is the "Lady of the Moon", who bestows the gift of poetry or music on her favorites and can even give them immortality. In India the same archetype is represented by Shakti, Parvati, Rati, and many others; among the Moslems she is chiefly Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.

Worship of the anima as an officially recognized figure brings the serious disadvantage that she loses her individual aspects. On the other hand, if she is regarded as an exclusively personal being, there is the danger that, if she is projected into the outer world, it is only there that she can be found. This latter state of affairs can create endless trouble, because man becomes either the victim of his erotic fantasies or compulsively dependent on one actual woman.

Only the painful (but essentially simple) decision to take one's fantasies and feelings seriously can at this stage prevent a complete stagnation of the inner process of individuation, because only in this way can a man discover what this figure means as an inner reality. Thus the anima becomes again what she originally was - the "woman within" who conveys vital messages to the Self.

....

Gallery Crawl is Alive!

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Come see all the new art on show at Gallery Crawl.